This Tuesday morning my kids were supposed to be strapping those giant, super-heavy school backpacks on and heading back to school after a fun-filled Spring Break.

With the threat of Coronavirus looming just before spring break, most families that I knew were carrying on as normal and still planning to travel to their spring break destinations.  Our plans were still on track to head to Breckenridge for a short ski trip and getting back in time for spring sports practices (mostly gymnastics…it’s crunch time for the state meet).  The culmination of the season and countless hours of practice.  However, each hour things were changing so I purposely didn’t pack anything.  We were in contact with my brother, Greg, constantly.  Should we go?  Should we risk it?  What if we get there and they close the ski resorts?  Kids were begging to still go, they’ve been looking forward to this for what seems like an eternity.  I tuned into president Trump’s address to the nation concerning Covid-19 (and I am NOT a news watcher), started pulling out the snow gear tubs and an assembly line of sandwiches.  We don’t buy lunch food on the mountain, people, it’s too expensive for a family of 6.With 16 sandwiches in hand, clothes literally thrown in suitcases, and a constant pulse on the corona virus situation in Colorado, we hit the road to Manhattan to meet Brian’s brother and family for dinner, catch up on life, and get two hours of our drive marked off the list.  We had a wonderful time catching up with them and the kids, who are not so little anymore, played games and goofed around.We got up super early and started the rest of our journey to meet up with Greg at our meeting spot in Russell, KS.  McDonalds.  It’s our spot.  With spray hand sanitizer in hand, we started our constant sanitation process that occurred the remainder of our trip.  Greg said, “it’s a really good thing you made those sandwiches because the mountain is not serving hot food in an attempt to avoid crowds.”  We were refreshing our feeds on the ski resorts every second to make sure we were still ok to make the trip.  The drive was like a walk in the park compared to the last time we did this when we white knuckled the steering wheel and the highway shut down due to bad weather.  Hmmm…starting to see a pattern of bad luck on these trips!!

We made our way to Frisco, CO for a late lunch at Greco’s Pastaria.  The owner is a friend of Brian’s and it’s quite possibly becoming a tradition for us to stop there en route to Breck.  Although it seemed unusually vacant in town, we had a great meal and ski resorts were still open. Sidenote: The Italian Wontons and Red Sangria are absolutely amazing if you’re in Frisco.  Still dreaming of when I might get to have that plate of amazing again.  They are hand-made from scratch every morning and I’m wondering if he would ship them to Lenexa, KS!?  I’m certain it’s a secret family recipe that could never be shared.

We arrived in Breck, checked into our respective hotels, and loaded our gear into the rooms.

Just after this photo was taken and one refresh of the Breckenridge ski resort website later, our worst fear had come true.  The Ski Resort was closing as of the next morning for 1 week out of an “abundance of caution.”  How many times have we read and heard that phrase  over the last week?  It’s part of our normal vocabulary now.

Frantically we are all scouring our phones for other ski resorts.  Maybe others are still open?  Maybe we can go night skiing?  We jumped in the car and went to Keystone to try to get on the slopes for the night skiing session.  While they were still allowing people to ski that were already on the mountain, they would not rent equipment to those who were not already there suited up.  So, that plan failed.  It was a great idea though!  We went back to Breck and I was determined to make the best of this situation.  Right outside our window, we spotted a sledding hill so we jumped on that opportunity.  We had the best time and I laughed and laughed and laughed.  For some reason, watching your kids fly down an icy hill and repeatedly slam into a fence while rounding the corner was actually funny.  Maybe we were delirious.

Morgan worked so hard on this wall barrier to try to help with the slamming into the fence!!

Colorado is really the most beautiful place!

We enjoyed dinner out with a constant sanitation process! and we came back to the room still holding out hope that maybe we could ski Copper Mountain.  It was still open, but by 10pm all the surrounding resorts were closed so we did a group brainstorming of things we could still do in this beautiful place we drove 10 hours to see.  Collin and Jake led the discussion with brochures from the lobby.And ate a ton of snacks of course!!  We come prepared….I have teenage boys on this trip!

We all agreed on a snow mobiling excursion and Greg got us all booked for the next afternoon.  Go Team!

You could see a little bit of sadness in peoples eyes or perhaps a bit of “I’m lost” as we walked around the town the next morning.  The slopes were closed and that is the primary reason most people come here!  We did a little bit of shopping and then ventured about an hour away to our snow mobiling destination.

Our guide was Steve.  He was a talker!  I discovered his best friend lived in Olathe and worked at Hallmark all his life (he was moved to tears talking about him!!) His son was an insurance agent in Lawrence, he lives in Silverthorne, he’s divorced, and he had toured a big group of high school boys that morning from Olathe, KS and on and on!  We had a great time and although, it’s not skiing or snowboarding, it’s something we can check off our bucket list!We stopped at a tubing spot and despite my fear of careening down an icy mountain on a tube, I managed to overcome it and it was quite fun!  Between the tubing and the race track portion, those were the favorites for the group.  I also really loved the Aspen trees.  Gorgeous!!

By the time we made the hour drive back to Breck, we were so hungry!We ventured out to find some food (burgers and shakes of course!) and it was at that point that we realized that it was not the same.  Everything was pretty vacant.  Shops and restaurants were closing and it was not a happy feeling.  When you feel like you’re now the only one in the hotel and the ski racks look like this….It’s time to head home!  On the way home we stopped at the New Jerusalem Badlands State Park in Oakley, KS for one last bit of spring break fun.  I had heard about it from a few people and Collin loves an adventure like this.  I’m so glad we made this stop.  This is a gem right in the middle of western Kansas!

Sometimes life doesn’t always go as planned but we certainly made lemonade out of lemons on this adventure!!  Don’t worry….we’ll be back to the mountains!  And as my funny twin brother would say…we’ll be “shredding the slopes duuuude” when the time is right.

Much love to my adventure crew…love you guys!!