The Vacation: Aspen, week 1

Aspen is absolutely phenomenal!! Here is the recap from the vacation-part of Aspen.

Roadtrip: The drive through OK, KS, then to CO definitely attested to be more fun than typical. There is just something about being from Texas! Everyone wants to be your friend, mention they visited Texas in 1993, and ask if you know their cousin Charley. I secretly love it! We also took tons of fun pictures. See facebook.

Day 1: Arrive in Aspen around 7 pm. The quaint little town sparkles with Christmas lights, glimmers with snow, and the buildings look like Gingerbread houses. It feels like a tangible fairy tale. The drive from Texas to Aspen was simple. However, the half-mile drive up the mountain to the new home was more than the TX vehicle could handle. Haha. Yes, ice, sliding, snow, getting stuck, getting rescued, and ultimately leaving the car in town was quite an eventful experience. *note* WE did not get the vehicle stuck. A friend from Aspen, who thought he could make the hill did. Then he rescued us. It was rather entertaining.

Day 2: Aspen in the day! Lovely! We learned the bus system, became oriented to the town, ate local food, and met quite a few people. The people are great! Everyone is so friendly and helpful. It honestly feels like small town Texas. Aspen is rather small, about 6,000 people, but this week (Christmas-New Years) has about 10,000. There are quite a few restaurants/bars and the scene seems similar to uptown Dallas. Interesting note, there are probably twice as many guys here than girls. It’s a nice ratio. ;-) Either Amber and I became smoking hot upon leaving Texas, or all women get continual attention here. Yet, the guys are very much gentlemen. Oh yeah, minor detail. WE MET GERARD BUTLER!!! We were in line to go to Belly Up, and he was right in front of us. I honestly didn’t believe it was him, until he accidentally bumped into us. So we chatted for a couple of minutes. Mesmerizing eyes, check. Sexy accent, check. Traci forgot her name and has no idea what we talked about, check.

Day 3: Skiing= awesome! Aspen has 4 mountains to ski. Buttermilk. Aspen. Highlands. Snowmass. Buttermilk is the Xgame mountain with the jumps and pipe. Aspen is literally at the base of Aspen mountain. Highlands is BEAUTIFUL! Snowmass is the largest ski acreage in Colorado. Snowmass village is a cute little mountain area. Very cool note. Our charming ski instructor/actor friend gave us free lift tickets. The guys at the rental shop gave us equipment. Honestly, single ladies move to the mountains!

Day 4-6: Visited the clinic, LOVED everyone! Semi-terrified of not remembering anything from school. Spent a lot of time walking around town, getting lost, making more friends, shopping for things we would never actually buy, taking a ridiculous amount of pictures, eating at famous places, including OUTSIDE at Ajax (detailed in the movie Aspen Extreme), and doing the Aspen touristy thing. It was a blast! Because it is a small town, we ran into the same people over and over. NYE: Celebrated with a pro cyclist and fellow medical professional, dressed as Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber. They were hysterical, and very entertaining tourists from Vermont. There are very few people actually from Aspen this week.

Day 7: Love LoVe LOVE the church, Crossroads. I was rather nervous about moving from the network of believers in Dallas to the middle of ‘worldly’ Aspen. God totally provided!! Crossroads is very similar to my Dallas church, Watermark, on a MUCH smaller scale. The pastor, Dan, actually went to DTS. Already have a bible study and a semi-good friend. Pam & John, the amazing B&B owners where I am staying, are so encouraging and wise. The Lord definitely lives in their home! Opposite of my concerns, I have a feeling this will be a fantastic place to grow spiritually!!!!! Oh yeah, Crossroads is doing a 21 day Daniel fast that started today. I’ve never really fasted before, so I’m really excited to see change when being hungry for God!

There you go everyone! That’s the LONG update from this week of vacationing! The rest won’t be daily entries, so no worries mate. In addition, day one of clinical rotation one begins tomorrow! I’m semi-terrified that I don’t remember anything!!! But,extremely excited too. Aspen Sports Medicine, here comes Dallas.