our journey here was, as always, interesting. from now onwards, G is banned from making any travel arrangements. last time we got to the airport in mexico city only to find out he had booked us on a flight 4 weeks later. nice, right day, wrong month. strike 1.
today, we arrived at dulles only to be told that the flight time of 10.37am was our arrival time in denver - our plane had actually departed 2 hours earlier. strike 2.
happily, rather than have a fight about it, we always just look at one another and say oh crap and laugh. phew. i love to travel with G, we always have a really fun time together.
we had a brief stopover in Denver, and i was hugely disappointed that we didn't see Krystle or Blake Carrington. sigh.
when we arrived in Vail, they said the snow isn't that great right now - good for skiing but they've not had fresh snowfall for 6 days, but are eagerly awaiting Weds when it's due for a snow dump. i am still in the DC mindset of dreading any kind of snowfall and was secretly delighted that the roads were clear.
this is my first visit to Vail and it's a cute little town. we took a walk around before it got dark (and too cold) - they have lots of little boutique shops as well as the omnipresent bad art galleries that appear all over the world. yes i will take that heinous plastic (fake ice) sculpture at $5000. i guess some visitors get so excited and in the vacation mood that they will buy just about anything.
this place is not cheap. a trip to the local market for milk, sugar and the essentials, set us back almost $100. GULP. and i thought dean and deluca was bad. tomorrow we are taking a taxi to the Safeway.
we're going out to dinner tonight, probably the only time we will be able to eat outside of the condo since G's surgery is Wednesday - then it will be regular trips to Safeway for groceries and home-cooking. we're going to the Swiss Chalet. G likes fondue (i don't - gag - but as he's the one who is going under the knife i figured he could eat whatever the heck he wants to).
several people have raved to us about the brilliance of G's knee surgeon - Richard Steadman. his clinic, the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic is world-renowned and has treated all sorts of famous peeps. it was good to hear regular folk praise his work though, saying their fixed knee now performs better than their good knee. i know it's hard for G to see everyone skiing everywhere he looks and he would be over the moon to get back to the same level of skiing as before his knees gave out. fingers crossed. he will have the first knee done this trip, the second in the spring time. i am having an appointment to get my granny knees checked out too on Weds...G's benchmark is skiing recreationally - mine is far loftier; it's to be able to wear my heels again without being crippled in both knees after 20 minutes.
the condo isn't bad. it's cosy. the fireplace is gas but that's okay, G has a thing for a real fireplace, i have less patience. our view is lovely, we can see people skiing down one of the major runs - today we had a giggle at a few wipeouts. the skiiers have to share the runs with the boarders, so it's fun to watch them all vying for slope space - not to mention the unspoken rivalry between the two.
view from our balcony:
