Most recently, we drove to Colorado for skiing and generally getting out of Texas. Lynne and I drove, and we met my brother-in-law, sister, and nephew in Pagosa Springs, and then Durango.
The drive up takes us past vast areas of wind turbines. We took this route when we drove up two years earlier, and I think there were about 3 times as many turbines now.
We stopped in Lubbock for lunch and also visited the McPherson wine retail shop. We had a great lunch at the Funky Door. We were sitting enjoying a fabulous brunch when I thought they put on a Harry Connick CD. It turned out to be a live band, very cool. Who knew Lubbock had civilization?
The skiing at Wolf Creek and Purgatory was awesome. Here you can see that the crowds were thin and we had lots of snow.
A couple of times I fell into some deep snow at Wolf Creek and had trouble getting back up. I tried to plant a pole to push myself up, but the pole never found the bottom. And I lost a ski in the snow for about 10 minutes, the first time that's ever happened to me.
Max and John after skiing at Purgatory.
Pagosa looked like a post card.
And my car saw it's first snow!
There's no need to get ice when there's snow everywhere!
Then we drove to Durango to stay at the Strater. Lynne calls it Grandma's House.
At the Strater you can be an adult and a kid at the same time!
A fabulous dinner at the Ore House.
Finally we drove back home on Christmas Eve, a 14 hour trip. We got back at midnight.
Next day was Christmas dinner at Mimi's house. Here's Max, clowning around as always!
In older news (I promised an airplane related item), we attended a cool Rise Air party, and got to take a short ride in a King Air 250. We also took a test ride in a Tesla. It was an awesome party!
Lynne and John.
Did I mention that my grand daughter likes to take pictures?
Oh yes, I did sneak in one more solo formation flight before we left. Scoot flew lead. I'm getting better at rejoins, but still lot's more practice needed. I'm up to 5.6 hours of formation time.
