Decisions, Decisions

Once I went through my photos taken over the last few days, I am completely overwhelmed with all the cool stuff I want to show you. So overwhelmed in fact that I have no idea where to start. Should I show you the beautiful mountain flowers from the Betty Ford Alpine Garden? The mountain views to and from our drive to Leadville? Photos from the farmers market/street fair in Minturn? Or the photos of my yummy birthday dinner made by my wonderful mother? Or the holiday photos in Leadville itself? Or the fireworks? There are too many choices. Too many photos. It's a malady I often suffer from and today is no different.

So, here's what I decided to do - show you the food first. I mean, food is always a good place to start, right? And I figure the rest will wait but the food might spoil. Heh heh. And maybe I'll throw in some fireworks too. For good measure. So here we go.

Mom made some of my favorite foods for my birthday dinner Saturday night. It was just me and her, so very different from most of my birthdays. I've mentioned before that normally celebrate the 4th with a whole bunch of people and then maybe just throw in some birthday cake. But, since I'm on the road for work right now, it was a small gathering of just us this year. And it was yum-o.

I mentioned last Friday what the menu was generally going to contain:

Cheeseburgers, check.

Mom made the patties with ingredients we had on hand - perhaps not all the ingredients we would have used at home, but a pretty good assortment - some onion, garlic powder, salt and pepper and a little egg to hold them together.

Earlier in the week we planned on using this - a grill sitting on the balcony of our place here in Vail. But, earlier in the week we set out to grill some chicken and found ourselves unable or unwilling to go the lengths required to use said grill. The automatic starter didn't work. Fine, it says you can light it yourself. So, we checked that out. Now, maybe we're just a couple a ninnies when it comes to a grill, but there seemed to be no one place where the gas was coming from. And neither of us were willing to just willy nilly stick a flame into the bottom of the grill to see what would happen. Poof, there goes your hand, if you know what I mean. So, we gave up on grilling.

This left several options - we chose the skillet option.

And mid-cook, they didn't look too appetizing.
London broil, only worse. Or something.

But they turned out just fine. And tasty.

Macaroni and cheese, check.

Corn on the cob, check. (Before and after the hot water.)

Then we threw in some green beans...

...and salad to make ourselves feel better about that fatty carb start. Check.


Here it is all together, sans salad, which was in the bowl next door.


Let's take a moment to overlay the recommended dietary percentages on my meal.
Or, maybe not...ahem.


I ate it. All.


Then, after a considerable amount of time went by, we had some of this!


Some cake to celebrate my birthday. And ice cream.

You see, in my family, it's not birthday cake, because it's not chocolate. But I prefer this cake. So, others in the family call it "cake to celebrate a birthday". Big of them, huh?

We managed to stay up late enough to see the fireworks. They were at 9:45pm. I know, that's not too late. But, we were up early that morning and ready for bed. But we stayed up! We persevered! I mean, we had to see the fireworks being shot off in my honor!



They were lovely fireworks. I mean, we weren't sure. We were in a relatively small town. They could have been lame. But, they were good! Very nice! Then we went straight to bed. Amen.

Thanks Mom, for a great meal and an excellent birthday. It was awesome.

More tomorrow - actually, today we have our big second day off and we are going to do that drive to Aspen via Independence Pass. So, then I'll have more photos to go through, more decisions to make, more things to post. See you then.

Mountain Rain

We had a lovely weekend here in the mountains. Busy, but lovely. And, here on Ate Up Amateur we welcomed follower #21. Woo-hoo! Welcome #21! We're so glad to have you here! And, it's so appropriate near my birthday weekend. You know, since I'm so close to that age and all. I'm barely older than 21. Sure I am. I mean, I get carded all the time. OK, maybe not carded - maybe I didn't even get carded when I WAS near 21. Ahem. Moving on...

It's rained every day since Friday, if just for a little bit, and sometimes a lot. I'll tell you more about what we did as the week progresses, and what else we find ourselves doing, too. But, today, I am going to focus on the rain. I dedicate this post to my friends and family in the hot, ungodly unbearable state of Texas. A respite for you today.

I took some photos and video of the mountain rain. And I hoped you can look at the photos and watch and listen to the video and imagine yourself here with me. Or at least in a cooler place for a few minutes. Enjoying cooler weather. For even just a short while.

But, for some reason on the wireless in my hotel room, I cannot upload video. So, the photos will have to do until I can get back to Dallas. Or find another connection somewhere. I hope it helps a bit. Just, without sound, you'll have to imagine a little harder.

It wasn't hot when it started raining, but it immediately cooled several degrees with the rain.

Obvious water on the lens here.

I'll be visiting this blog post myself come the end of the week - when I'm back in the heat. And my attitude goes back down the drain. I'll use it as a respite for myself. Hope it helps, dear Texas friends! Hope it helps. See you tomorrow.

A Day Off

First, I want to welcome followers #19 and 20! Welcome!!! You guys now fill up FOUR rows! Imagine that! I can't even imagine it. But, there it is. Amazing.



Now, on to what we ended up doing yesterday. First, we checked email and mom paid some bills online. Then we had breakfast. At this point, I'm sure you're hoping this story picks up a little bit...after doing some work emails and other work related stuff, we headed out to see something.



My mom wanted to go up on the gondola to go to the top of the mountain. So, we headed to Lionshead, because that is the only gondola that runs in the summer. In past years, I have gone up in the gondola, but at night. Now I know why - I guess I forgot this part - it's $20 to go up before 4pm. But, if you go from 4-9pm, it's free. Being the cheapskates we are and not wanting to part with our $40, we decided to try to come back one evening. Last night, even. But we didn't. More on that later.



We headed over to Lake Dillon. It's one of my favorite spots for natural beauty around these parts. Not that it is a natural lake - it's a dam. But, it's beautiful with the mountain backdrop. We spent some time there - most of the photos in this post are from that stop.






Also while we were there, we saw that guy up there, and his buddy, down there. I tried to identify this bird for you and the closest I could come was it's probably a sparrow or a finch. What do you think it is?




I also dropped into the Pearl iZumi outlet in Silverthorne. If you're not familiar, they sell bike stuff. And, I got a sweet pair of bike shorts at something like 70% retail. Score. We didn't spend any other time at the outlet mall - we have those in Texas, of course. But we done have any of the other stuff - you know, like mountains.




We left Dillon and headed toward Frisco and Breckenridge. I like Breckenridge much better than Vail - it's still a ski resort town - still a lot of money around - but no Disney feeling. It's more of a "real" town instead of a manufactured one. Not that Vail isn't beautiful - and beautiful is nice on vacation. I mean, Disney World is a hit, I think we could all agree. But, I prefer the feel in Breckenridge.



We had lunch at Clint's and were setting out to walk around the little shops, but it began to rain. There was water in them thar hills. Instead, we drove up the mountain and looked at the scenery from inside the dry car. Then, we headed back to the condo. We decided not to go to the gondola ride in the rain. And, I had a rehearsal to go to at 6-ish. So we headed home.



We have one more "free" day while we're here - I think we might drive up to Independence Pass and on over to Aspen for something else to see. That will be nice next week.



Today and the next several days, there's work to do, though. But, I'll still be in this beautiful place. So, I'll take more photos of some of that beauty to share with you here.



Oh - before the week is up and the post is over, and before I forget, I should say HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY to all of you and Happy Birthday to ME! I'll celebrate my birthday here tomorrow - we're going to have some hamburgers and corn on the cob. And macaroni and cheese. And some salad to make us feel better about eating all those carbs. And then, of course, some birthday cake. I chose yellow cake with chocolate icing. And my mom is going to make it for me. Isn't that nice?



Celebrate responsibly, honor this great country, and I'll see you next week.

First Full Day of Work at 8150 feet

S continues to feel better, which I am so glad to hear. Meanwhile, I worked yesterday. All day - it was a long day. The first day always is. The air is thin and you can't get enough water, among other things! But, my mom and I got over to Vail Village for a quick lunch. I snapped a few photos of the Disney-esque village called Vail while we walked to and fro.

Two of the hundreds of hanging baskets around the village.
I wonder how many gardeners are on their payroll.

One of the "main drags." Most of the village is pedestrian only.

A water fountain the kids can play in.

A water fountain kids can look at.

Pretty picturesque path.

Flowers along that path.

But, the real show on that path - the poppies!

They were almost spent, but still really something.

Soaking in the sun.

Other than show you these photos, I don't have much to say - unless I talk about work, which I'm not gonna do here. I have been twittering away, though, for work, if you're interested in a few tidbits about that. You can check that out @DallasSymphony on twitter.com. You will have to sign up to read the tweets, I think.

I have most of today off, so I will try to do something interesting to share with you here. I hope you enjoyed the photos today, and I'll see you tomorrow!

Made it to Vail

Flowers along Gore Creek on the "way to work."

We did finally make it here last night. After a couple of stops along the way and my mother navigating Denver traffic and semi truckers on hills, we still made it here alive. Amazing. It was a very long two days, worrying about S and getting out of town. And, a few items needed attention once we got here. So, I was up late. Very late. After not sleeping too well in ol' Amarillo, getting up early and driving all day. I was spent.

S is doing great - he's worn out from the days of fever, but feeling great otherwise, thank goodness. What's more, the doctor thinks maybe it was just a normal ol' bug anyone might get and not his colitis. Even better.

Me, outside our hotel room.
Or, should I say - chubby, tired, pale, no-make-up, me.

Just a couple of photos today - I took a quick walk over to the "office" last night to make sure I knew the way for this morning and caught a couple of photos. And, there are some here from near the hotel.

The hotel balcony.

The altitude sickness is not too bad so far. I love that medicine. Makes all the difference.

View from the balcony.
Toto, I don't think we're in Dallas anymore.

I am tweeting for work this week and next, so I may not tweet on my own account quite as much. If you use Twitter and want to follow my work tweets this week, you can do so @DallasSymphony. I don't talk about my job on this blog because it's a personal blog, but since I'll be doing that in an "official" capacity, I thought I'd share.

Another balcony view.


And one more.

It is much cooler here - not as cool as the weather forecast led me to believe it would be, but still cool. And that's wonderful. Just wonderful.

And, one more from the "walk to work."

I'll have more interesting things to say, I hope, going forward, when I get caught up on my sleep and get into the work and excitement of the place. See you tomorrow.