It's All French To Me: To Know A Vail

Stage IV: Vail, Colorado

I know, I should have wrapped up this trip wrap-up long ago. It's not like I'm pressed for time to write out here.

To me, the last two legs of the trip offered some of the best and some of the worst of our journey. The 500 miles or so between Lawrence, KS and Vail, CO presented the most boring, mentally challenging stretch of drive that I ever hope to encounter. In fact, I can't imagine a more monotonous ride than that, except maybe 98% of Canada by car. There is nothing- and I repeat: NOTHING- between Lawrence and eastern Colorado. I had to check my sanity several times as Lauren snoozed away comfortably in the passenger's seat, never having noticed my newly created imaginary friend Dierks, a miniature dodo bird who liked to entertain. I discarded him just outside of Denver, when his services were no longer in demand. I wish him well.

I will say that the trek across Kansas became well worth it as we wound our way through a suburb of Denver in search of dinner, aka Buffalo Wild Wings. Aside from the abdominal failure that I experienced halfway through our meal (side note here: BWW was redoing one of the bathrooms at the time and therefore, it had to be shared between the sexes. Upon my exit from said bathroom, a woman sat in waiting with a look of fear on her face. I can't say I blame her.) we enjoyed our feast of bird. They let us try all all the flavors by way of a true pallet of sauce and while the Blazin' beat my ass pretty good, we loved their medium hot sauce and thus purchased a bottle to go. Also well worth it? Seeing the Rockies for the first time, and by that I don't mean the Coors Field Nine. I felt like a little boy when those fuckers finally peaked over the horizon and introduced themselves.

I have more of a pictorial theme for this particular stage, chiefly because of the sheer beauty of Vail, Colorado and the majesty of the Rocky Mountains. Please enjoy my lovely girlfriend's photography and further French commentary on the scenery.

This is where one might buy a lift ticket (imagine!!) in the winter. Picture lots of people in hats and scarves, some with poles even. I hear people like to ski here when it snows.

Mickey's Piano Bar inside The Lodge at Vail. Mickey owns the bar and still plays here every night, as he's been doing for thirty years. Seeing as Lauren and I were the only couple under 50 in this place, he took a liking to us and made the night we spent there very enjoyable. He played me some Scott Joplin which was awesome and he took a few other requests from us as well. The only thing I regret is mixing scotch, beer and gin over the course of the 3 hours we spent there. I paid dearly for that one the next day.

Mountains n'avec pas le neige.

And mountains avec le neige.

For some reason I was overly excited about these tunnels that burrow through the mountains. To me, there's nothing like a highway that digs right into the base of a mountain and carries you right through to the other side. Ahh, the marvels of human evolution and the DPW.

The first shot of the village at Vail, but notice how Lauren captured the flight of this hawk just before he dives below the horizon. Elusive he tried to be but ohh, the crafty hawk was outsmarted on this day.