Jan - Mar 2007

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JANUARY 2007

We have finally arrived...  11:45AM MST, and 24 degrees, elevation 9750.  Man are we glad we are here.  I don't think Mike's dad has given me this kind of hug ever...  He has been entertaining all the employees at Valdoro, and keeping them posted as to our location throughout our journey.  He has become great buddies with our friend at the front desk at the condo, apparently they have been keeping each other entertained.  Unloading the car is our next adventure, but it is a welcomed one.  After that I take a much needed shower... oh my gosh, I have never felt anything that good. 

Mike's cousins, Bill & Ann Rand and their boys Coulson & Garret arrived, and all that was once quiet became wild once again.  Mike and went into the town to order my new ski boats.  With my feet issues, we had decided that it might do me some good to get some custom ones.  It was pretty weird the way they measured my feet, the only thing really custom was the inserts that went into some new Nordica boots.  We hope this will help the discomfort that I have in my feet.  If they work, then we will probably get me some more inserts for my hiking shoes... will keep our fingers crossed.

Bill and Ann decided to take us all out to dinner that night, and we got some reservations at a place called "Steak & Rib".  Since we had late reservations, Mike and Dad made a run to the grocery store while I unpacked and try and to get everybody else settled in.  It was time to head for dinner, but Ann had to stay back with Coulson who has now come down with a fever.  What a way to start a vacation for all of us...

Dinner was AWESOME... but then the worst meal would have been better then what we had had the nights before.  It was a really good dinner.  We would recommend it to anyone who visits Breckenridge.  

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Its finally here, Tommy's first day of ski school.  We have wanted this for a long time, its just a shame it had to take a court order to get him here.  He is very excited, and he looks so cute in his ski suit.  After getting him all set up, we head back to the condo to get all geared up for our first day of skiing.  Garrett heads for Ski School while Coulson stays in with PopPop and the rest of us head to the slopes.

Man I feel out of shape... but even though I am slow going at first it comes back to me.  I'll never be as good as Mike, he makes it look so easy.  As the day starts coming to an end, we are heading down to try and catch up with Tommy.  We hear him from the lift, heading up on Quicksilver...  we make a mad dash to get on the lift and up the slopes to try and catch him.  Once off the lift, Mike takes off with camera in hand, and catches him as he is finishing this little slalom course they have set up for ski school... we are amazed at how he is doing.  He comes down the rest of the mountain with us.  He is doing so GREAT...  I get him back to ski school and get his gear off and put away.  I asked him how he liked it and he said he loved it, I asked if he like it better then scuba diving and he said "well... yeah kind of, cause I am good at this!"  Having him here with us finally and him having such a great time, we couldn't have asked for anything better.

Tonight, PopPop is making homemade spaghetti... after a long day of skiing, boy was it good!

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This morning, Mike lets me sleep in a little and takes Tommy off to ski school.  Because of our adventures at the beginning of this trip, I have become a little run down, and not 100%.  The little extra sleep helps somewhat, once Mike returns we get geared up to go.  Chelsie and Coulson are not feeling well either, and are going to stay with PopPop today.

We never see Tommy today, but he had another great day on the slopes.  The instructor says he is really doing good, and is listening too.  Imagine that, give him something that he likes, and he'll pay attention.

Tonight is the owners party at the resort... just a little get together with drinks and snacks.  We hang out with Gina B, who is our friend from the front desk.  She is selling her furs, which are little scarves made out of Fox and Chinchilla.  She is a blast...  and to think we use to think the "B" stood for, well its not very nice what we use to think.  LOL 

Its burgers in the room...  then off to the Hot Tub and bed, for tomorrow we ski again.

Today Mike, Chelsie, Chase & I are off to ski some other areas of the mountain.  Today it is cold and windy, it makes for some less then comfortable skiing, but we go to some areas that I have never seen.  Just wish the visibility was a little better.  We get a call around 10:30 from the ski school.  Tommy says he is sick... well it will be a while before we can get there, so I tell him to just lay down and take a nap.  When we are able to get back to the school, we inform him that if he is sick that there will be no GameCube and that if is not well enough to ski today, that he wouldn't be able to ski the next day, which we had decided he would ski with us.  He quickly changed his mind, and had a blast the rest of the day. 

Since the wind was blowing so bad, we decided not to go back and ski after lunch...  instead Mike and I went to Breckenridge Nordic Center and took a cross country ski lesson.  We had the privilege of spending the next hour with Matthew Dayton who was the anchor man for the 2002 Nordic Combined Olympic Team.  We really appreciate the time he spent with us...  Thanks Matt!

Tonight is the first night we are all out together for dinner with nobody sick...  and we are dining at the Red Orchid, Chinese.  We had a good time, and the kids played in the fire from our PooPoo platters.  LOL  After dinner, its to the Hot tub for the last time and to bed a little early.  Tomorrow will be our last day to ski, so we want to make sure we are up and at it early.

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This is it...  the last day!  What is the saying?  All good things must come to and end, however today is a special day... Tommy is skiing with us.  It is amazing how good he has done in such a short time.  Mike says he is skiing better then me, but then that is not saying a whole lot!  There is lots of fresh snow and it is still coming down, so it makes it kind of slow going on the slopes.  After a couple of runs, Chelsie calls it quits, and Chase, well he disappears into the mass of skiers.  So now its just Mike, Tommy and I.  He has been skiing only green runs, but since it is slow going, we make it up on a blue.  He does TERRIFIC...  he is jumping up in the air, going fast, and basically making me a nervous wreck.  We all make it to the bottom unharmed.  Its now time to call it quits...  got lots to do.  Return skis, pick up pictures that were taken of us this morning, and pack for our trip home. 

Mike and I stay at the condo with Garrett who came down sick today, while the others go out to dinner.  I take a little nap while Mike starts to pack.  Its never fun packing up to go home, especially from one that has been so good and bad at the same time.

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Ok one last adventure before hitting the road... we are all packed up and heading to Good Times Adventures for our Snow Mobile Tour.  This will be Mike and I's third time with Good Times, and Chelsie and Chase's second.  However it is the first for Tommy and PopPop.  We meet with our favorite guide, Dean, then wait till everybody is ready to hit the trail.  In the meantime, Tommy has found the dog sled dogs, and of course has to go say hi and get his picture taken with them.  Its time to go, and after a quick briefing on the machines we are off to the practice track for a few laps.  Once everybody gets use to their machines we hit the trail.  We end up at the Continental Divide, Georgia Pass, elevation 11585ft.  The round trip taking us through the snow covered forest up to the divide and back was around 20 miles.  We highly recommend checking Good Times Adventures out, whether for Snowmobiling or Dog Sledding.  And be sure to request Dean if you do the snow mobiles.

We head back into town to the condo for a quick shower and fresh change of clothes for the long trip back.  We hope there will be no road troubles for our journey home.  The roads weren't great and it was slow going into Denver to take Dad to the airport.   There was word of a major avalanche covering several cars.  When we left Breckenridge, we weren't sure where it was and we just hoped it was not on I-70 where we would be traveling.  We later found out that is was on I-40 at Idaho Springs, same place where Mike had gotten stranded years before with a bus load of church kids.  We end up arriving in Denver a couple of hours later then we hoped, drop Dad off at the airport for his evening flight, and are on our somewhat merry way.  The road conditions are still not perfect but at least we are moving.  We finally are past the snow and icy roads around Hays, KS at 10pm.  We had hoped to make it to Oklahoma City tonight, but that isn't going to happen.  Instead we stop in Salina, KS, which will make the trip the rest of the way a little longer tomorrow.

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After a few hours of sleep for the others, for some reason I didn't sleep, I am sure it is all the cold and cough medicine I have in my system...  we are on the road to McKinney to drop Tommy off and then hoping to be back in Lonoke by 7PM.  It is always a bit of a let down to have to head home after a trip like this, but looking forward to getting some much needed rest.  Of course the unloading and unpacking is not something to look forward to.  But there are more adventures coming in the very near future.  We have 3 more ski trips planned this season...  we just hope they all start out better the this one did. 

Mike picks me up at work today its 5:00pm, things did not go the way he had planned this afternoon so I got an extra hour of work in.  We are off to Mt. Magazine State Park, just outside of Paris Arkansas.  It is the Highest point between the Rocky's and Appalachian mountains.  We are going to do a little hiking and just chill out.  Also gotta do some dreaded paper work and book keeping for the office.  Year end tax crap.  After a quick stop in Russellville for dinner we arrive at the campground around 9pm with temperature at 44 degrees and an elevation of 2555ft.  We get set up and get everything put up and head the bed.  This is just going to be a relax weekend...  who know what time we will get out of bed in the morning.

Well we get up around 10:30, I know we are lazy this morning, but I said this was going to be a kick back weekend.  We eat breakfast and clean up for the days events...  with camera and rain gear in hand we are out the door, to see what this mountain offers.  We drive over to the new cabins and lodge that opened late last year.  We check out the facilities and make some reservations for some weekend dates later in the year.  It is an awesome place with great views of the Petit Jean River Valley.  Afterwards we check out the visitors center and head to Paris, AR to get some items that we need.  They are the closets town to Mt. Magazine and they have a Wal-Mart.  As we return toward the campground snow begins to fall and the ground begins to show a white covering.  Mike hopes we wake in the morning with the ground covered, for our hike to the highest point in Arkansas...  Signal Hill.  Elevation 2753ft.

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Its 19.2 degrees when we depart for our little hike.  During the night it was reported that the low temperature was 13.6 degrees on the mountain.  The snow had stopped falling early in the evening last night so there was not a lot of snow accumulation on the ground.  There was small amount of white showing as we leave the camp site.  It took us only 15 minutes to arrive at the highest point in Arkansas, a 261ft ascent from our starting point.  We hung out for a little while taking pictures, then we started back down.  This was probably the shortest hike we have probably ever done, and we know it was the coldest one ever in the state of Arkansas.  Back at the camp ground we get everything packed up and put up for the trip home.  We are going to run over to the lodge for some lunch.  After that its back to Lonoke.  Another adventure complete!  A cold one, but always good ones!

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FEBRUARY 2007

We are on our way to Dallas this weekend to visit Tommy for his birthday...  we have a BIG Surprise for him.  We are going to have a blast!  Mike picks me up at work at 4pm and we are on our way.  We arrive in McKinney at about 8:30 like normal.  We give him his gifts in the car on the way to the hotel.  A photo album of all of our adventures together with him last year, and a Dallas Mavericks jersey.  He is a big "Mavs" fan, but has never been to a game before...  well tomorrow night, we will change that!

After doing a little running around during the day, picking up game tickets, and of course visiting REI, we are off to the game.  American Airlines Center in Dallas...  navigating to it was a bit interesting, but once we got there we kind of just hung out till the doors opened.  Once in, we found our seats and found something to eat and drink.  The players did their warm ups, and then is was time for the game to start.  When the Mavericks Dancers came out, Tommy told Mike that he wanted them all...  and Mike had till next Christmas to get them all for him.  Later on, Tommy would get his picture taken with a couple of the girls.  Man he was ALL smiles.  There ain't nothing wrong with this kids hormones!  The game was great, a bit of a nail biter in the end, but the Mavs pulled it off.  Tommy had a blast, and that was all that counts.  It is a good time he will never forget.

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The time always goes by so fast...  and a Great time was had by all.  Its back home for Tommy and the road home for us.  Tonight is the Superbowl, and we have a party to go to.  There is always something going on with the McManus household...

Tonight we are heading over to Alltel Arena for the Bob Seger Concert.  You know he is 63 years old?  Man he has been at it for a while.  There was a lady next to us who had seen him like 30 years before.  She said the only difference in him was that he had less hair and a little more belly.  It was a terrific concert full of energy.  Lots of old stuff, didn't think Mike was ever going to calm down until he played... "Turn the Page".  Had to save that one for one of the last...  Mike left there a happy guy!

Ok, a little background info here...  on our cruise last November, we met a couple from Tucson, John & Jennifer Campbell.  Being scuba divers, skiers, and lovers of the sun deck on the ship, we struck up a friendship and have invited them to join us at our condo in Breck for a weekend of skiing.  It will be a short trip just 3 nights and 3 days, but oh what fun we will have.  We fly in to Denver and arrive around 4pm, John & Jen's flight gets in around 5:30, so we head to the car place and pick up the rental and wait around for while waiting for them to arrive.  After making a couple of rounds around the airport through the passenger loading zone, we finally make the connection and head toward Breckenridge.  After check in, and picking up skis, we are off to get some dinner at Eric's, one of our favs.  After that, its back to the condo and to bed.  We want to get a decent start on the runs...  gotta cram as much skiing in as we can in the time we have!

Mike is up earlier then the rest of this morning, off to get some groceries.  I try my hardest to be perky this morning...  in time I will come alive.  We don't quite get on the lifts right when they open, but we aren't far off.  We get quite a few runs in then take a bit of a break.  While the girls take a little longer break, the guys make a run up the Falcon Lift, Cimarron run which is the Alpine Downhill Race course at Breckenridge.  This is one of Mike's favorites, however with a weenie like me, he doesn't get the opportunity to make that run very often.  After that we head over toward, peak 8, however it was a little harder runs then what Jen really wanted to be on, so we made our way back to Beaver Run, where we stopped for lunch, and decided to call it a day on the slopes. 

Tonight after making a few stops in town, we head over to Good Times Adventures where we usually take our Snowmobile tours, however tonight we are going on a Nordic dinner Sleigh Ride.  Our transportation to the miners cabin where our dinner will be prepared tonight is a pair of Belgium work horses, named Maverick & Goose.  Our driver said that these guys only pull together, and when they are in their paddocks, they eat together side by side, guess they sleep together too, just like they are a married couple.  For their "pulling life" they will be together.  Isn't that cool?  The dinner was good and we had this Mountain Man dude tell some stories, and pick on the ladies...  it was a hoot.  It was cold, and light snow falling.  It made for a really nice and romantic night, well except the Mountain Man...

Today we decided to hang out in bed a little later this morning, and head into town to get some breakfast.  Well our timing isn't good, and there is a pretty good waiting line to get in any place to eat.  So instead we go down the road a few miles and try our luck in Frisco.  Well its still a wait, but we decide that we are running out of choices.  We find this little bakery/breakfast spot...  and I do mean little, but they have some great looking pastries, baked goods, and pretty decent breakfast.  After what seemed like an eternity, we finish consuming our food and we are on our way back to the condo to get the skis and "stuff" to head over to Keystone for some afternoon and night skiing.  This will be my first time to night ski...  not sure what I am going think about it.  We'll have to see how I do!  We arrive just before 1pm and the parking attendant suggests to us that if we wait just a few minutes we can park for $5 instead of $25...  what's 5 minutes versus, $20?  Mike would probably say, a couple of six packs.  Anyway, we wait our few minutes, and we are off to the Gondola.  Keystone has their lifts, but also has an enclosed gondola for those who don't want to freeze your rears off.  Its still daylight, so we will get the chance to check things out before going down in the dark.  After making it down once, Jennifer calls it quits.  She is not feeling well, and its taking its toll on her skiing.  Mike, John and I head back to the top.  We are only doing the blue runs, and take a different path then when we went down before.  This time it takes us to a mid mountain lift that takes us back to the top.  After a trip or two doing that, we decide its time for a break and some dinner.  We get Jen to meet us at the top of the mountain.  Since they have the gondola you can ride up and ride back down with no problem and actually you don't even have to have a ticket.  But most people don't know that...  cause if they did, more people we do it.  You can even go higher up the mountain, which we do, to show John & Jennifer where they have 3 five star restaurants.  We have never eaten at any of them, but that is on our ever growing list of things to do.  After Jennifer and I make some snow angels in the deep snow...  and I dance around like an idiot in the freshly made tracks from the Snowcats, we board the gondola again, to the top of the runs where Jennifer continues down to the base, and we step into the skis and head down the dark, but lit trails.  Only a few runs are open for the night skiing, in which they have lights marking the trail.  Man is this cool...  it weird, but its kind of peaceful, cause there is less people.  Your senses sharpen, somewhat...  you hear the other skiers as they come close to you, however you perceive them as being A LOT closer.  I wish we had time for another run, but what a cool experience.  This is definitely a re-do experience.  We pack up and make our way back to the condo, for a quick dip in the hot tub before calling it a night.    

Well Mike & I had good intentions of getting up this morning, and being on the lift when they opened...  well that didn't happen.  Neither of us are feeling the best in the world, so after several times of hitting the snooze we decide that this will not be a good day for skiing.  Instead we pack our things into the car and head out of town.  Instead of the normal route through Frisco to I-70, this time we go west through Fairplay and south to US-285 to Denver.  Just a little bit different scenery.  Plus we all had heard of this hot dog place, think it was on the travel channel, and we were looking for some famous hot dogs for lunch.  We found it, however it had moved to a new location, and they were still in the process of rebuilding.  The guy working on the deck outside said, when we asked when they would open...  he said probably never.  Oh well we will check back on it later.  We arrive in Denver and drop of the car, head over to the airport.  Now there is nothing to do but wait for our flights.  We say our goodbyes to our friends and goodbye for another time, to our favorite home away from home, Colorado.

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MARCH 2007

Well its a pretty day, and its time that Rocky gets his feet wet.  Little did he know that that was actually what would end up happening.  The plan was to drive the Jeep to the Richland Creek Wilderness area and go on the hike that Tim Ernst talks about on his website to a waterfall.  Once we arrive, I realize I have forgotten my knee brace, and the terrain that trail takes you down is very rocky and we can't take the chance of screwing up my knee any more then it already is.  So we decide to take Rocky on some jeep roads in the area.  When the day is done, we log 388.  Its a great start to "Jeep Season".

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This weekend we have Granny duty, as well as pager duty for my work.  Nothing really exciting happened, just kind of a relaxing kick back weekend.  Mike had decided that he was going to catch dinner for the 3 of us.  I figured I needed some sort of back up plan even though Granny doesn't eat much, we had caught a few fish, but not near enough for a fish dinner for 3.  Well he gets on a roll and he catches enough for a mess of fish.  During our time at the pond, Mike starts screaming... not sure what he is really screaming about, and figuring he was probably exaggerating as to the size of this fish that he is attempting to real in on this little ultra light rod and reel.  I am sure you have all heard of the great fish stories and the one that got away...  however this one didn't get away, and we have pictures to prove it.  We figure he is about 8 1/2 or 9 pounds, and Mike is going to have him mounted.  Of course I don't want any dead fish hanging on my wall, so I think we will leave him at the farm.  It was cause for a bunch of excitement on a some what uneventful weekend.  Check out the picture....

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Today we are walking for a cause, granted its not as well known of a cause as Tour de Cure for diabetes, or Race for the Cure for Breast Cancer, but its for the Brain Injury Association of Arkansas, one that hits home with our family.  We think it was good for Chelsie and for those other TBI, traumatic brain injury, survivors and supporters, to see her and see how well she is doing for being a TBI survivor.  They raised around $7000 for this support of patients suffering from these injuries.

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Well we depart on another journey...  this time with some new faces.  Our friend Susan Erwin, from Willy D's, and Chris Keen, one of Mike's customers are along with us this time.  Who know what is in store for us all...  but I am sure it will be a wild time! 

We depart Little Rock around 4:15pm, temp 84 degrees.  We are expecting lots of snowy conditions and low temperatures.  We will see what we get down too...Tonight we are shooting for Salina, KS, about 535 miles.  Well we pull into our hotel about 12:15, the temp is 54 degrees.

At 6:15 and temperature of 45 degrees we are on the road again.  Not much sleep, Chris fussing this morning that Mike & I were snoring and Susan was cussing him out all night long.  Who knows, maybe he was dreaming.  Our hope is to make it into Breckenridge by 1 or 2.  The wind is whipping pretty good out here, so it may slow us down.  We arrive around 2:30 and it seems like it takes forever for us to get checked in to our room.  After we get into our room, we head to town to get skis and groceries.  Its been a long day so after a drink and a dip in the hot tub, we are off to bed.  For tomorrow...  we Ski!

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The Adventure continues...

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