Today we embarked on one of our annual trips to Breckenridge to see the 21st Annual Budweiser Select International Snow Sculpture event. Our group has grown so much that this year we had to take two cars! Dawn, *Kathy, Cheyenne and I in one car and *Bree, *Ryan, *Luna, Becky, Jamie and Boo in the other. (*Newbies) Armed with our walkie talkies we headed off to Breckenridge!
Of course we had to stop off at Starbucks at the Dumont exit for a break as usual. It is not quite half way but works for everyone. We were surprised to find that Starbucks has expanded it's parking lot and bathrooms this year. They must be getting a lot of traffic from those people who have been stuck in their cars for two or more hours in bumper to bumper ski traffic. We took our "hey we made it this far photo," saw a couple of sheep and then headed off the rest of the way.
We couldn't have asked for a better day. The sky was Colorado blue with a blazing sun and the temperature was probably 50 degrees. Some of the sculptures had even started to melt. There was water dripping from a snow sculpture bird's beak.
Here is a little bit of information about the event:
The snow sculptures are created out of a compacted block of snow and then artists come from all over the world to sculpt these marvelous creations. They had 15 5-man teams from 8 different countries compete this year. They are only allowed to use hand tools and have 5 days to complete the sculpture. Then on Sunday they are judged on theme, style and technique and that is when they also find out whether or not they won the People's Choice award.
My favorite sculptures this year were "the Spirits of the Aurora" and the "Alebrije." The spirits one was done by a team from Canada. It looked very ghostly and had a crow on a skull in the middle of it. The eye of the crow was made out of ice instead of snow which made it look very eerie. The "Alebrije" was created by a team from Mexico and had a dragon in it which makes it a winner right off the bat in my book. It actually took first place!
We spent a lot of time looking around and then said our good byes to car two because they had to get back down the mountain. After they left we had our picture taken by a real cute guy and then headed back toward the car.
We decided to skip Subway this time and instead we ate at a Mexican restaurant in Frisco. I think it was called Hacienda Real. It had these amazingly long icicles hanging from it. The food was pretty good. They also had these really cool painted pictures in the bathroom of a man and woman dancing.
Walking off lunch was our next priority! We headed back to the car and grabbed Cheyenne and took off on a trail near the restaurant. It took us back into a residential area that had some of the most amazing houses. There were lots of houses with gigantic icicles hanging from their eaves. The snow was so high in some places that it towered above me. Of course we took a ton of pictures!
Once we had sufficiently walked off lunch, we headed back to the car and back down the mountain in afternoon ski traffic.
(Pictures to come)
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