Snow & Ice

I’m home now after another fun weekend in the mountains and thought I’d throw together a quick post before another busy work week starts! A few of my girlfriends and I spent some time in one of my favorite Colorado mountain towns and checked out the Ice Castle exhibit in Dillon.

All of us worked on Friday so once we got off we stuffed my car full of our bags and one of my friend’s snowboard. After that, there somehow was still room for all five of us to squeeze in and start the drive to Breckenridge. Since we arrived pretty late and were planning to ski the next morning, we stayed in with some wine and played What Do You Meme. It’s a hilarious card game similar to Cards Against Humanity/Apples to Apples, but you’re picking the best caption for a meme. It’s one of my absolute favorite games to play with a group!

One of my girlfriend’s grandpa owns a cabin in Breckenridge and he was kind enough to let us all stay there for the weekend. We woke up the earliest that I’ve had to in a veeery long time to get to the slopes. Nice part about that was catching the sunrise from the patio!

I had brought my “little” brother’s coat because I don’t actually have a legitimate winter coat that doesn’t have a huge logo of where I work on it. My brother is a giant so the coat was comically ridiculously huge on me. Fortunately, one of my friends noticed a shop near our ski rental place was having a huge sale on their coats, so I got one. Now, for the first time in …. I honestly don’t know how long – I actually have a real winter coat. It’s kinda a big deal haha. #Adulting.

If you read my post from last week, you’ll know that I am not an avid skier. In fact, the last time I ever went snowboarding was nine years ago!! Before that, the most recent time was 5-6 years earlier. I was so bad at it and ended up fracturing my wrist. That being said, I was pretty nervous about going but an old co-worker of mine was able to get each of us free lift tickets and Breckenridge is one of the most beautiful places to ski so I couldn’t miss out on the opportunity.

Half of our group actually knew what they were doing while myself and another friend went straight to the bunny hill after we got our passes and had one tequila shot each for liquid courage. After two runs on the bunny hill, side by side with tons of small children learning to ski for the first time, I kinda remembered what I was doing! I wasn’t good, don’t get me wrong, but I could turn, stand up and (most importantly) stop! It was a miracle! I was able to go down one run from the real lift before lunch.

Now I can definitely see why there are so many people who get passes every single year and wake up during dreaded single digit A.M.’s to hit the slopes every weekend. It was so much fun and the mountains are breathtaking! I definitely have a lot to learn but I only fell a few times (nearly every single time trying to exit the ski lift, but everyone knows those don’t count) and didn’t break anything. That’s pretty much a win in my book.

Even though all of us were exhausted and incredibly sore, there was still one more stop that night: The Ice Castles in Dillon!

There are exhibits like this in a few cities across the country and fortunately one of them was just a short drive outside of Breckenridge. The name explains it all, a giant castle made completely out of ice with different rooms and interactive pieces all over.

My favorite room had this cute icy fountain. The lights would change colors and reflect all over the giant icicles.

You could spend a lot of time wandering around here. There were so many interesting nooks and crannies as you wandered in and out of the different areas. There were giant ice thrones, slides and little areas to crawl through that led to ice caves. The company that makes these “grow” giant icicles with water (obviously) then the sculpt them all together to make the walls, hallways and.. everything else. It’s really impressive!

Unfortunately there was a huge winter storm that was going to move in right as we were planning to drive back home so we had to scrap some of our other plans to make sure we left early enough to get home in one piece. Still was such a great weekend with great girls and new adventures.