9/6/2016
We kicked off the morning with a quick trip down to the café for breakfast. After breakfast we visited the concierge and got an update on her investigation of local haunts and a promise to get ever more information for us.
After our pleasant chat, we decided to explore the Beaver Creek village some more and took to wandering wide and far and out into a small park. Though the latter took a little convincing of Nicole that, yes, we were indeed allowed there. We took over a couple of portals in Ingress there and captured a couple of Pokemon whilst enjoying the majesty of the surroundings.
We came back up through the same park and looked through an artist’s alley, coming to the conclusion that we should return to get a better look at some of the glass sculptures within. After a short breather, we made our way down to the market and investigated prices of mundane items, such as cereal and the like. After coming to the conclusion that we weren’t willing to spend quite so much on common items, we meandered to the alcohol shop connected to the market and picked up a bottle of sangria. More thoughts on that tomorrow.
We capped our meandering off by returning to the resort, asking about the gondolas and where to reheat our leftovers. A quick chat with the concierge revealed (disappointingly) that the gondolas weren’t running any more, but that she’d (excitingly!) discovered that there were a couple of ghost towns within easy driving distance, though she was waiting to hear back from one of them.
The information settled our Thursday plans to go to South Park and Saint Elmo’s to explore and make a day trip of it.
We retreated to the room, got our food, reheated it, and supped in the room. We gathered up a couple of vouchers for cheaper massages and visited the spa.
We got appointments made for our spa treatments and went back to our room to prepare for our hiking excursion. We filled water bottles and packed up possible necessities, including our camera, and set out.
We picked what was told unto us to be the easiest of the trails called “Cinch.” Our first hour or so out, we didn’t even know if we were on the correct trail as the trail wasn’t marked and we were guessing at the map’s vagueness that the maintenance road was also the trail.
About a mile in, we’d hiked upward and onward and had passed a stable and had the bright idea that asking about the trail would put us in the correct direction.
The helpful horseback folk confirmed our suspicions that Cinch was indeed the maintenance road and went on to suggest an alternate route to come back down on. We thanked them and continued our trek upward. Half an hour later and we’d passed a small cabin, and entered a confused state of looking for the recommended passage back down (having thrown in the towel of making our original goal, which was another 3 miles along the path). After staring at the map, we turned around and marched back to the most obvious of the landmarks for our return route: an emergency land phone. We came back to the area, found the trail marker (carefully hidden behind another trail marker for a harder and bike specific trail) and immediately embarked on it.
The new trail, Aspen Glade, a proper trail and not a maintenance road, wove us through a small forest and along the mountain side and was listed as “harder” than Cinch, but in my opinion was easier. And was, in some spots, easier than some of the trails I’m used to hiking out in Fontenelle and Platte River State Park.
We made our way through the trail, having a far better time than going up, and just enjoying the nature around us. We came out of Aspen Glade, consulted the map, and opted to take the scenic route back down to the resort (instead of making our way back to Cinch). Within half an hour, and walking through a patch that reminded Nicole of a desert, we’d returned to the resort. We picked up information from the concierge and dropped our backpacks off at the room before supping at the Dusty Boot Bar and Saloon.
We had the company of an elderly couple thoroughly hurting for a cigar lounge and a very vocal magpie. The atmosphere was quite fun and the food delightfully good. We finished dinner and returned to the art gallery to revisit the glass sculptures.
We talked with the proprietor and confirmed that the glass pieces, some of which were truly massive, were all hand-blown. I let Nicole talk glassblowing with her while I wandered the rest of the gallery and looked at art and some bronze sculptures.
Following the gallery we took to wandering the village once more and getting photos we had somehow managed to not do up until that point.
As the hour of S’Mores approached, we left the village, returned to our room and collected the S’Mores packages we’d gathered earlier in the day.
We drifted down to the fire pit, sat, waited, sat some more, and went inside to inquire about the S’Mores fire pit.
We were told that unless there’s “a lot of interest and people gathered” they don’t normally light the big fire pit, but we could use some of the gas ones nearby. However, since we’d specifically asked, they would light the main fire pit for us.
We continued waiting for another 5-10 minutes, and when no one had come out, we moved to a gas fire pit. We were immediately told “this area is closed for a private sanction” and shuffled off to another, blargh of a gas fire pit.
Annoyed, we set the metal faux logs ablaze with the turn of a switch and made our first set of S’Mores. It didn’t take long to notice that a roaring fire had been started in the fire pit itself, and we quickly relocated and set into making a fresh set of S’Mores over the burning logs.
We were joined by two other couples (whom I know we heard their names, but for the life of me I cannot remember. Should you come by my blog, please let me know!) and had a very pleasant conversation with them including making potential new contacts in the marketing and book publishing world. It was truly delightful to talk with them and a great way to cap off our evening.
We parted ways after a few hours and retreated back to our room for a night of well-deserved rest.
Tomorrow: more hiking? And spa treatments!
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