Dreaming of a White Christmas

Ok, this is belated, but I have had it drafted since Christmas, and even though I'm not up to date yet I thought I'd better throw it in before the year gets away on me!

I was anxious for a white Christmas being in the mountains and all this year, but unfortunately the weather had other ideas. And it's had other ideas starting about 2 weeks after we arrived here. Yep, Winter Park is still not producing the goods.

There is snow on the ground - so it technically could be considered a white Christmas - but we are still awaiting the season's deluge of white stuff. It's all anyone's talking about up here. I've heard about how we should be swimming in it by now, how you shouldn't be able to see anything but white, white, and more white. Last year they had an incredible season of snow. Of course, the season I arrive here it goes all out of wack; not only is there no snow, it's unusually windy! It's not good for the B&B and it's not good for the town, which relies on the snow to bring in business.

But Chase and I got ourselves the best Christmas present we could ask for - 3 full days with no guests so we were very happy. The last two weeks had been crazily busy and since the owner's were away we hadn't had any time off.

We had a lovely quiet Christmas day and that night we had one of our similarly orphaned friends, Dan, over for dinner. He's a great guy who Chase met when he used to live here years ago. They worked on trail crew together. They both left Winter Park about the same time and its just coincidence that they're both back here again this time. Dan works at the Ski Resort for NSCD (National Sports Centre for the Disabled) and is a really big out-doors enthusiast, he's even hiked the John Muir Trail, a massive 211 mile (340km) trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California!

Derrick & Patricia middle, back; Dan and Amy right, front

Check out this Colorado
craft beer - almost makes me
wish I drank beer!

The next night some more friends came for a belated Christmas dinner. Patricia and Derrick Taff are originally from Alabama (Derrick is also from Chase's town, though they became friends when they worked on trail crew together as well, so Dan, Derrick and Chase all know each other). I first met them when Chase and I lived in Atlanta in 2006, they came to visit us and we all got along very well. We also visited them where they lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama after our road trip in America in 2008. At that time they were having their going away party because they were moving to Colorado. Now they live in Fort Collins (an apparently really cool university town an hour north of Denver) and both work for the university (Derrick is getting his Doctorate in outdoor recreation too - nice). We'll definitely be visiting them in Fort Collins sometime this year and I can't wait to see this cool town. Along with Derrick and Patricia, Dan came again for a second helping and brought his sister Amy who had just arrived for a visit. So it was a very merry gathering, with the boys reliving their old Winter Park days (I'm glad I wasn't there then!). 

Chase made the delicious ham and roast vegetables again that he made at Thanksgiving plus a home-made mac and cheese. I made a mega salad and cauliflower with cheese sauce, Derrick and Patricia brought dessert - home-made pecan pie and both sets of friends brought tonnes of wine and beer.

Our great Xmas gift from
Derreck & Patricia

Of course, we were all stuffed afterwards.

It's been pretty fun being in Winter Park for the Christmas season even though it hasn't been snowing much. I enjoyed seeing people driving home with real Christmas trees on their roofs (aka. The Griswolds!), and the carols playing actually mean something here. We were walking home from the coffee shop one day and we went via the park (Hideaway Park), there was carols playing over a loud speaker and there's a nice big gentle slope where a bunch of parents were at watching their kids sled down. With the background music, the snow covered park, and the children sledding, I really felt like I was in a Christmas movie!

 

There was the annual lighting of the Christmas tree a few weeks back and on Christmas Eve they had the annual Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade at Winter Park Resort. We were wusses and didn't go to either - it's too cold! The torchlight parade would've been fun to see but Chase and I were looking forward to our first night in a while in a quiet, people-free B&B. The Winter Park Resort employees (including Dan) ski down with lights in the form of a Christmas tree, then Santa Claus ski's down.

From the Winter Park Resort Website:

The event begins with Christmas carols around the bonfire at the base of the Resort then a procession of torch-bearing skiers and riders (employees of the resort) begin their way down Lower Hughes trail, followed by Santa Claus and his merry helpers. A spectacular fireworks display and snowcats adorned with Christmas colors light up the slopes in a Christmas tree formation to conclude the festivities. Immediately following the show at 6pm, visitors are welcome to attend Christmas Eve interdenominational services and Catholic Church services.

I've included a video from you tube but don't you think the long-exposure photo is most impressive?

[ It's long but if you pause and let it all load you can skip ahead to get the effect]

From One Extreme To The Other: The Continuing Story

So yes, we're becoming Innkeepers and uprooting to a new place and situation again. And we're taking another leap of faith even if Puerto Rico didn't turn out quite like we'd expected. But you have to take risks to get to where you want to be, and we've lived and we've learned, and for sure, this time we won't be taken for the same ride.

We began to feel that was happening to a certain degree quite quickly in Vieques, bet a security deposit and the lure of a long-term house-sitting reference reeled us back in when circumstances screamed at us "run, run now!" (Those feelings were confirmed by the drama we had in retrieving our deposit at the end of our assignment, but by that time we finally learnt how to play the game).

Winter Park Chateau B&B

This time will be different because nothing is going to hold us back from running if we need to. Firstly, not much money invested to get there, just a cheap plane ticket from Alabama. Secondly, we've met the husband, Greg, of the husband and wife team that own the B&B, and spoke to Laura, the wife, on the phone. The feeling we got from talking to them both was a lot different from the one we got from contact with the owner in Puerto Rico (but which we brushed aside for the excitement of the experience). Thirdly, we're actually going to be making some money - a little bit different from the bumming around we've been doing, or were supposed to be doing. In Vieques we were supposed to work only enough to cover room and board but it turned out to be a little more on the work and a little less on the board at times.

This new endeavour is actually going to yield us some dividends, along with room and board - plus benefits. The experience is going to be really beneficial to us in the future; this is a direction we've been wanting to take for a while. With all the couchsurfing and hosting we've done, we decided meeting people and making sure they have a good time was a lot of fun - and why not get paid for it! This job will entail looking after, or helping to look after, all aspects of the Bed and Breakfast (B&B): from playing host, to handling reservations, to house-keeping and cooking breakfast. Nothing we can't do (if I can handle those early morning starts!). We'll get great experience and be able to decide if it's as good as it sounds.

And if it doesn't turn out as expected? We can always get the hell out of there!

We may not know what we're in for at the B&B in terms of living conditions (but we're told we get out own area with bedroom and bathroom, and there is even a kitchen, a balcony and cable TV!), work conditions (approx 40hrs a week between the both of us) or general fit with the owners who will be there a lot of the time, but we will know the town and area we are going to live in this time; and that's big, because in the case of Vieques, pictures can lie.

Chase, my husband, knows Winter Park and the Rocky Mountains very well; he lived there for a while during his single years and has always revered it as his favourite place on Earth - besides New Zealand. We've tried New Zealand (earlier this year, and I starting blogging about that too here), which was awesome but turned out to be wrong timing, so now it's a great opportunity to try Colorado together and see what that holds for us.


New Zealand, another mountainous place

We're are excited about living in a town we know will be lovely despite the weather (me) or because of it (Chase). Okay, so I'm not really a fan of the cold, but I'm drawn for a number of reasons that will help make it more enjoyable: first of all, the frustrating cold can be forgotten once the first dusting of picture-perfect snow hits the ground turning the place into that clichéd, but true, winter wonderland.  

Aspen, 2008

Secondly, Chase tells me it's a dry cold, which when the sun is shining (as he assures me it does often), it won't bite at you, like say, an Alabama winter, or even an Australian winter. It doesn't get nearly as cold in Australia, for sure, but it feels it and then without snow it's just dreary. And did I mention not having to leave the house to go to work! None of that freezing-your-butt-off while cranking the car in the morning and trying to scrape ice of the wind-shield. In fact, we shouldn't even need a car, at least during the winter with the free resort shuttle running all over town and almost everything in walking distance anyhow.

The other reasons to head here are more obvious: a picturesque mountain setting and complimentary architecture, and the lure of hiking and seeing wild animals in the summer.

And after spending 6 months in the tropics I'm ready for a change - a big change. Holidaying might be fun in the tropics, but living is no easy task. Mosquitoes, bugs, dripping-sweat heat, rust, mould, hard-as-a-brick sugar and chips that soften within minutes of opening! That is not fun.
But while Winter Park and Vieques are worlds apart, they have some similarities. Like Vieques, Winter Park is small and tourist-driven, and both have aspects of isolation.

But how both places address each of these similarities, I'm confident to say, will differ exponentially!

Firstly, the people of Vieques didn't seem too thrilled to have visitors despite them supplying most of the only real income coming into that little island. Winter Park's economy is also based around vacation and adventure, which I'll delve more into in a proceeding post, but tourist-focused or not, we'll definitely be in America now - the land of overwhelmingly diligent consumer attentiveness (commission anyone?), and whether genuine or not, I'm looking forward to being in a place that seems happy to see people and willing to go out of their way to help you. (I must add, we did experience that a little more of that on the mainland of Puerto Rico, but Vieques is a parallel universe).

 

Similarly both towns have barriers that make it hard to get in and out, but while for Vieques it is the sea, for Winter Park it is the mountains. Unbelievably enough, the mountains have proved an easier barrier to break than the sea it seems. While it should be very easy to cross the 8 miles (13km) of water that separates Vieques from the mainland, the boats became almost non-existent by the end of our term there, 7 out of 8 vessels having worked their way into disrepair; and even the one boat left working seemed to be a gamble as to when and where it went (having to also service the other nearby island of Culebra). While it was quicker to fly (the ferry chugged slowly across the straight in no less than an hour one way), flights were also cumbersome, expensive and had limited seating.

Thankfully, the road has already been explored and carved from Denver to Winter Park up through those precarious mountains; now a luxurious four-lane highway, not quite a 2 hour drive, separates the two (snow forbidding). And if you don't have your own car, there's Amtrack and even a bus service to the town.

I do feel a sense of claustrophobia enclosed by all those mountains, but knowing Denver is in easy reach makes it bearable. Also, I'm sure I won't get that fish-bowl feeling I had on Vieques - for starters, so many more shops and so much more variety: cafes, restaurants, a library, even a movie theatre! And most importantly: fresh produce - something surprisingly lacking on that tropical island we just came from.

So I'm ready to try this new venture and see how I like it. Come find out on my all new rocky-mountain-high adventure!


*Author's Note: Spelling is Australian English, for those that think there's u's where there shouldn't be.