Map

Here is a link to a map of our travels for those who have asked for it.
https://secure.travellerspoint.com/member_map.cfm?tripid=941996#/tripid/941996

Taos, NM

We only skied at Taos once. The conditions were decent but just not good enough to stay for a few days. Since we had our camper we stayed at a campground while we were there. In truth it wasn’t easy to go back to the camper after being in Air B and Bs for over two months, but somehow I managed. My mom was actually glad to be back in the camper because she slept better in it.

When we went skiing it was pretty good. At the beginning there was a sign saying, “Don’t worry, you’re only seeing 1/30 of the mountain.” That was good because if what we saw had been it, that would have stunk. It was more like spring skiing than what we were used to, so it felt pretty slow. There also had been a big wind storm, and there was a lot of pine tree debris from fallen trees. That and the sudden slush were the main hazards. Once we were done we went back to the camper for the night.

The next day we left the camp ground and stopped at an Earthship development. Earthships are houses made from recycled materials and things found in the woods. This place had dozens of Earthships that they rented out to people. Since my dad built Earthships and I had never seen one we figured that it was worth a stop. They were amazing. These things are designed to be off the grid, so they collect their water, grow their food, and generate their electricity. This alone was interesting because they needed to find innovative ways to do things, but my favorite part was the designs. The walls of Earthships are made from cans and bottles covered in cement. Sometimes, for esthetics, the ends of the bottles will be left out, and light will filter through to make cool designs.

We spent about two hours and took a tour then left. Next we will be visiting relatives on our way to home sweet home.

Gallup, NM

We went to Gallup to pick up our camper. We picked it up then went to Santa Fe. We didn’t really do anything in Santa Fe either. Next we went to Taos.

Telluride, CO

We didn’t stay long in Telluride, but it was fun. My second cousin once removed and his family was renting a condo in Telluride on a vacation from their home in Alaska. Since I had never seen them before we decided to stay there and ski.

We went straight from Fruita to Telluride and got there at about noon. We met people on the top of the mountain and skied for a half day.

The next day was a little better. We got up and went skiing. Telluride is definitely in my top five because there were a lot of the trails that I like and there was sun, so it was soft and not icy. My two favorite runs were Milk Run and another trail that I don’t know the name of. Milk Run had good exposure and an awesome place where, if you came in with enough speed, it was possible to launch right into the moguls. The other trail was pretty bad, but there was a small cliff at the end that was fun to jump off. If I had to guess I would say that it was about six feet tall, but it had a great reentry so it didn’t hurt. Since I usually hate big jumps and thin rails, this was a major step up from what I had been doing.

The next day we packed up and left for Gallup, New Mexico to pick up our camper.

Fruita, CO

Coming to Fruita for the second time was a lot more fun than the first time. It may have been because we did better trails or because we stayed in a house. Last time we went to Fruita we stayed in a hotel which was both small and limiting. In addition I rode my dad’s Hei Hei, and he rode my Scalpel, so it was a lot easier. Besides having bigger wheels the Hei Hei has a bigger frame and better working gears. My bike is tiny, and the gears can jam. In a way the riding there reminded me of Sedona. Admittedly Sedona was harder with more hills and rocks, but besides that it was very similar. There was a lot of flowy down hills and beautiful rocks that I tried to climb.

Our first ride was in the afternoon. I had to do school work for the first half of the day, then we went biking. Since it was late we went on a relatively short trail that followed the Colorado River along the top of a gorge. When we were done we went home and went to bed.

For the next few days I did school, then we left early in the morning to bike again. That day we did a warm up loop that was the easiest out of all of them. At one point we had stopped at the top of a hill, and we saw this little kid fly by. He couldn’t have been more than five or six, but he went down the hill in back of his mom and apparently couldn’t slow down enough, so to avoid hitting his mom, he veered off the track and hit a rock the same size as him head on. There was honestly no way you could watch that and not cringe. As it turned out after a minute he was fine which was impressive. If I had hit that hard I would be bawling for hours. After the warm up we went out on a trail that led almost to the end of the area and did a loop there. That trail was my favorite because there was a lot of tricky rocks and great views.

That was all the biking we did in Fruita, and overall it is one of my favorite places that I have ever been right up there with Slickrock and Sedona. If anyone finds themselves in the vicinity I would very strongly recommend going.

Aspen, CO

One of the most interesting parts of Aspen was the name and how it is known. Everyone knows the resort as Aspen when indeed the resort consists of four mountains, and Aspen isn’t even the biggest. Snowmass is the biggest mountain there, but I had never even heard of it until a week before we got there.

Anyways, we got to the house we were staying at pretty late and unpacked in the dark.

Over the next couple of days I did some school work, and my mom got sick. When she felt better we went to Aspen. The conditions were pretty good, but nowhere near the heaven we found at Alta. One of my favorite parts was the heat. Since we were well into the season it was really warming up. Thanks to this none of us had cold toes or fingers the entire day.

The next time we went skiing it was at Snowmass. Except for being bigger it wasn’t much different. One of the major differences was the views at the top. They were gorgeous plus there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We were at around 13,000 feet so we could see all the other mountains covered in snow.

One of the most memorable parts was a physics lecture by a theoretical physicist at the Aspen Institute of Physics. To be completely honest most of it just sailed over my head, but the main idea was that there was geometry to three of the four confirmed fundamental forces. His justification for this was that a graph showed that electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force, are all more influential at shorter distances than gravity is. He then proceeded to prove his point by showing a bunch of grids with dots on them. Then to top it off he showed them. Then to top it off he showed pictures that strongly resembled dream catcher designs.