[Flashback] Girls Weekend pt1

September 10-12, 2010


One of our friends, Kathy, came up with a girls weekend to Crested Butte to check out the Chili and Brews Festival. This included a beautiful condo, ski lift ride, side off road trip to see the largest Aspen grove around, souvenir shopping downtown, and a unique restaurant experience.

Unfortunately due to my work schedule, Dawn and I got a late start on Friday for our 4 1/2 hour drive to Crested Butte.We didn’t see much on that drive except 1 deer and a billion stars! At one point we looked for a place to top off the gas but those mountain towns sure do close up shop before midnight.

We finally made it! Kathy waited up for us. The condo was beautiful! There was a lot of moose, bear and horse decor. The kind of stuff you would expect to see in a condo in a mountain town.Cathy and Moi were sharing a room and Dawn, Kathy and I shared the other. I got to sleep on the top of a bunk bed! Although it was kind of tough getting up there, I loved it! It was like being a kid again.

Saturday morning we woke up to eggs, potatoes and biscuits cookin'. Yummmm! after a morning of being lazy, we all headed to the Chili and Brews Fest. We got there right when they started which worked out really well because it wasn't as crowded. There were quite a few tents. They had the beer tents on one side of the stage and the chili tents on the other. The first thing I got to sample-- Chili chocolate Ice Cream from East Side Bistro. It was delicious! We tasted all different kinds of chili: bison, elk, beef, lamb, vegetarian, red, green, duck and one that even contained beer and absinthe. The bees were kind of pesky and there were only two trash cans for the whole event which was kind of a drag but other than that it was great fun. Everyone in our group got really full except me and Cathy and we went around and finished off the tasting.
I am not a beer drinker so I didn't get to try the beer but the girls found plenty that they liked. They seemed to like the Easy Street and the Hoptober beers best. There was beer that had a kayak filled with ice as it's cooling system.We hung out for a while after we were done to let our food settle and talked with some locals.

Afterward we decided to ride the ski lift up the mountain. It was a pretty cool ride in the summer. I guess Crested Butte is a big mountain bike area. There were plenty of people (mostly cute guys) riding with their friends and bikes (on the lift) up the mountain so they could ride their bikes back down.Once we were at the top we spent some time getting photos of the scenery and each other. You never know which pictures might be good enough for Christmas cards.

For the afternoon part of the adventure, we headed to Kebler Pass. On Kebler Pass is the largest living organism- a huge grove of Aspens. Unfortunately a vehicle had gone off the road and there was a line of cars waiting to go by. We decided to spend some time in downtown Crested Butte while things cleared out. So we did the tourist thing and checked out a bunch of shops. There was a bunch of metal chair artwork along the way so, of course, we had to have our pictures taken sitting on them. We also found a large totem pole in a park nearby. Later I read that it was a town landmark art project that they had done a long time ago.
After we got tired of shopping, we headed back to Kebler Pass. It was pretty because we hit it as the sun was getting close to setting.
We didn't get to do the whole thing because the lake at the top was closed off for construction so we headed back down.
Lasagna for dinner and a fun game of Royal Rummy to finish off a great day!.