We are now over a week into our #ikonpassadventures trip! Life on the road has been good. I definitely love the “ski bum” lifestyle of living in my snow pants and wearing a hat every day. Low maintenance for sure! I hope my hair is enjoying the break from styling and heat tools. Maybe it will be rejuvenated when I get back home! But I digress. My only goal this week was skiing and enjoying life, which we nailed. I only ran once this week as marathon training took a backseat to skiing. No worries there! I’ve got a lot of pictures here, so enjoy!…
Mon – 3 mile run. Today was a work day. A well rounded day of work, running, shopping and dining! It’s amazing how fast the work day flies by when it starts at 6am (to be 8am EST)! At lunch time I ran along a trail up to Rainbow lake. A lake in the winter is not so exciting, but the trail through the trees was beautiful. I failed to take a picture of the trees apparently because I was too busy trying not to slip!
Tonight was a double hot pepper fail. Let me explain… I don’t like pepper at all. Not even black pepper at the table. When we went out to dinner I asked the server about their chili. Is it spicy? He replied “it’s white people friendly” (LOL, he is Hispanic) So I order the chili – nope, far too spicy for me!! I even think it has jalapenos in it. Fail #1. Then back at the condo I applied some new cream for pain on my knee (it was acting suspicious). Guess what, it is made from hot peppers (Capzasin HP). I knew what it was made of, but wanted to see if it made my knee feel better. NOPE. In fact, it made my knee feel like it was on fire!!! Maybe I’m allergic to peppers? It was awful torture. However, my husband had no reaction to it.
Tues – 26 miles of skiing! It was a full day at Arapahoe Basin again. This was the same place we had the whiteout at last week. It was a much better day! We were there from 1st chair until almost close. My husband tried out some demo skis. He found a pair he liked! It’s been many years since he had new skis. It’s amazing how good a new pair of skis feels. You know how new shoe day is? Well it’s even better than that! New technology makes you ski so much better and safer.
To celebrate finding his perfect ski we went out to dinner at a German restaurant. Cheers! Huge beers just like at Oktoberfest.
Weds – Rest day! First, working. Then traveling to Steamboat Springs Colorado. My remote work space in Colorado is pretty nice, no?
Thurs – 31 miles of skiing at Steamboat Springs. I think this is a top mileage for us skiing. It was a beautiful day. So sunny! We skied from open until close and ate lunch out on the lodge patio. My husband got his new skis and he was unstoppable. Such a difference!
I got a new sticker for my skis. It really sums up our trip.
Fri – 27 miles of skiing (Steamboat Springs) The sun barely came out today but it was still a fun day of skiing. Again, we were there from open to close. We even had to wait for one of the runs to open in the morning. We are being such overachievers here at Steamboat 🙂 One really cool thing about Steamboat is that you can see the entire city, valley and mountains galore from the summit. Beautiful!!
Oh, and we saw moose along the edge of the ski resort both days!!
Sat – Rest day! Travel day from Colorado to Utah. The day started out snowy in Yampa Colorado at our hotel. Fun fact – our hotel was the only one in town! The population of Yampa was 394 in the 2023. Oh, and our hotel was on a dirt road. But it was very clean and comfortable. And, cost less than half the cost of staying in Steamboat Springs so I was fine with driving a few more miles each morning!
We drove through Vernal. Such cute dinosaurs there!
We saw fields and rocks. Finally we got to the mountains and snow. Woohoo!
Our condo in Salt Lake City is really nice! Very new and modern. We almost had a complete fail when we left the condo, with the oven turned on baking our frozen meal, and couldn’t get the electronic keypad to work and open the door again. Yes, I had visions of the whole place burning down when I couldn’t immediately get in touch with the VRBO owner for assistance. There was supposed to be a traditional key outside the door too, but it was missing. After I eventually got the owner on the phone and lo and behold I actually did have a physical key in my pocket (didn’t realize it was the same key as the clubhouse) and we opened the door. PHEW!!!!! This is what our rooftop club house looked like…. snowy!
Sun – skiing at Snowbird (Utah)! No joke – you have to be at the base of the canyon which leads to the resorts by 7am on a weekend in order to not get stuck in complete gridlock traffic. At the base you have a 30 min drive on a clear day, but can take hours on a weekend/powder day. I’ve heard horror stories about these traffic jams so we planned accordingly. We still had a slow climb up the mountains at 7:15am but we did make it to a parking spot at 7:45am. Yahoo! Which gives me time to post this because the lifts don’t open until 9am. 😂
Need some more inspiration? I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Check out all of the fun blogs there!
Q: Are you a fan of spicy foods?
I can’t believe I had such a bad reaction to that pepper cream. Lesson learned!
It sounds like you had a great week. How did you track your skiing miles? I used my Garmin one day and it was fun to see the data.
I don’t mind a spicy dish once in a while, but I am not one that adds hot sauce or jalapeños to everything.
I use my Garmin to track ski workouts. My distances have been a little shorter than my husband’s Garmin event, but not by much. I like to get PRs in Strava for skiing too!
wow you are really living the ski life! How fun! This is making me excited for our ski trip next month. I love spicy food! We order everything the spiciest they can make it 🙂
Wow, super spicy?? Go you! I don’t think I’d be able to sleep if I ate something spicy.
I’m sure you are going to have a great ski trip!
Oh wow, you’re having quite the ski trip! Sounds like so much fun! Congrats to Alan on his new skis. I remember when parabolic skis first came out and what a difference they made. I can only imagine the improvements ski designers have made since the early 90’s!
It was interesting to see how different Alan thought the ski demos felt. I knew he’d find something that was perfect. it really does make a difference!
What a fun week! And the fun continues 😉 It’s great that you two have this love for all things fitness. About the spicy food, I can take it or leave it. I like some zing, but if it’s too extreme, I’m not a big fan, LOL.
I’ll be sad when our trip ends… and then we’ll be back on the slopes again with our son for his Spring Break! it’s all good 🙂
Ooh, you’re still away skiing. How fun! Your working space looks great.
So weird though with how your knee reacted to the peppers. I’ve never heard about anything like that!
Personally I love spicy food and we’re big consumers of all sorts of chilis and peppers.
I also did a small “test patch” on my ankle the following night to see if I would have a reaction. It was only the size of a marble and I woke up in the middle of the night with that spot feeling like it was on fire (again)! So yep, it was the cream! It was crazy. I’m glad we threw that cream away.
You are living the life, my friend! I can’t do my job remotely, lol, so I have to use PTO when I go away. When do you return to reality? Or is the ski bum life for you?
Oh and yes, I love spicy food!
We’ve got one more week to go! And then it’s an extra long drive home from Utah. But I listen to audiobooks while I drive so it’s all good. We have run into many people on the chairlifts who are retired, or working remote, who spend a month or more skiing. That’s my dream!! We need to make friends with some of these people so we can get a deal on a ski condo rental. haha!!
I loved Vernal!
That skiing. Amazing/insane. I can take or leave spicy foods, but give me all the spice over a ski. I do wonder if the skin reaction means you’re allergic
Safe travels
The dinosaurs in Vernal were very cute! That cream was awful. Good riddance!
What an amazing adventure for you!
I LOVE spicy food. I wasn’t raised with it, but to me, it’s delicious. I’m sorry you had a reaction… I definitely think you should look into the possibility of an allergy. To have a topical rash like that is way outside the norm!
Have so much fun!
We should have just bought some Icy Hot instead of that pepper cream. It’s funny how our ski pack list now includes things like nasal strips (to combat sleeping with lack of oxygen!), Ibuprofen, knee brace, back patch, and now Icy Hot! Getting old… fun.
Never heard of pepper.
I don’t like hot spicy but I do mild spicy.
I do love your workspace. I wish I was totally remote.
It was actually a nice workspace because I could stand up or sit down! The wifi wasn’t as fast as my home though, but it was OK.
This sounds so fun! And, Utah!!!!! I can’t wait to hear more.
i can handle “white people spicy” but after that it gets to be too much for me. It’s weird you had that reaction on your knee- yes, maybe you are allergic to peppers!
Hope you’re having another fabulous week of skiing.
Lesson learned- avoid hot peppers! 🌶️ Utah is a pretty place, but I can do without the traffic in Salt Lake City where we are staying.