May 16th-18th - Edwards, Colorado

Monday 16^th

Actually the road through Utah! 

Continued on to Edwards, Colorado where Will’s friend from summer camp in Pennsylvania, lives. We drove through an amazing canyon where the Interstate follows the river along the bottom of the actual canyon. It was great! Steep cliffs on both sides and a road winding along a very full river. 

We accidentally passed Jacki’s place, so stopped at Starbuck’s for the first time ever, mainly to use their free wi-fi while waiting for her to finish work, as we were super early. Ten minutes later she was finished with work and we followed her directions and drove to her apartment. Then we hung out with her and the cutest little kitty cat – Benedict. He thinks he’s a bit of a dog and likes to fetch twist-ties and also those rings that are under the lid on milk bottles and large plastic jars. Although he is a couple of years old, he acts like a kitten! So entertaining. And funny when he skids along the floor in hot pursuit of a milk bottle ring! Especially when he hits the side of the bathtub in his haste! Then he will drop whatever it is at your feet and wait for you to notice him and throw it again – then the fun begins all over again!!

The snow that is left at Vail!

Edwards is at 7200 feet. It is about 10 miles from Vail, a popular ski town, which is at 8120 feet. That afternoon, Jacki took us for a drive up to Beaver Creek, a really nice ski hill. Because it is the off season, it was really quiet and not all the shops were open. We had a look around and admired the huge hotels and chalets around. There was still a bit of snow around which made it quite chilly. Another visit to Walmart and then we enjoyed a nice quiet day and cookout (barbecue) with Jacki and her housemate Aja. We admired the hummgbirds as they hovered around the feeder Aja has hanging from a post on the balcony. The feeder is red with fake red flowers – apparently that is the most attractive colour to them. Some people use red Kool-aid to attract them, but they just like sweet liquids. They have a heartbeat of something crazy like 1260 beats per minute! And they are one of, if not the only, bird that can fly backwards. Watching them hover back and forth at these little feeders, I can believe that! 

Tuesday 17^th

Hung out enjoying being in an actual apartment and not in Betsey! We had bagels that were actually toasted in a real toaster and cream cheese. Delish!

For lunch we caught up with another of Will’s friends from camp, Steph and her sister, Jess, for lunch. I had my first Philly Cheesesteak! It was delicious! I also tried Blue Cheese dressing for the first time – Will told me it was different from actual blue cheese, as I don’t really like it. Too mouldy looking and strong tasting. The dressing wasn’t really an exception – for all you blue cheese lovers, you should try it! It wasn’t as strong as actual blue cheese, mature and veiny, but it definitely had that distinct flavour. 

After lunch we went for a quick walk down at the river – admiring the local squirrels as we did so (well, I did anyway). Then we drove up to Vail. Again, a very quiet area, but we did manage to do a little shopping. I found a nice Vail t-shirt and Jacki bought me the cutest little moose key ring! We’d just gone into a different shop to have a look at what they had and they had these adorable pjs that were all about mooses! (or is that moose? Like one sheep, two sheep??) They had moose ‘text-moosaging’, ‘just moosing around’ and so on and it was great! Loving the little moose keyring though! We took lots of silly photos around the village, as there were random statues of the Ski troopers 10^th division (or something like that) and little clouds with wind chimes and a moose of course! 

Another visit to Walmart for supplies, then off to Village Market for Tim Tams! Jess and Steph told us we could get some from there. The license was bought by the Pepperidge Farm and now they are sold in the USA. They love Tim-Tam slams – and I definitely can’t resist them either! 

That evening we had a cookout at Steph’s place (well, her parents’ place) and introduced Jacki to Tim-Tam slams. The Tim-Tams come in a white packet, ‘Australia’s favourite sandwich cookie’ – with caramel. So not as good as the original!! Still, with hot chocolate, they were amazing. Steph does the slam in two bites, but I told her all Aussies smash it down in one big gooey, melted bite! YUM! It was a really fun evening, just hanging out and chatting. Steph’s place backs on to a golf course and we even saw a fox running across it! The view from there is pretty nice of the mountains and snow on the other side of the valley. They have the cutest dogs – Cooper and Oliver. Oliver was a bit shy and didn’t want to get too close, but he was funny when Jess made him spin round and round in circles! When we left, Jacki took a wrong turn and we ended up in a little cul-de-sac. Will saw a statue-thing of a skier up on the hill and asked if it was a real person and I said yes, cos I thought he was talking about whether or not the deer were real! There were three or four gorgeous deer walking across the road and generally being adorable, looking at us with big, brown eyes. We took quite a few photos! There was also a beautiful big moon, and I tried to take some photos of it, but they didn’t quite work out. 

Will, Steph, Chris and Jacki slam those Tim Tams!

Wednesday 18^th

A pretty uneventful day of doing laundry, reading and interneting. Aja introduced us to ‘The Oatmeal’ website, which had me in absolute fits of laughter. It is a blog site which has all kinds of funny quizzes, cartoons and stories. We all had a go at ‘How many Justin Biebers could you take out in a fight?’ and ‘Is your cat trying to kill you?’ and ‘How long would you survive if you were chained to a bed in the same room as a velociraptor?’ Too, too funny. Some funny cat stories and cartoons about bobcats = hours of entertainment! We also looked at ‘hyperbole and a half’ which talked about all kinds of incorrect English usage which drives me INSANE. Good too know I am not alone! I especially liked the ‘Alot’ story (even my laptop just corrected me on that one – why can’t the students do the same?!) – Alot, when spelt like that, has become a monster which cuddles alot of things hehe. Awesome.

The deer we saw on the way back from Steph's.

More teasing poor Benedict! He enjoys having our suitcase under the dining table as it gives him something to hide behind before he launches himself at a milk top ring, or piece of string, or fake mouse, or anything really. He does that cute butt wiggle that cats do before they go in for the kill – I swear he repeated the same attack process at least twenty times this evening! Then he would run behind the suitcase and get ready again! So cute.