The Denver Post published this picture the week we were in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. As we rode up and up the lift, the balloon appeared to go down and down on the horizon. The mountain is huge, the ski routes many, and the powder ideally powdery. Snowboarding with my siblings, cousin, and boyfriend-in-law was great fun and hanging out with Mom and Dad the rest of the time was a breath of fresh air (not that the air in the CO Rockies isn’t fresh enough already).
I only snowboarded two half-days for safety and rest (beyond wk 16, I would do no such thing). Despite the temperature being warm enough for us to peel off coat and hat layers on the slopes, we left the town on the day of a winter storm warning! I feared I would not make my flight back to NY. With snow falling hard and thick onto the already white roads and, according the the weatherman, 12 more inches to come, 
we COULD NOT make it up the first mountain pass out of town. We drove halfway up, turned around, got a running start, tried again, turned around and tried AGAIN, then gave up and drove back to an auto shop to buy tire chains. If we did not get out of NW CO by that morning, we expected to be stuck there until the following afternoon! Fortunately, my brother proved to be a tire chaining champion and we made it to Denver airport just in time for me to walk straight to my gate and onto my plane. Wahoo!
