Short Rocky Mountains Getaway to Breckenridge

Zee husband and I just  returned from a wonderful, albeit too short, trip to Breckenridge, Colorado. Our main objective was to ski but the town has so much more to offer that we didn’t want to miss out on. I especially loved the local gemstone and mineral store, whereas Michael is partial to the local distillery. We both loved both places. 🙂

On our way to Breck from Denver we stopped at what I would call the most stereotypical food extravaganza on earth: Casa Bonita! While you eat terrible TexMex food and unlimited sopapillas (dough pockets similar to funnel cake but less tasty), cliff divers, pirates, and gorillas entertain you. Pretty darn awesome in the most tackiest of ways. SouthPark featured them in one of their episodes and we just had to go see it. I was totally scared by Black Beard’s Cave. OK maybe not but it was crawsome (crazy awesome).

Time to leave Casa Bonita behind and hit the road for Summit County. It’s always mind boggling for me to see the steep Rockies pop up behind pancake-flat Denver. We had sweet talked the rental car clerk into giving us a German-approved Jetta and thankfully it was able to bring us up snowy I70. Chain laws were in effect and we saw quite a few cars, including SUVs, stuck in the slushy snow.

We got a salad and sandwich at the Quandry Grill and shared a local beer. When in Colorado… What is it about Colorado and the countless craft breweries? We’re blessed with them, too, here in North Carolina but it sure seems above average!

After dinner we stopped by the Oxygen Bar to inhale some of the good stuff. Breck is so high that your body can have a hard time adjusting to the altitude. People can get headaches, lightheadedness, nausea, and insomnia and the oxygen is supposed to help. With only 4 days out there and me tending to get lightheaded anyway we didn’t want to take any chances. On top of that it was a really neat experience! You got your very own cannula and were able to select a scent to add to the O2. Neat-O! I did feel great the whole time so I’m guessing it worked. Zee husband said he had issues sleeping – of course he had felt too manly to sniff oxygen. 🙂

The first day we explored Main St and said mineral store. Y’all, Breckenridge is soooo adorable! It literally looks just like a snowglobe town. We explored many a hat, antiques and t-shirt shop as well as an art gallery. The amount of t-shirt shops per capita has got to be one of the highest in the country there. Insane!

We warmed up over a steak sandwich from Salt Creek before engaging in an epic battle of the sexes in skeeball at Eric’s Pub.

In the evening we picked up our friends that had been staying in Frisco and we headed to dinner at The Dredge – a replica of one of the old dredges that used to work the Blue River. Food was decent, not amazing but the staff was very friendly and we had been wanting to try it because we loved feeding the fish there in the summer. My portobello burger was tasty!

The next two days we enjoyed skiing the peaks of Breckenridge. I got more and more comfortable and very much enjoyed skiing down the blue runs by day two (this was 5th and 6th day skiing since day 1 on skis). I was eying a black run but felt like I should end on a good note and not awkwardly slithering down a crazy steep slope. Next time! I cannot wait to go again!