SUCH A GREAT DAY!!!!! Kudos to Matt for coming up with the idea! 

We headed out a little before 8:00 this morning, after our coffee and some breakfast… An uneventful drive later, we arrived in Vail. Parking is free in the summer, which is always awesome. 

We went to the lift ticket office (weird, lift tickets in the summer), and got our passes printed so we could use them on the gondola .

That ride was cool! I’d never been on a gondola in not-winter. It was pretty! When we got to the top, we got our bearings and headed up the Meadow Trail. Um. By “meadow,” we thought flat. You know, around a meadow. Eventually we got to a meadow, but the damned thing went straight uphill for most of the first mile before getting there!

The hike was pretty, with the views that Vail is known for. What wildflowers there were were pretty, but I think we were up just a bit too high for most of them to flourish.

When we got back to the top of the gondola, we headed for the other side of the mountain where the alpine coaster was. After getting our tickets, we got in line and got ready. 

We’d talked about going together or separately, and after seeing how tight the cars were, we decided to go separately. I would have been up and in Matt’s lap, probably not very comfortably. 

I went first, Matt behind me. Not gonna lie, I was scared the first go round. I didn’t quite understand how (and when) you needed to use the brakes, and I was most certainly NOT comfortable with the speed – which Matt made crystal clear, yelling at me to speed up from behind…

Thankfully, we’d had the presence of mind to buy two rides. The second ride was SO much better! I almost didn’t let off the gas and barely slowed down. SO. MUCH. FUN!!!!! 

After our second ride, we headed back down, on the Eagle Bahn Gondola this time. I’m not sure we’ve ever been on that gondola – the cars were super old school and didn’t feel familiar at all. 

At the bottom, we headed back to Vail Village and found a late lunch. We ended up at Pepi’s, a German restaurant where we had a hamburger and a reuben. At least we had German beer, a hefeweizen for me and a pilsner for Matt.

When we finished eating, we wandered around town for another little bit, hanging out by the river for a few minutes. 

Eventually, we headed to the 10th Mountain Division Whisky tasting room. What a cool bar! It felt like someone’s super cozy home – I even said to Matt the set of chairs and couch and coffee table looked like my dream living room. I had a Half and Half, half whisky and half rye. SO good! And SO smooth. No bite whatsoever. Matt even found a drink he liked – a vodka berry thing that was also delicious!

When we were finished, we headed back to the car and home. SUCH a great day!