Colorado Hopscotch

We dropped off the camper we made our way to the mountains of Colorado! Our first stop was Winter Park for a week. We skied, took advantage of our AirBnB’s board games and kitchen, and saw friends in the area. One afternoon we stopped for a drink in the lodge at the lodge and found our friend Jeff’s canned cocktails as an option! Jeff was one of the people that inspired us to make our own whiskey, and he owns a great distillery/bar/restaurant, Idlewild Spirits, you should definitely check out if you find yourself in Winter Park.

Our next stop was Aspen for a week-long pet sit less than 1 mile from the Aspen Buttermilk resort. We both used all seven of our Aspen Ikon ski days, and made it to each of the four Aspen resorts at least once. Aspen has a great local bus service that picked us up steps from the front door. Our pet friend for the week was an easygoing 11-year old lab mix Daisy. When we skied Aspen a couple of years ago I didn’t really see the appeal, but now that we’ve skied a lot more places I see the allure: There are over 7,000 acres of terrain, and no one goes there to ski. Most people are taking lessons or are there to ski one run in a cute outfit before heading to the lodge. Good skiers only go out on powder days, and they only want to ski Highland Bowl. Which ultimately means there are about 6,000 acres of empty terrain, most of which are at Aspen Snowmass (my favorite of the four resorts).

We also celebrated Hanukkah in Aspen with our travel menorah and pastrami and rye bread from Katz’s Deli in NY. Our pet sit family gets the same gift box shipped to them every year and generously offered to share some of it with us.

We left Aspen on the 31st and closed out 2024 and started off 2025 with a 4-night pet sit in Dillon, CO. I was originally a little worried about this one because it was 3 dogs and a cat, but it worked out nicely! We occasionally get some interesting requests pet sitting, and this was no exception. Our instructions for the 18 year old cat were to play “cat videos on YouTube without ads – she hates ads.” The smallest of the three dogs wore homemade diapers with a cut out for her tail (a bit ridiculous, but pretty adorable) and all three dogs needed to be tucked in at night with their blankets. Fun fact: In 2024 we spent 141 nights petsitting (149 including overlap); so about 40% of the year!

The first two weeks of January are slow for vacationing/pet sitting, so we spent a couple of weeks staying in different hotels around Summit county. We got in a few days at one of our regular spots the Super 8 and tried a few new options including an AirBnB, the Luxury Inn & Suites and the Ramada. And a trip to the Colorado mountains would not be complete without spending a night or two catching up with the Karsh’s in Vail! We saw our friends that live in the area and checked out the new bars and restaurants. Jeremy has been consistently getting in his ski days and he got to take out the “sleds” (snowmobiles) with Tim as well. One afternoon Jeremy and I even swapped our skis for a run – or as Jeremy called it “tiny ski day!”

Don’t forget to check out our map to keep track of our travels between blog posts! Our 2024/25 stops are in gray.