Aspen

Once in Colorado we spent time in Aspen shopping and then we rode up the mountain in one of these puppies. It was something I wanted to do last time I was in Aspen a few winters ago, but never got around to doing....though I tend to forget that I'm not a huge fan of airborne heights. The view was out of this world, but it was the dangling a few hundred feet in the air, riding 12,000 feet up, swinging side to side part for 10+ minutes that got to me a little. Overall, it was well worth the journey up-we got to the top, took some pictures, walked around in the snow, ate lunch with an incredible view and had a good time. After our ride down we drove to Glenwood Springs to a hot springs fed pool that is two blocks long. The main part of the pool is heated to 90 degrees year round (or rather cooled down because the hot springs is much warmer than that) and then there is a really large area that is heated to 104. We swam for a few hours (or floated and chatted) and then headed back to eat dinner at the river near where we were staying. After two nights in Colorado we headed out towards Santa Fe-this leg of the journey was the most terrifying by far. We ended up going through a few mountain passes, the first one being Independence Pass right outside of Aspen that is closed in the winter due to snow-which it still was covered with, though it was melting, and very interesting to see it rushing down the mountains in seasonal waterfalls. The roads were narrow-so much so that one car was a tight fit-we were fortunate not to pass any other cars on those parts. The speed limits tended to stay around 15 mph, and the drops were sheer....and very....very....very scary! I don't know how people handle this. I was NOT driving, or I probably would have been pushing my car through the 40 mile pass. We passed a ghost town-which was pretty interesting, and paused at the summit. The trip down was less of a story, but I'm NOT a mountain driver....or apparently much of a mountain passenger either.