Travel: Colorado

 

After a long journey we made it to the museum!

In early January we took the opportunity to head out to Colorado for a few days of skiing and outdoor activities in the mountains. Little dude and I left early and high tailed it to Denver to visit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  The museum has wonderful exhibits on space, dinosaurs, and the natural environment. Our two and a half hour visit was definitely not enough time.

 

 

Moose. They also had a great exhibition on the work that goes into creating the nature dioramas.

 

 

Dinos! 

We learned that a T Rex would replace all their teeth every four years, and constantly replaced their teeth throughout their lives. Little dude also got to hold a T Rex tooth- it was huge! The educational components of the exhibitions were truly fantastic, and there were lots of volunteers and interactive stations to provide more information.

 

 

The view of Denver and the Rockies from the museum.

 

 

Super moon in the dawn's light.

After meeting up with Joe in Denver, we headed up to the mountains, where we stayed with Joe's Aunt and Uncle. They are always so hospitable, great to ski with, and have a lovely log home. Enjoying their company is definitely a plus of visiting the Rockies. We spent the next two days skiing at Copper Mountain, with little dude in ski school and us on the slopes.

 

 

Ski selfie.

 

 

Top of Super Bee.

 

Little dude- pro skiier in training.

 

Ready for the mountain.

 

The village at Copper- I love the festive feel.

 

 

Ski scenery.

  

Blue run.

  

Back up at the top.

  

Alpine.

The last day of our visit we went up to Rocky Mountain National Park to snowshoe. The park turns 100 years old this year, and is always a treat for us, no matter the season. We visited the west side of the park, which has far fewer visitors than the east side- in a given year park attendance is 3.5 million, but only 300,000 people make it to the west side. In winter it is very quiet- we only saw a handful of other people during our visit, but we did see a moose up close!   

  

RMNP!

 

Snowshoeing.

 

More snowshoeing.

This was little dude's first snowshoe on his own (he was carried on past trips), and he loved it. For us it was a short trip (just over a mile), but for him I imagine it felt quite long.

 

Park scenery.

 

More park scenery.

Before we left for the day, the munchkin completed the Park's Junior Ranger program- he was so thrilled to get a badge and try on the ranger hat! 

 

RMNP's newest junior ranger.

Niigata Ski Trip 新潟スキー旅行

 Waiting to board the E4 Max Shinkansen.

In addition to our Kyoto travels, we took an overnight trip to the mountains over the winter holidays. We started with an hour long Shinkansen trip up to Echigo Yuzawa. The trip included a lot of tunnels, and when we emerged from the last one, the ground was covered with snow.

We took a short bus trip, and arrived at Joetsu Kokusai. 

 Joe prepares for the day.

 The clouded in view from part way up the hill.

 Training for the 2030 Olympic gold medal.

 Snowball maker!

 One of our favorite parts of the resort was the Kid's Paradise, where little dude enjoyed sledding, snowball making (and throwing), tubing, and general snow mayhem.

 Tubing.

The hotel as viewed from the base of the lifts and Kid's Paradise.

 Skiing!

The hotel hallway. A bit of a Shining-esque feeling, but also very cool.

 A selection of local beer.

We awoke on day two to fresh powder falling outside of the window. The snow continued to fall all day, making for a fantastic day of skiing.

The hotel interior.

 

Snow!!

 

Our rental skis at the end of the day.

After a second day of fantastic skiing, we took the bus back to the train station, and picked up some snacks for the ride back to Tokyo, including snowball doughnuts, or giant doughnut holes with powdered sugar, as pictured below.

Colorado skiing

 

My travel posts seem to be running about a month behind this year.... 

In early February we headed out west for a long weekend of skiing at Copper Mountain in Colorado. We drove late Thursday and Friday morning, catching a few afternoon runs on Friday. It was snowy and cold at the top of the mountain on Friday, but great to get in a little bit of skiing.

  

The following day brought perfect blue skies and great skiing. This was the munchkins first time skiing, so we enrolled him in ski school for the day. My Dad joined us for the morning, which was great fun. 

  

Sunday we spent the morning skiing with the munchkin- about the cutest thing I could imagine. Joe's aunt and uncle joined us in the afternoon. The rest of the photos are ski shots, the local beers we enjoyed, and the last photo is the last run of the day, half way down the mountain, our condo visible at the bottom of the photo.

 

Copper Skiing

The view from near the summit of Copper Mountain, where we spent Monday the 21st skiing.