What a fun time! We went to Vail this past weekend with our ski club and a group of our friends. I was pretty anxious and panicked before we went, for good cause, of course. I had only skiied out west one other time, and it didn't go so well. I did better this trip, but still not great. Let's just say I "plowed" down the slopes! ;D
But I'm still pretty proud of myself. My second day of skiing I went by myself (as I wanted to do)... I made it from our 
condo at the bottom western edge of the ski area to the top eastern peak. I got there in time to have lunch with my condo mates. Then Mary joined me on the return trip ALLLLLL that way back down the hills.
And yes, that's me, on the left coming down the hill, looking like a tiny little dot. YOWZA - those mountains are huge!
It's kinda funny... the picture where you can barely see the roads at the bottom of the 
slopes, where the buildings are barely visible... when I got down to that part of the slope, I knew the bottom was getting very near. From there on down it was easy sailing... So what does that say about how dang HUGE those mountains are?!
We went to Vail Village several times. It's quite a "cute" little area. That's where it struck me - Vail (and other ski resorts) are purely for tourism. Every business in Vail caters to the tourist business. There is no typical hustle/bustle of city life. There are stores and restaurants... that's just about it. Pretty weird!
Also have to laugh... on Sunday, some of us opted not to ski a fourth day (ok, it would only have been three for me - I took a day off to relax!). We had talked about snow shoeing, but we never quite got around to it. Instead, we headed to Vail Village, stopped at a sports bar/restaurant, and had drinks and watched the Packers game. LOL Here we are in Vail, Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains, sitting in a bar drinking Bloody Marys and watching football!!
