Caution, Slow Vacationers Ahead

One of the reasons we picked Breckenridge for a summer getaway instead of, say, Vail or other Colorado mountain town is that it has a "summer fun park." That way we’d have something to do if the kids got bored with hiking to just another gobsmackingly stunning location. Plus, it kept one of us adults from spending way too much time watching the debt ceiling negotiations on TV. I probably need not mention here which adult was so inclined but I will say that I attribute it to the patriotic zeal of newly-minted citizenship. Because otherwise it’s just weird.

So, off we went one morning to the summer fun park. One cool thing about it is the Gondola ride up the mountain to the park. The Gondola is “free” (if you don’t count the $70 per person for the all-day park pass) and it’s pretty impressive – crossing over the main road and making stops and turns at various resorts on the way up.

After getting our tickets, we headed for the newest attraction at the park, a roller coaster that you ride down the mountain. You hop into individual cars that carry you to the top. You then have brakes to control the speed of your vehicle as you plunge back down the mountain. We could see the people ahead of us hurtle past with shrieks of exhilarated glee on their way down.

Here is one of the cars containing a person who would have dearly loved to hurtle down the mountain shrieking with exhilarated glee.

Alas, the blurriness of the photo wasn’t caused by the blazing speed of the ride. To the contrary, it was because crammed into my car with me was another nearly full-sized person who refused to ride by himself or to man the brakes. In a moving roller coater, unable to take a breath, holding a camera in one hand and a brake lever in the other while someone is screaming at you “DON’T GO TOO FAST, MOM!” does not yield the best photographic results.

Needless to say, we did not hurtle. We were the people who aggravate everyone else by going really, really slow so that the people behind us (including some vociferously complaining family members of our own) had to go really, really slow too. Yes, we were those people. But, we did go faster on our second ride and were all primed to become speed demons on our next adventure: the Alpine Slide. There it is in the distance.

Once again, I found myself in a too-small car containing two too-big persons and holding the brake, but I was determined that we would hurtle this time, darn it. We were on a simple sled in a low-tech chute built right on the ground – what could go wrong? [Please stop here and try to imagine 2 people in this sled.]

Well, we were flying down the track when Julie – who was in front of us -- came to a complete stop. There was an injured chipmunk on the track in front of her and, bless her gentle animal-loving soul, she absolutely would not squash it further with her sled. This resulted in traffic jam beside us akin to I95 in the wake of a jack-knifed tractor trailer. We were becoming those people again.

The guy directly behind us started urging Julie to just keep going. After he realized she was too principled to cave into that kind of bad influence, he next urged her to move it off the track. Now, dear readers, would you allow your 11 year old child pick up an injured chipmunk? Or, more to the point, would you suggest to someone else’s child that they pick up an injured chipmunk? I wouldn’t. I’m still traumatized – and I am not making this up -- by a childhood chipmunk biting incident (it bit Dianne, not me). Moreover, I couldn’t help with the chipmunk since I was wedged so tightly into the sled by the almost full-sized person sitting in front/on top of me that it would have taken the jaws of life to get me out of that thing. Finally, to break the stalemate, the guy climbed out of his car and flipped the poor maimed chipmunk off the track. But our reputation as those people was sealed.

Undaunted, we struck out for new activities like the giant maze -- which was a lot harder than it looked. Daniel was determined, though, and hurtled through it in no time. Then he had to go back in and help me escape.

And panning for gems -- which was a lot easier than it looked since they gave you a large bag-full of sand and gems. It was really more like sifting than panning.