notes from a mountain town
Tue 2014-12-02 23:46:49 (in context)
As mentioned before, I'm in Avon, Colorado for the week. This is a little town just down the highway from Vail, in Eagle County. Given its nature as a ski resort/mountain town, it has certain peculiarities which I feel moved to mention at this time.
First off there is no straight line path to anywhere. Even if you can see the building you want to get to, there's no "as the crow flies" route from where you're standing. All the streets curve, and many of them have large traffic circles at their intersections. I'm pretty sure I've unnecessarily doubled the length of my trip between points A and B, for any given points A and B, by choosing to walk the long way around intermediary landmark C when it looked like it would be the short way around. It's very hard to gauge these things, especially when what looks like a direct route turns out to involve a six-foot drop or a near-insurmountable pile of snow.
And speaking of snow: Every day since I arrived has been sunny and warm, or at least sunny and warmer than you'd expect from a prediction of highs in the low 40s. I looked at the forecast before I left Boulder, and I thought, "Sunny and warm-ish, at least until mid-week. I'll bring my skates." But the problem with street skating in Avon in early December is this: it may not be snowing now, but it has snowed. And that previous snow is still hanging around, melting. And depositing mud and truly malicious gravel at every cross road.
Which is the long way of saying that my trip home from the library yesterday was--uncharacteristically, given how much I love skating--not particularly fun. But I did get a good toe-stop workout out of it. And I only fell once. Go me!
Meanwhile, have some pictures of the place where I'm staying. I'm at the Christie Lodge, which is unusual, but there was nothing available at the Sheraton Mountain Vista that I could take advantage of, so here I am. The Christie Lodge is much more convenient to Loaded Joe's, which I'm sure I'll appreciate on karaoke night when I will no doubt stumble back to my room late, tired and tipsy. It's also closer to the grocery store, which I have already had occasion to appreciate.
On the other hand, its layout is weird. It feels a little bit like staying in a long, narrow shopping mall made to look a little bit like an outdoor retail village. And it is built on a slope. This is obvious at all times. There is only one set of elevators at the center of the arc, near the lobby, and unless you are very lucky your trek from the elevator to your second-floor room at any distance down the east or west concourse will involve a half-flight of stairs. Maybe two. This is no fun at check-in.
Even some of the first floor rooms are inaccessible to wheelchairs. There are ramps for getting from one level of first-floor concourse to the next, but then you get to your room and there's a four-step rise to the door. It just looks like the architects, designers, somebody wasn't wearing their best thinking cap when attempting to solve the problem of building on a slope. Or maybe their target demographic is exclusively able-bodied enjoyers of snow sports, I don't know.
On the positive side, here is one of the things that the odd layout makes almost too convenient: Pho 20, their newest in-resort restaurant. It's practically right below me. I am no judge of how authentic a particular restaurant's pho is, but I can tell you that it was yummy and warm and filling, and the spring rolls were tasty too. I have been very, very good about eating most of my meals in the room--salads, instant noodle bowls in the microwave, omelets in the electric skillet--but Pho 20 is right there, beckoning.
Maybe tomorrow.
I'm so lucky. I could have been assigned a room on the Subway Sandwiches end of the resort.