2017 ski vacation -- a discovery of a ski champion!

As soon as school was off on Saturday Dec 16, we headed to our winter destination -- Pagosa Springs. 13 hours of drive got split in two days, and we chose Santa Rosa as our first night stop. It was a good divide as we arrived Hampton Inn 8pm Dallas time. 8 hours of drive plus 3 hours of stops made a long day for the kids. We stopped at Wichita Falls Chuck N Cheese for almost two hours. Next time we would watch the time we spent on lunch breaks and aim for an earlier arrival.

ipad with Chinese video is the way to go!

Kids loved goofing at hotel beds

Santa Rosa is still in the plains and doesn't have much attractions other than a blue hole diving destination. We left in the morning again around 9am and targeted in Santa Fe for a lunch stop. Santa Fe downtown is on our route and we stopped at the rail-yard park for playground fun. We walked to our restaurant choice -- an outdoor burger place. Jackson had fun feeding some leftover fries to the pigeons. Our cabin's check in time is 3pm. We stopped by the town's grocery place. It took us about 6.5 hours to get to our cabin with 5 hours of driving.

Overall it's a good driving pace with two little kids. Next time we would 1, avoid KFC. 2, avoid shopping at that touristy grocery store at PS. Better to drive 10 more minutes for City Market. 3, look for Chick-fil-a as road trip meal choices. Although Santa Fe and Pagosa Springs doesn't have Chick-fil-a. 4, plan to stop every 90-120 minutes for potty stop.

After we checked in our cabin, we drove to Wolf Creek Ski Resort to check their snow condition. At this point, we still haven't seen any snow and were concerned if skiing was possible. It's about 25 minutes of drive to the ski resort from our cabin. It's an unusual warm winter this year and we saw brown grass covering the mountains. We came here 3 years ago at Christmas time and it looked completely different. Luckily high elevation at Wolf Creek helped some and the ski runs were covered by packed snow. We also saw the sledding area near Wolf Creek Pass has enough snow to sled. On the way back, Will successfully dodged an elk by a few inches. And we finally had a home made meal.

Monday we headed to the hot springs. Jackson and I enjoyed exploring the different temperature pools. We took jackets and towels and water bottles with us. It turned out to be not necessary and made our pool hopping difficult. Next time just water bottles and flip flop is sufficient. The water kept us warm and we didn't need to get dried between pools.

Family hot spring time!

We were too ambitious with Norah and stayed in the pool for two hours. She melted down at the end hungry and tired. A snack break around 90 minutes would work better for a 2 year old. They both had a beautiful nap. We had to try hard waking up Jackson for our afternoon sledding activity. Norah started to run a fever and stayed in the car when Will and Jackson went sledding.

Sledding at Wolf Creek Pass

Tuesday Norah and I stayed behind while Jackson and Will drove to the mountain. Jackson signed up for a ski class. I was planning to hike around our community but Norah looked too sick to get out.

Little skier ready to go!

Wednesday we dropped of the boys and drove to the town's medical center. Nurse practitioner decided Norah has croup and prescribed several medicines. It took about a whole day between making a stop at the town playground and medical center and pharmacy. Jackson had his private lesson today at noon.

Thursday we woke up to heavy snow! We are all so excited to see huge snow flakes covering the view near and far. Jackson enjoyed sledding off our front driveway the whole morning. Norah checked a little bit outside and staying in the cabin to have a safe distance from snow. She claimed she was scared of snow. Afternoon, Will went to have some powder fun and we started a fire in our backyard to make S'mores. Our cabin this time was very basic but we deeply appreciate the outdoor fireplace. We could see milky way from there!

Woke up to big snow

Cleaning the patio with his skid steer

Sledding on our drive way

Eating S'more!

Norah was not so sure about snow

Friday Norah and I dropped the boys off again and headed to Pagosa Springs to play on the playground. But the playground was covered by snow and Norah didn't want to play. So we stayed in the cabin another day.

Looking good!

Saturday I took a turn with Jackson to skiing on the mountain. It was a good pace changer with me and what a challenging day! I struggled a lot with his peeing needs because when he said he needed to go, it is a 5 seconds warning. It would happen so soon between he told me he doesn't have any pee and could hold for hours and he told me he really needed to pee. The next time I skied with him, I changed my strategy to have a two-hour break no matter what.

Jackson skied just like Will. He was so happy in the snowy mountain and kept on skiing to the woods to have soft power. I took him to the blue runs since he looked ready. On one of the blue mogul runs, he fell and couldn't stop his falling till the bottom of the hill. He freaked out but at the same time he asked to go back to the run. The blue runs got him really tired. At our last run, he needed to pee again on top of the run. It's about 20 minutes away from the base so we had to find a tree. It was a bad choice as it made him very cold and we were stuck in the woods. He broke down there and couldn't ski on. It was 4:15 after the resort closed. Luckily a ski patrol came by and gave Jackson a ride to our car.

Sunday Jackson skied again with Will and I went trying sledding with Norah. According to Will, she enjoyed sledding on Saturday. But she seemed still sick and refused to be outside today. Jackson skied very well and was getting to be a true ski companion for us!

Monday morning, Santa dropped his gifts for the kids and we had a slow morning to open and play with toys. We headed to treasure falls to have a family hike. In the afternoon, Jackson and I skied together. I enjoyed a lot seeing his progress in this trip!

My mountain!

Treasure Falls

Tuesday we checked out 8:50am and headed to Lubbock for our stop. Google said 8 hours and it took us 10 hours with a few stops. We ate lunch at McDonald's at Santa Fe near the rail-yard. It doesn't have a play place. Chick-fil-a in Lubbock near our hotel is great. It has a playroom and helped burning some of their energy in the cold weather. And we loved Hyatt Place at Lubbock. It is clean and spacious. Our room has two beds and one fold up bed. Norah also had her crib. Breakfast was good too.

A Long Trip

A cold front came through Tuesday night and several counties around Lubbock issued road warnings. We headed out about 10:30am (we lost an hour also because of the time zones). We stopped at Abilene's Chick-fil-a. It also has a playroom. We are becoming huge fans of Chick-fil-a, especially on road trips! We arrived home about 5pm. 

Norah helping with clean-up

A few extra notes for reference: San Juan River Village is a good location for skiing at Wolf Creek. But the river side would work better for scenery in case we got stuck in the cabin again. Our cabin 621 Swiss Village Drive is a little too plain and old for a complete day inside.

PS's tubing hill is only good for 5 year old and up. And you have to carry your tubes by yourselves. It doesn't look as good as Steamboat Spring's hills.

Lower Piedro River is a good hike with kids. It has primitive hot springs along the way. It is near first fork trailhead, further pass Sheep Creek Trailhead.

Gear expands to fill the space allotted!