Where is my inner snowbunny?

I'm writing this from a hotel room in Salida while my husband is at Monarch happily snowboarding the day away. We arrived here on Wednesday evening, along with our friend Travis and his son Mason, who came up from Oklahoma. Greg has been bitten by the snowboarding bug....bad! And he is desperately trying to convince all of his Oklahoma wakeboarding buddies that they "have" to come to Colorado and try snowboarding. Today marks the seventh day that Greg has ever snowboarded, but he picked up on the sport so quickly that he is the one teaching Travis how to do it as well!

I, on the other hand, absolutely suck at both skiing and snowboarding. After two different ski lessons I decided this week to try snowboarding. Greg was going to teach me. For those of you who don't know my husband; he's not very patient. And I'm not a daredevil. At all. So I really wanted him to hold my hand the whole time I kept trying to master turning and stopping on the snowboard. Which isn't feasible. He finally said (after maybe thirty minutes) that the three of us (me, Greg and Travis) were going to take the lift to the top of the bunny slope and just practice going down. I freaked out and said NO! Which was the beginning of my hubby aggravation with me. I promised him I would continue walking a fourth of the way up and practicing by myself so he finally gave up and off they went up the lift. I did practice. But I just couldn't get the hang of it without Greg holding my hand. So after Greg came back to help me some more I told him I wasn't enjoying it and that I just don't know where my inner snowbunny has disappeared too. We both decided not to waste his time by trying to teach me when I wasn't having fun anyway. Needless to say I spent the rest of the day in the lounge, book in one hand, Starbucks cup in the other.

Yesterday the guys ventured off to the mountain again and I spent the day by myself. But, I had a great day! I took Shady for a walk downtown (which, if any of you reading ever visit Salida, CO, that is the cool thing to do. Everyone walks their dogs or rides their bikes with their dogs following behind.) and moseyed into a few art galleries, which is one of my favorite things to do. After I dropped Shady back off at the hotel, I went back downtown to a yummy cafe next to the Arkansas River and had a delicious salad! Then, off I went to Mt. Princeton to the Hot Springs! We had visited there this past summer, but at the time the river was so high that no one was able to use the natural river side hot springs. But now that's a different story! I was in absolute heaven soaking up the rays and watching a light snow fall as I relaxed in a natural hot springs with my head resting on a rock. That is, until a group of about seven gabbing women decided to take over the hot springs next to me. So off I went to the hot pools and did some light water aerobics and then spent some time in the sauna. It was fabulous! I left feeling so relaxed, refreshed, and my skin looked great! Another neat thing about this town is that none of the local women wear make-up. And they all have fabulous skin! I think it's because they must all go visit the hot springs and sauna's at least once a week! I made it back to the hotel in time to go with the guys for dinner at the boathouse cantina, which is one of our favorite pubs here in town!

Today is another day to myself while the guys hit the slopes for the last day. I have to check out of the hotel room in an hour and once I do I'm hitting a local vineyard and cafe so I'm looking forward to that! Afterwards I may take Shady for a walk somewhere or I may just head up to the lodge and read and relax there. Greg has had no mercy on Travis and forgets that some people get sore when it's their first time. Travis could barely make it out of bed this morning so I know he'll probably be hanging out in the lodge quite a bit today as well! Luckily for Greg, Mason took ski lessons his first day and has been going down the blue trails with Greg ever since. They basically leave Travis in the dust. So now not only is my husband wanting to live in Colorado permanently once we settle down, he also thinks we should adopt a 7 year old boy so he can have a snowboarding partner! I feel bad that it's not an activity that we can both enjoy together, but skiing and snowboarding are just such expensive sports to keep "trying" and not liking.

So, for now, I'm signing off from Salida!