Goat Path warnings are not to be taken lightly.

Sunday morning we tried for our second attempt to head into the mountains. The journey took longer than we thought it would due to the horrible Colorado driving. This is the first state we have encountered that breaks when going both up and down hills, drives 5 under the speed limit and where you magically find yourself in the middle of a traffic jam, only to find a mile ahead that there was absolutely no cause for slowing down.

This being said, our first stop was Breckenridge. This has to be one of the cutest ski towns ever, over populated with bikes and overpriced housing. From the little restaurants and cafes to the ski area, this could potentially be our next home.

From here, with intentions of taking a 'short cut' mountain pass to another high way on our way to Vail, we headed down a goat path called 'Weston Pass'. This pass started out as a friendly dirt road off of the highway where all of the people you passed smiled and waved. Little did we know that they were smiling because they saw our license plate said NH and we were in a weighted down CRV with roof carrier. They knew what we were getting into... we didnt. Although Marc looks back at this decision with a chuckle, this is where we differ. As the path ascended, the road slowly turned to rocks (and not pretty cobblestones, mind you) and we started to wonder why the only vehicles we passed were jeeps, trucks and quads... It was about 20 minutes after this realization that it started to rain, the 'road' bbecame narrow and we started to bottom out. It wasnt until 2 long hours that we saw civilization, our cell phones regained service, and I actually started beleiving Marc when he repeated 'we arent going to die'. (By the way, this sign wasnt until 1/2 of the pass was complete and there was no way of turning around). Lesson learned: When you look at a map and see a small yellow detour road outlined with dotted lines... take the long way.

After this near death experience, we headed into Vail, which seemed like the entire resort was under construction. Then we explored Copper Mountain and headed into Frisco and ate at the Back Country Brewery, where they had the most delicious roasted pear and spinach salad and again, great beers.

Knowing we were going to run into some more traffic heading back into the city, we detoured off the highway to travel through Keystone and explore the A-basin, both are extremly beautiful, but I highly dont recommend the shortcut through the ski areas if you are like me and still experiencing altitude sickness!! (Which I didnt know until then was what I had been feeling all day.) The drive, however, was well worth it for the pictures of the ending storm and the views.