After leaving the Busse Bus II at the Elks Lodge in Westminster, we drove the truck up to our townhouse in Winter Park. We quickly unpacked before heading to Deno’s Mountain Bistro to meet up with our Myakkan friends, Steve & Laurie Chubb and Larry & Bouraine Smith. The Smith’s have a place a few miles away in Fraser and the Chubbs had parked their motorcoach at the YMCA of the Rockies – Snow Mountain about 10 miles down the road.
They had waited for us to arrive before getting some food, but they were ahead of us drink wise. We spent a nice evening catching up and making plans for the next few days while the Chubbs were in town.
The next day we met up with everyone for music at Hideaway Park in downtown Winter Park.
We grabbed some chairs (there are stacks of them all around the arena grass) and listened in. We decided to grab some food and went over to Terrain Taco:
We had a wonderful evening! Music, food, drinks and friends – isn’t that what retirement life is all about?
The following day we headed up to Grand Lake for a guided boat ride around the lake. We got there a little early, which was great because that meant we could stop at the Blue Water Bakery for a coffee and danish.
The boat ride was great!
Our captain told us about the history of Grand Lake and that they keep the water level within six inches all the time. That’s why people could build right on the water! He also told us that Grand Lake was the beginning of the Colorado River and that a lot of locations were named “Grand” downstream. Examples include: Grand Junction, CO and the Grand Canyon. Not sure if he was joking or not, but it made for a grand story.
Afterwards we headed up to the Grand Lake Lodge to have lunch. The place is always good and the views are fantastic.
That evening we all headed up the Gondola at the Winter Park Resort to have a drink (or two) and listen to the music.
It was a bit loud for us old folks so we sat outside and took in the views. Back down at the base we went into Vertical Bistro & Tap for dinner. They had “Chicago Dogs” on the menu that I had to try. Hey, you can take the boy out of Chicago, but you can’t take Chicago out of the boy! Anyway, close but no cigar!
We decided to call it a night. Larry and Bouraine headed home and since the Chubbs rode with us we started to our truck. But, we saw Stoney’s Winter Park a few storefronts away and went in for a Final Final.
Since it was the Chubb’s last day with us we thought “Why not?”. A very nice ending to seeing our friends again!
The following day Katrina and I went to Fraser to view the Mural artists and cast our vote for our favorite. Here are some of the entries:
And the one that we liked best:
Bouraine met us there for lunch at the Fraser Valley Distillery. Excellent grilled cheese sandwiches with a twist. She made us take this picture:
We were supposed to go back the next day to see who won, but we didn’t – not knowing still haunts me.
Over the next few days we did chores around the townhouse. A nice thing about our place is that we have wildlife come to visit us:
Pretty cool, eh?
We signed up to listen to comics at Vicious Cycle Brewing down in Fraser. We ate some grub from the Wicked Cheesy food truck, drank some brews and laughed a lot.
The best part of the night is that we got to know a local couple whom we plan on seeing again.
The following day Katrina played some pickleball while I took a bike ride. I noticed that there was some function setting up in the Hideaway Park that we wanted to check out. It turns out that it was the Crafts, Cocktails, and Corks event that we had wanted to attend but we forgot about it. We signed up for the VIP package and ran into the couple that we had met the night before.
We spent the day with them wondering through the craft booths, tasting distilled spirits, and local brews.
It was a fantastic day!
The next day we were going back towards Denver for an excursion so this is the end of Winter Park, Part I.
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