What a Christmas!! Part 1

For years, Bill and I have wanted to spend Christmas in the mountains, and this year we did. I think the kids were sort of 'on the fence' about it. They love Estes Park, but they didn't want to be away from their friends for 10 days. Of course, that was some of our motivation for doing it :)

The trip started out eventfully. We serviced Bill's car before leaving. It has 125,000 miles on it and we wanted to be sure we wouldn't run into any problems. So we were a little perturbed when about 30 miles out of Plano, around 6:00 a.m., two different engine lights came on...the one that had been on before servicing as well as a new one! But the technician has told Bill that sometimes it takes a few cycles for the lights to go off (he'd called the night before when the lights were still on after servicing), so we tried not to worry about it. (This is called foreshadowing :))

By the time the dealer opened and we could call the service tech, we were well into Oklahoma. We fully expected to run into snow. We had gone back and forth on which route to take because we knew we'd hit snow either way (the Amarillo-Raton-Colo Springs route or the I35-I70 Okla-Kansas route). We went with the route that gave us interstate the entire way. So we called the Acura guy and he told us that it was probably just the light and not to worry about it. If we really wanted to get it checked, we should try a Honda dealer if we couldn't find an Acura one.

By the time we crossed the Kansas line, it was snowing and blowing so heavily that we could barely see. We found an open Honda dealer in Wichita and slowly made our way there (I do so love my new iphone and google maps!). We figured it couldn't hurt to sit out on the storm for a little bit. The Honda people changed something that frequently causes one of the lights to come on (that new one we were experiencing). We had self-diagnosed it based on google (thank you iphone) and the Acura service tech. So we spent an hour and $255 at the Honda dealer while the snow fell heavily outside.


We left the dealer with no engine lights on and set out on I-35. We were quickly in sporadic white-out conditions and pretty soon both engine lights came back on. We were hungry and couldn't see any places to stop as we inched our way up the interstate. I was afraid we were going to be one of those families in the news that get stranded with no food or water! We could barely see the snow plows on the road, but we tried to stay near them.


We finally pulled off the highway (which was pretty scary as we couldn't see the road) and decided to wait it out for a while. A lady traveling by herself was stuck up ahead of us. Of course, we'd seen countless people stranded on the side of the road but Bill decided to see if he could help her. Bill and Connor and another gentleman were able to push her out, and she promptly got stuck again :)


Conditions improved as we drove north and by the time we made it to I-70 it was no longer snowing and the road was pretty good. We headed west. We had originally planned to make it to Denver by 7:00 so the boys could watch the Cowboys game. In fact, I'd gone to great lengths (thanks again to google) to find a hotel that provided the NFL network. It was actually a pretty good hotel, but we got there after the game was over. Of more concern was that something was obviously wrong with the car...it wasn't just contrary engine lights (wishful thinking). We were torn about what to do -- leave it at a dealer in Denver or Boulder, or try to make it 'up the hill' to Estes. We were concerned that since it was December 23rd by now (Sunday morning), we couldn't get the car looked at until the 26th. Things always look more hopeful in the light, and Sunday morning we decided to get go on up to Estes. We knew we could count on AAA! The car was idling roughly and surging, but it did ok going up the hill to Estes.

We were excited about getting settled into our rental house. It had been a stressful ride up. So you can imagine how we felt when we found the rental locked! It was supposed to be open for us. We decided to go eat lunch, and of course we had some discussion on whether we were 'meant' to be on this trip. As the kids pointed out, everything was seeming to go wrong! Thankfully, that was the turning point and things went up from there (except for the car, but we'll get back to that). We got into the house, and it was wonderful with a great view. It also held fast to the side of the mountain that night as the winds gusted to 80 mph! I'll fast forward through the rest of the trip.

Bill's cousin, Kristin, (well 2nd cousin but who's counting, and who by the way was 8 months pregnant) and her husband own a great restaurant in town, Ed's Cantina. You must eat there if you are ever in Estes Park. They hosted the annual Christmas Eve get together for their side of the family, and graciously included us in on it. It was so much fun! It started with touch football (and it was a gloriously beautiful day -- probably the mid-30's and sunny, well a little windy too but we tried to ignore that). Even I participated in part of the game.

After football, we went back to Ed's for the big stocking exchange...well more like bag exchange. We were newbies and quickly saw that we were nowhere as prepared as we thought we were! These Mosiers are very generous. This pic is of all the gift bags lined up on a counter in the bar area -- too many to even fit up there.


There is a sign hanging in the bar from Bill's mom and dad's business probably 60 years ago. We had our photo taken under it. We had some wonderful corn chowder and enjoyed visiting with Bill's cousins, spouses and children. Then we went back to the rental for the night. We wanted to go to church, but the trip up, as well the sleepless night from the wind, caught up with us and we went 'home' for the evening, wondering if we could get the forcasted snow.