Stephens' Stories: First road trip to mountains

Last weekend we hit the road to Steamboat Springs, which is 3 hours from Denver. The plan was to leave Denver around 1pm on Friday. I mentioned in my last post that Austin had his 2 month shots on Thursday. I scheduled his appointment that day because I knew we would be eating in confined spaces with germs at restaurants in Steamboat since it is too cold to sit outside there. Austin had other plans - he got sick. He had some blood in his diaper on Friday morning, a small fever, and a stuffy nose. I called the doctor as soon as I saw the blood and they wanted us to come in. A fever is a fairly common side effect of the vaccinations but blood is not. They could not see him until 3:15 which delayed our departure by 4 hours. I am glad we took him to the doctor before leaving town - for my peace of mind. His exam checked out fine and they took some blood samples, which turned out normal too. He was healthy with the exception of a cold and small fever, which was gone by Saturday morning. The doctor thinks the blood might have actually been a side effect of the rotavirus vaccine so he reported it to the agency that keeps track of that stuff. We hit the road straight from the doctor's office. It is amazing how much stuff there is haul along for such a little baby!

On Friday night we arrived in Steamboat around 8:30. We quickly fed Austin and headed out to grab a bite to eat. He slept the whole car ride and throughout dinner. I was worried he wouldn't sleep that night in the pac 'n play since he had slept all day, but he proved me wrong. He needed to sleep off his cold and fever. The weather on Saturday was not so great - rain/snow all day and pretty cold. Luckily we had a game to watch - a HORRIBLE game at that. We watched most of the game (while Austin did nothing but sleep and eat) before heading out to get a late lunch in town. That afternoon we just hung out at the "chalet" (they call it the "chipmunk chalet" on www.vrbo.com; not sure why). It was a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house that we rented for a good price since it was definitely off-season up there. Not summer, not ski season. It was dead around the town and the ski village is completely closed down. We definitely stood out in town as the tourists; we were surrounded by locals. Later that night, we grabbed dinner at a local pizza restaurant. Apparently it was the 4th annual mustache parade that night. The parade stopped at the restaurant. All of the locals had on fake mustaches and some crazy costumes. I sadly did not get any pictures.

Austin snoozed as the Horns got slaughtered

Where is Savannah?

On Sunday, we went to get breakfast at Freshies, a very yummy restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch. Last time we were in Steamboat we went to Freshies for lunch. David detected the teeny tiny onions (he has an onion radar and won't touch anything that has them) in the hamburger patty so he was hesitant to return. This time he stuck with plain buttermilk pancakes and was pleased. The sun came out around noon, and I went for a 5-mile run around the neighborhood. Although I did not have to push the heavy stroller, the hills were certainly a challenge. Since we did not arrive until late on Friday night, we decided to stay an extra night until Monday morning. That afternoon we went on a walk in the neighborhood and then headed to town to walk around and stop in a few of the shops. We ate BBQ at the local smokehouse and headed back to the chalet to play with Austin since he was feeling much better that day. If the weather had been better and Austin wasn't sick we probably would have gone on a hike. Even though we didn't get to hike, it was just nice to get-away.