Keystone, Hot Sulphur Springs

We rose from our night's slumber in New Castle and drove I-70 East to breakfast at the Eagle Diner in Eagle, Colorado. Chris had eggs, hashbrowns, and an English muffin; Andy had an English muffin, Steven had Froot Loops, and Katherine had a house specialty--a three-egg omelet filled with cream cheese, strawberries, and raspberry sauce (it was seriously better than it sounded!). As we ate, we were treated to a loud diatribe from another table, where a woman held forth (often erroneously) on topics such as global warming, war, and Chernobyl. *snort*

This leg of our journey was a bit of a trip down memory lane, if you will. In September, 1994, our respective families converged on Keystone, Colorado...

...where we attended church services in this building for a little over a week. During that week, Katherine opened doors every morning for happy (and burdened) churchgoers, including Chris's family (the members of which were debating Katherine's state of origin, as the state abbreviation on her name tag wasn't completely clear). A few days before the end of the Feast of Tabernacles (for such the event was), there was a dance, and Katherine met Chris. They hit it off despite Katherine's interest in another fellow. Both guys agreed to meet Katherine the next day at...

...the gondola ride up the mountain. Only one of them was true to his word, waiting a couple of hours for Katherine's arrival. On this trip, we were unable to recreate the gondola ride, as the gondolas were closed for the season...so we took the kids up the chairlift instead.

There is a song from the musical Chess that contains the words, "I don't know why I can't think of anything I would rather do... than be wasting my time, on mountains with you." Almost 12 years ago, we wasted our time on a mountain and realized it was a lot of fun. We didn't spend (or waste) much time on the mountain on this trip, because storms were threatened and we didn't want to be stuck there if lightning forced them to close the chairlift. We did have time for Steven to take our picture.

It was a nice day, and it was so hot that the running water looked very inviting... but we did manage to keep from jumping in, and just took their pictures instead.

We drove around Keystone, Dillon, and Silverthorne a bit, finding the hotel Katherine stayed in, the window her dad leaned out of to make kissy-kissy noises, the condo unit Chris had stayed in, the store where we rented a movie to watch... and we found the Village Inn, where we had lunch.

Chris enjoyed an open-faced turkey sandwich, Katherine had a burger with Blue Cheese, Steven had a plain hamburger, and Andrew had macaroni. Steven's plastic burger basket was so hot he burned his hand on it!

From Silverthorne, we took Colorado 9 up to Kremmling and followed US40 East. About 11 years ago, our honeymoon trip home brought us through Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado. Chris, a closet romantic, recreated that part of the journey for us...

...including a stay at the Ute Trail Motel, where we stayed the first night of our honeymoon. The Ute Trail is an old school motel on US40 with about 10 units in total. We had room number 8 this time, and we're pretty sure it was the same room we checked into on July 16, 1995. We got all misty-eyed about this; the boys just wanted to know when we were going to eat.

Eat we did, at the County Seat Grill... and much to our (and the waitress's) dismay, they were out of pizza, out of root beer, out of chicken nuggets, out of trout, and out of all the kinds of pie except cheesecake. Still, the prices were reasonable, and the service friendly, if rushed. Chris and Katherine both had Reubens which they had to review, and Steven and Andy settled for a hamburger and a PB & J, respectively.

We also visited a local small candy store, which contained the most candy we had ever seen in one place at a time. Poor Steven, unfortunately, got two of his fingers closed in the car door. It wasn't a good day for him, poor thing. But his pain was slightly assuaged by a bag of ice and a bag of licorice jelly beans.

We ended the evening with a trip to the Hot Sulphur Springs Resort, which boasts 24 pools of hot natural mineral water from the local hot springs. Only four were available for families with children. Andy refused to get in, period, but Steven was convinced. They both still preferred to spend most of their time in the plain, chlorinated pool. Chris and Katherine took turns being the responsible adult while the other checked out the adult-only mineral baths. They ranged in temperature from 98 to 112 degrees Fahrenheit, and involved everything from a cave to a tent to a circular deep pool in a secluded pavilion. The scent wasn't altogether pleasant, but the water left our skin feeling really soft, and it was really relaxing.