Today we woke up to sunshine. We spent the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon in Aspen/Snowmass. After our free hotel breakfast, we put Shannon in the car and headed up the road to the Ghost Town Ashcroft - a drive the Visitors Center lady had recommended. We got up about six miles up when we had to turn back, for time, and for the slush. Colleen was glad to get back on a road that had a guard rail.
We met our coach tour guide, Mike, or Michael, as the museum lady would call him later, in front of the Wheeler Opera House a little before noon. Fortunately, he let us do what he says only 1 in 15 tours get to go - actually go inside. It was in much better shape than the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, which Colleen visited in August 2007.
Mike then took us around town in this curious, but cool little car that would make weird beeping sounds seemingly every time it took us too long to make a turn. He told us about the first folks who came to town, and the parallels between then and today, with being isolated continuing to be a problem. We also were told Aspen was dealing with the Great Depression years before anyone else, and the Aspen ideal is to be an utopian society.
Our second part of our tour was at the history museum (Wheeler-Stallard Museum) where we had a private tour. After an introduction in the living room where we could sit on the furniture because it was original, we watched a short film and then went upstairs to the gallery, where we discovered a guy featured in one of the displays was from Arkport! However, Colleen's admiration diminished when the tour guide told us he pretty much died penniless and didn't make much of himself.
On the way out of town, Colleen and Jon stopped at the Holden Marolt Mining & Ranching Museum. The sign indicated it was open from 1-4... 1-4 in the summer time.
We then drove to Snowmass Village, which looked like what Colleen pictured Aspen would look like - all different colors of wood - very bright. (Although Colleen did appreciate Aspen's brick exteriors much more after taking the history tour.)
Highlights of the way home included a radio show in which the host kept Jim Boeheim on hold while he proceeded to play years-old clips of Mike Tyson and said basketball players should have on the backs of their jerseys, "Eat Kids."
After opening presents at home, Colleen and Jon headed out for their first "Melting Pot" experience. The atmosphere was very cool - a converted old library with multiple levels, waterfalls and curtained booths. Our server shared how it took a week of training to go from basically a busboy to a waiter and said he had "walked in on things" in the curtained booths. Had we had to do it again, I would have skipped the cheese fondue portion, and gone with salads for each of us, split a single entree (we got our own - but I had half of it left over, and Jon had a third of it left over - had we not had the fondue course we probably would have been able to eat more) and asked for brownies to substitute for the graham cracker and Oreo covered marshmellows. We had the chocolate-peanut butter fondue and that with the brownies was just sublime, followed by the bananas and rice krispie treats. I didn't have room to try the pound cake or cheesecake. This is not a place if you're in a hurry (it took 2 1/2 hours from sit-down to going home, and that's just how long it took to cook the food, it wasn't like we were dragging our feet.) The fact we were cooking our own entrees was a little disturbing after getting the "don't sue us if you ingest raw food" implied speech, but it all worked out in the end. And the accompanying veggies were awesome!
Coach Tour: A
Melting Pot: A-
We met our coach tour guide, Mike, or Michael, as the museum lady would call him later, in front of the Wheeler Opera House a little before noon. Fortunately, he let us do what he says only 1 in 15 tours get to go - actually go inside. It was in much better shape than the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, which Colleen visited in August 2007.
Mike then took us around town in this curious, but cool little car that would make weird beeping sounds seemingly every time it took us too long to make a turn. He told us about the first folks who came to town, and the parallels between then and today, with being isolated continuing to be a problem. We also were told Aspen was dealing with the Great Depression years before anyone else, and the Aspen ideal is to be an utopian society.
Our second part of our tour was at the history museum (Wheeler-Stallard Museum) where we had a private tour. After an introduction in the living room where we could sit on the furniture because it was original, we watched a short film and then went upstairs to the gallery, where we discovered a guy featured in one of the displays was from Arkport! However, Colleen's admiration diminished when the tour guide told us he pretty much died penniless and didn't make much of himself.
On the way out of town, Colleen and Jon stopped at the Holden Marolt Mining & Ranching Museum. The sign indicated it was open from 1-4... 1-4 in the summer time.
We then drove to Snowmass Village, which looked like what Colleen pictured Aspen would look like - all different colors of wood - very bright. (Although Colleen did appreciate Aspen's brick exteriors much more after taking the history tour.)
Highlights of the way home included a radio show in which the host kept Jim Boeheim on hold while he proceeded to play years-old clips of Mike Tyson and said basketball players should have on the backs of their jerseys, "Eat Kids."
After opening presents at home, Colleen and Jon headed out for their first "Melting Pot" experience. The atmosphere was very cool - a converted old library with multiple levels, waterfalls and curtained booths. Our server shared how it took a week of training to go from basically a busboy to a waiter and said he had "walked in on things" in the curtained booths. Had we had to do it again, I would have skipped the cheese fondue portion, and gone with salads for each of us, split a single entree (we got our own - but I had half of it left over, and Jon had a third of it left over - had we not had the fondue course we probably would have been able to eat more) and asked for brownies to substitute for the graham cracker and Oreo covered marshmellows. We had the chocolate-peanut butter fondue and that with the brownies was just sublime, followed by the bananas and rice krispie treats. I didn't have room to try the pound cake or cheesecake. This is not a place if you're in a hurry (it took 2 1/2 hours from sit-down to going home, and that's just how long it took to cook the food, it wasn't like we were dragging our feet.) The fact we were cooking our own entrees was a little disturbing after getting the "don't sue us if you ingest raw food" implied speech, but it all worked out in the end. And the accompanying veggies were awesome!
Coach Tour: A
Melting Pot: A-
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