christmas vacation recap

this christmas vacation is one of the best in recent memory. we showed up in colorado springs on monday afternoon, to a welcomingly warm home and meal at my grandparents place. we had the added surprise of my cousin herb and his wife, mary, showing up for dinner too. the last time i could remember seeing herb was sometime before i went off to the marines back in 1988. it was strange to see him just under 20 years later and see some of the same mannerism and personality that i remember in a body much older. i’ll be honest and say that some of the same bitterness that i remember him having as a teenager was still present. some things never change.

my grandparents, on the other hand, could not have been better. they both looked well, and my grandfather was in rare form. he was throwing out some of the cheesiest puns and cracking some of the worst jokes. it was perfect. tim and i just fed off of it and we just kept cracking joke after joke. we spent quite a bit of time just hanging out with my grandparents, talking about memories we had, telling old stories and playing games. i really enjoy just sitting with them and listening to them talk about their lives together, their lives in the church and their lives with their family. there is such a wealth of wisdom in the things they have to say.

on wednesday, i finally got up early enough to put in another run. i found it really hard to try to get up early enough to head out and put in any mileage. in order to put in the runs i wanted to do, i had to get up at zero-dark-thirty in the morning, run in the sub-freezing cold, in a city that was totally foreign. on tuesday, i had read an article in the local paper stating that runners world magazine had rated colorado springs the 8th (?) best place to run in the nation. i’d have to disagree. maybe i wasn’t finding the good trails or neighborhoods to run in, but none of the streets had a bike lane or wide shoulder, and only about half of the streets had sidewalks. it made for a treacherous run in the pre-dawn hours. anyway, i put in 7 miles and felt pretty good, despite being covered with frost by the end of the run.

later that day we headed into denver to visit with a good friend of jeannies and took a nice tour of the denver area. we also spent some time walking around the downtown area and shopping. it was cold, but a wonderful day. we also made a point of picking up all the real estate guides for the area…you never know!

we left on thursday morning and headed through the rockies instead of taking the southern route that we’d driven in on. the drive to grand junction, which normally only takes about 4 hours, ended up taking about 9. it was snowing as we went through the eisenhower tunnel, and traffic through all the passes was thick, but the drive was pretty un-eventful. we ate lunch in vail at a nice little soup shop, and stopped in grand junction for dinner, but other than that, we drove straight through on the way back, listening to a couple really bad books on cd to pass the time.

so, winding up the vacation today, after an 8 mile run this morning with ken and a little football watching. this has been one of the best vacations in recent memory. lots of time spent with family, lots of time spent with wonderful friends, and lots of time spent with my amazing wife. it couldn’t have been any better. hope your christmas was just as grand!

Posted by jeff at January 2, 2005 12:14 PM