Vacayyy

I was fortunate enough to have a lengthy winter break.  I was finally able to head back to Charleston for some of the holiday.  I spent quality time with family and friends whom I had not seen in some time.  Luckily, I'll have the opportunity to spend more time with them in the near future, but more on that in another post! It was nice to also see some high school friends I had not seen in quite some time.

After a few days in Charleston I skedaddled on up to Ohio for a ski trip to Colorado with Yohn and her mother.  We woke up at the crack of dawn -- no, before that. waay before that -- to catch our plane. Did you know the tiny tiny Akron/Canton airport has direct flights to Denver?? Talk about convenient. After arriving in Denver, we had some time to kill before heading to the condo in Winterplace so we got to wander around Boulder.  It was nice to see once again, this time in the winter. I never thought I would be back there so soon.  It was also nice to see snow, something that usually happens in winter. Not that DC would know anything about that.  

We finally made it up to Winterplace and settled in for a couple of days of skiing and relaxing.  The skiing was incredible.  I grew up skiing on the appalachians where the skiing seemed pretty good and Snowshoe was the ultimate skiing destination.  But skiing in the rockies was something else.  All of the runs made the long chair lifts worth it.  The blues were as challenging as some of the black diamonds back east.  Sometimes we found ourselves skiing above the tree-line at elevations over 11,000 ft. And the view..oh the view.. sometimes the view was better than the skiing.  The rocky mountains are breathtaking. 

Yohn and I also got to see our friend Britt from Denison as she was kind of passing through on her way to Breckenridge.  Seeing Britt is a rare treat since she lives in Boulder while the rest of us live back east.  So Colorado was an all-around wonderful time.  After another early plane ride, I booked it over to Capon Bridge for the annual winter bird count.  At bird count, anyone who is interested (a large portion is made up of camp staff) heads over to West Virginia for a day of counting birds to contribute to Audubon's National Christmas Bird Count.  It's a fun combination of nature and hanging out with the people I spend my summers with. 

This year, bird count was on New Years Eve day, so after the count was over, I celebrated a low-key New Years Eve with a couple camp friends.  It was a nice way to wind down what felt like a hectic break. So now it's 2012 and so far, it's shaping up to be an exciting year for me! Which I will share in subsequent posts!!