More Colorado Mountain Towns: Vail & Breckenridge

July 1, 2015September 1, 2022 - Julie @ A Life Exotic 7 Comments

After our brief dip back into Utah to visit Arches National Park, the next leg of our roadtrip itinerary took us straight across Colorado, from its western border to Denver.

We moseyed eastward along Route 70 and took the time to check out a few of the towns that top even Telluride in the ski-town hall of fame.

Vail and Breckenridge were both really neat stops in their own right, but were nearly impossible to photograph nicely at this time of year. With ski season due to start any day (but Mother Nature lagging considerably behind), the grass was brown and the trees were bare, without that first beautiful redeeming snowfall to pretty things up.

In fact, I have so few good photos that this should probably be a Roadtrip Postcards post… but the title was already long enough.

As with Telluride, Vail and Breck were almost ghostly in how quiet and empty they were. We were able to wander freely, spending a few hours in each before moving on down the road.

I loved the Alpine feel of Vail, differentiated from all the other picturesque little Colorado towns nestled between soaring peaks by beautiful timbered architecture and a distinct Euro vibe.

As an unexpected bonus, we ate lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint attached to the public parking garage… and it was some of the best Mex I’ve ever had. I even checked with the resident smartypants.

Made a new friend in Vail. He’s a pretty smart cookie.

A photo posted by Julie (@alifeexotic) on Nov 7, 2014 at 1:03pm PST

Breckenridge was only about forty minutes down the highway from Vail and provided the perfect setting for us to walk off all those tacos.

I’m pretty sure I saw more Subarus during our few hours in Breck than I did during our entire year in London. It was heaven (and oh, past Julie, just wait until you get to Oregon!).

Just when we started to hit the afternoon slump, we found the official winner of Most Adorable Starbucks in the Whole Entire World.

I either want to live in that Starbucks or turn it into an old-timey post office. #dreamsmall

Despite the lack of summer greenery or pristine winter snow, the Rockies provide an incredible backdrop to this mountain town.

(Fun fact: these mountains are technically the Tenmile Range, which is part of the Mosquito Range, which is part of the Rockies. The Tenmile Range is home to Pacific Tarn, which at over 13,000 ft / over 4000 m is the highest named lake in the US. Who doesn’t love a good tarn?)

We stuck to observing the mountains rather than heading up into them, but I’m sure we would have found legions of support had we decided to venture upwards. These people take their ski culture seriously!

As with Vail’s amazing Mexican grub, Breckenridge gave us an unexpected gift in the form of the Mecca of all tea shops, and the best pair of socks I’ve ever owned. Amity and I each bought a pair and I don’t know that all our toes would have survived the rest of the roadtrip without them.

Breckenridge sent us off into the sunset with a wave and an unbelievable cloud display.

Breck break 🗻 A photo posted by Julie (@alifeexotic) on Nov 7, 2014 at 7:26pm PST

Denver, here we come!

Arches National Park, Utah

May 28, 2015September 1, 2022 - Julie @ A Life Exotic 15 Comments

Hello hello! First, a few pieces of housekeeping:

I’ve created a new page on the blog called Roadtrip USA so that all of these posts are organized and easily accessible in one place. It even has a fun clickable map like the London page, so you can follow along and watch our trail progress! I’ll be adding posts to the map as they go up, but if you want to see our entire itinerary, you can find it HERE.
I did a little interview feature with a travel community site called Bohemian Birds – check it out here.

Now back to the good stuff!

I know I waxed poetic about leaving the desert for the mountains when we entered Colorado, but we had one last desert adventure up our sleeves! After our jaunt through Telluride and a much-needed steam in the hot springs of Ouray, we dipped our toes back into Utah for an afternoon.

Destination? Arches National Park, a “red rock wonderland” outside of Moab and home to over 2000 naturally-formed sandstone arches. It was hot and dry without a cloud in the sky (rhyme – heyo!) and, as was the pattern during this off-season trip, there were very few other visitors in the park with us.

We meandered our way (in Kokapelli, of course) along the twisting main road, stopping for quick side walks whenever something struck our fancy.

Though the arches are the namesake and the main draw of the park, the place is home to plenty of other amazing geological features carved into the red sandstone, named imaginatively for more familiar structures they resemble. The National Park Service website has a great explanation of the science behind the formation of arches here.

The Three Gossips (center) and Courthouse Towers (right):

Balanced Rock:

I’m told (by Wikipedia) that the upper rock is about as big as three school buses!

The natural sandstone structure is so precarious that, inevitably, it will someday fall (as will all of the arches). There’s something sort of poetic about understanding and accepting how temporary everything in this park is (cheesy but true?).

North and South Window (confession time: I don’t remember which is which):

Turret Arch:

And of course, the main event – Delicate Arch, a.k.a. Cowboy Chaps:

There is another hiking trail which will take you right up to the base of Delicate Arch and give you a vantage point to get those epic NatGeo-esque photos (see here), but we had plans to get back across the Colorado border before nightfall (and the sun was pretty blistering), so we had to opt out of that side trek.

We did make a little friend in the Delicate Arch parking lot, though.

“You’re gonna get some hop-ons.”

A photo posted by Julie (@alifeexotic) on Nov 7, 2014 at 6:33am PST

Though there are literally thousands of arches and features to explore throughout the nearly eighty thousand acres of the park, the main impression I got was of vast emptiness.

I love the contrast of the flat red plains with snowcapped peaks way off in the distance. The epitome of “wide open spaces,” eh?

The last view we had as we approached the exit was of the Fiery Furnace, growing redder as the sun dipped lower.

Another win for the NPS, I’d say! Next time, we’re back in Colorado and on to more mountain adventures.

The Details: $10 entry fee per vehicle | Open year-round | Website HERE

New Year, New York

May 3, 2015September 1, 2022 - Julie @ A Life Exotic 4 Comments

File this one away as another long overdue life update. Sooo… remember that time I said I was moving to California?

It turns out that the state of California had no interest in employing me (not actually the State – I’m speaking symbolically here). On the other hand, my dear old native New York was willing to welcome me back with ~~open arms~~ the nastiest winter in history.

And so I find myself here:

Three months in to a new job and new life in New York City and already, the city has morphed into a completely different entity than the one I visited growing up. It feels totally different living here, and as I predicted in that old flashblack post, a bit odd – I’m now so much more familiar with London than I am with New York, but the balance will inevitably shift.

I’m also experiencing different parts of the city than I did when I used to visit from upstate. I rarely leave Brooklyn on the weekends, and I haven’t been to Central Park in months. I’m trying to focus on settling in and not comparing it to London too much (although trading the tube for the subway has been a particularly devastating blow – yuck).

Overall, I appreciate being at the beginning of a new chapter that will let me explore somewhere new, which was exactly what I wanted. The fact that it’s a city close to where I grew up and with which I was already vaguely familiar only makes it more of an enticing challenge to find excitement and adventure in the daily routine – “a life exotic” and all that, you know.

And I’m not complaining about the view…

Expect the rest of the roadtrip posts coming your way soon before we start exploring New York. Lots more to cover there… we haven’t even gotten to the van breakdowns yet!