teresa

Logging on from Vail I would like to capture some of my memories.

First off many things have come to mind that believe it or not I did not manage to fit into my recent wordy posts.  Two moments I will never forget at the wedding were on separate occasions when Brad and Russell came up to me and wanted to genuinely welcome me into their family.  They said they were so happy that Elliott and I were together and that they wanted me to know that they were happy that we were married.  This made me feel so welcomed into the Goodwin family.

Reflecting on an older post we have now flipped the outlook of in a week from now, which has become a week ago we were… at the rehearsal, and tomorrow that will be a week ago we were married!

For a honeymoon update things are perfect.

Ok not everything is perfect, the hotel was a little rocky at first.  The key didn’t work, we had to return to the lobby and when we did get in we couldn’t find the bedroom (sounds ridiculous but true).  They didn’t deliver the luggage because we ‘didn’t give them our room number’…  The shower takes awhile to warm up (which I feel is karma telling me to save water and energy by taking short cold showers… an inconvenience I have not yet adopted in my efforts to reduce my personal footprint).  The maids are emphatic about cleaning and turn down services which we have finally remedied with the do not disturb sign.  And there is a detector of some sort probably smoke that blinks all through the night above our bed. 

For the positives there is a fireplace.  Full kitchen that we have used a lot and magically gets cleaned every morning.  Decks over looking the village.  Robes.  TV with cable!  Living room.  WiFi.  Oh and a beautiful view!

We have catalogued our trip so far in pictures on our flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/elliottgoodwin/collections/72157605723758202/.

A quick (ya probably not..!) summary.

Day 1: Got in late afternoon.  Got settled.  Walked through the village.  Had dinner with a view of the river. 

Day 2: The walking tour of Vail.  We walked along the river a few miles to just about West Vail.  We stopped at a park and watched a bit of a girls lacrosse game.  On a side note can you believe they wear skirts?  I think if they want to wear a skirt to play a sport that they should be able to but it seemed like it was perhaps and expectation.  Personally I am not comfortable for very long in a skirt let alone playing lacrosse.  Elliott informed me that some mountain bike girls wear mountain biking skirts!  I guess one of his friends particularly enjoys this look when spotted on the trail, surprising.  On the walk back we stopped for gelato, yummy!  And eventually caught the bus back to our hotel!  We went to the grocery store to stock up and then went to a free concert in the park, which was a lot fun.  We were there early with all the families and kids, which was fine, and had a great seat.  Later on the concert turned out to be a drunk fest.  Elliott and I didn’t partake.  When we first got here I read the hotel guest book, don’t ask me why, I am a researcher by training!  Anyway they suggest drinking lots of water and staying away from caffeine and alcohol.  Apparently high altitude sickness is not as common as plain dehydration.  So we have been drinking a ton of water, but we enjoyed the concert nonetheless.

Day 3: One of my best days ever!  We drove to Stillwater lake.  Canoed around the lake, which was peaceful and stressful at different times.  We paddled out, docked poured out some of the excess water, paddled out further, stopped and read,, it got a little windy and choppy, “we” dunked our bag with the books and camera in the lake, and we struggled to make it back to the dock without being sucked into the outlet, relaxing and entertaining all in one activity.  Then we went on a horseback riding trip – amazing!  My first time ever on a horse, I had Norma, Elliott was on Blondie.  Julia was our guide.  She took us up to a cave that has Indian pictograms.  The horses went through a little stream (my favorite part!).  At one point my horse decided to go back down the trail.  I think she knew that I really didn’t like kicking her and pulling up on the reigns, but she made me.  She also stopped to eat nearly every 10 steps, hilarious.  We also ate at the restaurant next to the lake including homemade apple pie!  It was a wonderful day of new experiences, sunshine, a little rain, and a great escape from everything.

Day 4: Another great day, this time on the river, fly fishing with our guide Steven.  Fishing is amazing.  I didn’t think about a thing in the world while fishing.  You just think about casting and floating, watching the bobber or the fly and waiting for the fish.  The only thing I thought about was how I wasn’t thinking about anything!  We both caught a fish about 3 hours in.  Right after we changed to dry flies.  The fish were really cute, you can see pictures in our flickr pictures.  Please don’t laugh, they are tiny but as Steven said everyone starts somewhere!  After fishing we went to dinner at the GasHouse and then to the Beaver Creek Rodeo.  All I have to say is mutton busters.  Someone once told me that mutton busting was the funniest thing they had ever seen, I didn’t believe them but now I am a believer!

Day 5: Today.  We were both really tired.  I woke up to the blinking light at 5am and eventually went back to sleep but I woke Elliott up who couldn’t go back to sleep… oops.  Anyway we had a lazy morning and eventually got up and decided to to Edwards to get a coffee and to read.  This is a super cute town that we would stay in next time we come back instead of Vail, it just has more character to it.  Anyway we walked by an Aveda salon and we have both been daydreaming about getting a hair cut. So we walked in and scheduled haircuts for later and then went and got a coffee.  I watched a little bit of a pre book signing speech by Newt Gingrich, which was interesting and then had to leave for my haircut.  We are both cleaned and looking great!  After that we saw a movie, Get Smart.  This got bad review which I think were too harsch, I liked it, good action, good humor, a little romance – all wrapped up and enjoyed in a cute little theatre, perfect.  Tonight we enjoyed dinner in, we made pizzas – delicious and had York paddies for dinner.  It was a great day!

Tomorrow is Day 6 and we still have 3 or 4 more days to go!  Lots of exciting things left to do and see while kicking off our new marriage.  All is well for the Goodwin’s, in love and enjoying every minute.