Labor Day Weekend 2009

Phil and I extended the long weekend by taking Friday off and beating the crowds out of town. We decided to go to Salida for the weekend and check out the road biking in that area, since Phil’s ribs are still healing and mountain biking seemed to be an unwise activity.

We stopped in Leadville on the way down to Salida and busted out a quick ride around Turquoise Lake and the Mineral Belt trail. The weather looked sketchy (some really dark clouds were forming) but we beat the rain.

We decided to stop in Buena Vista for lunch after our ride. On Jeffrey’s recommendation we went to the Global Garage.

Wow.

We went for the Meal Deal – a cup of soup, a green salad, warm baguette slices and a cookie! The perfect lunch – very tasty and just enough. The coffee got a thumbs up from Phil, too.

We finally got to Salida about 3 pm – just as it began to rain. It didn’t rain for long, though, so no big deal. We checked into our room (Room 28 – take the virtual tour!) then wandered downtown to look around. The Friday before a long weekend was pretty sleepy in Salida. We had some snacks and called it a day.

Getting ready to ride Cottonwood Pass.

Fall is definitely on the way in the high country.

Saturday morning we planned to get a crazy early start, but vacation mode took over and we slept in a little bit instead – yippee. After fueling up with pancakes (Do you see a theme? This was an eatin’ weekend!) we went back to Buena Vista to ride Cottonwood Pass. What a great ride!

The road is in good shape with a very good shoulder, traffic is quite light, the foliage is just beginning to turn, and it didn’t rain on us until we were about halfway down the pass on the way home. Hard to beat!

Happy Birthday - on what feels like the top of the world!

Phil is stylin' in his Colorado School of Mines jersey.

Well – we did improve on a good thing and went back to Global Garage for lunch again. Good thing it is a two hour drive from Golden or Phil might try to make that a regular lunch spot!

I forgot to mention that Saturday was Phil’s birthday. I won’t divulge any family secrets here, but let’s say it was a birthday that rhymes with nifty & thrifty! So we went out for a really nice dinner at the Butcher’s Table to celebrate the event.

I’m telling you – it is a good thing we were going for some good bike rides or we could have plumped up nicely over the weekend.

We planned to ride Monarch Pass on Sunday. As soon as we got up, though, it became apparent that wasn’t going to be a good idea.

The cloud cover was low and dropping, and the temperature was about 45 degrees – and dropping. We walked around town, hunted up breakfast (yes, we ate again!) and then at nearly the same time we said “You want to just go home?” It was pretty funny that we were both thinking the same thing.

South Table Mountain - our backyard ride.

So we packed up and headed back to Golden – where it was sunny and warm. Phil was feeling spunky so we headed up to South Table Mountain to see if he could tolerate a mountain bike ride.

He was a champ!

I don’t think any nasty-gnarly-rocky-10-mile-descents are in order yet, but he says it didn’t feel too bad.

Monday we did a longer mountain bike ride, then I talked Phil into working as my underpaid fruit picker. We have 4 apple trees and they were heavily laden with fruit this season. Phil picked apples all day and I canned applesauce.

The kitchen floor is still a little bit sticky, but I’m making progress. I ended up with 11 pints and 5 quarts of applesauce.

Time for us to go back to work so we can rest up!