Home, Sweet Home

After mucho hours of driving (too many to count), we have finally arrived in beautiful Colorado. Today wasn't bad. Since Beaver Creek is only a couple of hours away from the Denver metro area, making for a much shorter driving day, we relaxed in the morning. We attempted to sleep in, only to have our children decide to wake up at 8:00. Now I know that 8:00 is not exactly early, but if you knew how sleep deprived they are, you'd wonder what I was wondering - What's wrong with them? After breakfast and showers we headed out. It's mud season in the Rocky Mountains. Winter's over, but the last remnants of snow have yet to melt, so the summer season hasn't begun. There is a lot of construction, and very few people. The only souls out wandering the grounds with us worked there! Jorge, the maintenance guy I ran into, was very surprised when I answered his "hola" with another "hola." There are a lot of Latinos around, but I don't see anyone other than the Latinos speaking Spanish (not that I'm fluent by any means, but I can at least say hello). The kids had the run of the large play structure in the middle of the grounds. Brandon climbed, jumped, and slid down the slide. Caitlin did the slides, climbed up many things, and managed to fall on her head. Nice. Beaver Creek is beautiful. It reminds me of some of the mountain towns I've been to in the Swiss Alps.

We continued our drive through the mountains, passing through many little towns. I got the morning off from the kids. Good for me since they both decided to have complete meltdowns yet again as we were packing up to leave (!!!). We relaxed! No one was rushed! Why? Caitlin fell asleep about 30 seconds after we started driving to check out. Poor thing. Those 3 hours she was awake must have worn her out. Anyway, we drove on through the mountains and on to the Denver metro area. I was laughing at all the signs for truckers. They were specific - things like "Truckers, slow down. Downhill grade is 5-6% for the next 4 miles." Two miles later there would be another sign saying something like "Truckers, you have only gone 2 miles. You have 2 more to go." Other signs we've passed in the last few days had messages like "Fatigued driving is dangerous", "Okay to pull over and sleep if you are fatigued". The sides of the roads are grated. I notice that in Nevada. You may be drowsy and bored while driving, but if you cross even and inch over the white line on the right side of the road you will be jarred into consciousness by the horrendous sounds of your tires on the rough concrete! I was very alert when I passed the signs that said "Prison area. Hitchhiking forbidden". We passed 3 of those. Not near each other, either. As we got closer to Denver the sign said "Correctional Facility Area" instead of "Prison Area". That didn't make me feel any better.

Shot of the snow covered mountains (courtesy of the Car Cam)

The drive over the snowy pass and down into the valley was gorgeous! You peak at the summit, and then drive down.... down... down.... until you are on flat land. And the land is very flat. As you drive down you have a great view of the valley below. Except, in this case, it isn't a valley. It's the beginning of the plains. And they stretch out forever. I'm sure they don't go on forever, but it sure looks like it! I'm not use to seeing such flat land. To one side there is mountains. Turn 180 degrees, and there is nothing... for a very long time. B-town and the surrounding areas are much greener than they were in December. And, yay (!), there are trees! I love trees! All the leaves must have been gone in December, and I must have failed to notice the tree trunks and branches still standing.

Our new house is fine. It's a split level, but only if you enter from the front door. Otherwise it's pretty much a two story. The upstairs has been fairly well maintained, and has the kitchen, living and dining area, along with two bedrooms and a bathroom. The kids will be upstairs. Downstairs in the laundry room, family room, and a bedroom. There is a hideous fireplace that takes up the entire wall, and is made of shale rock. Kind of dangerous for the kids. The laundry room has no back wall and no finished ceiling. We were going to use the bedroom downstairs for us, and then just have the computer in the family room. However, the family room is tiny, and the downstairs bedroom might not be big enough for our bed! So, instead of having a bedroom and a family room, we are going to have a bedroom "suite". We'll put our bed in the smaller room, and our computer and dressers in the family room. Our new landlady, who is currently traveling, left us a home made lasagna in the freezer, along with a salad kit and a huge loaf of bread. And brownies. Everyone's favorite. She also left us stuff for breakfast in the morning. So nice. Tomorrow we'll be hitting the local Wal-Mart Supercenter (and event unto itself) to get all the things that we need but couldn't bring with us (like cleaning products) and stuff we forgot (like soap). I'm not a huge fan of Wal-Mart, but the supercenters are nice. I've never really shopped at one - just stopped and gawked - so it will be an adventure.

Now I'm tired, and want to sleep. We still need to blow up our air bed, and clean up the living room. How is it that two little kids can take a small amount of stuff and make it look like a tornado has blown through the house? Stuff is just scattered everywhere! At least it isn't too much, and we don't have to pack it all up in the morning!

The new place
Dinner, day 1
We will all be glad when the moving truck arrives in a few days!