Going Platinum

OK – a few random things to cover for the month of April! After Snowbasin we made our way back to the Cottonwood Heights area. We pet sat for two very adorable and cuddly cavapoos that maybe weighed 10 pounds combined. Great petsit overall – easy dogs, nice house, good location, and lots of games including a bumper pool table. Snackbox even made a new friend, and discovered a new favorite store – Big Deals Outlet. We went to Mystique Dining – a 5-course dinner followed by 45-minutes of close-up, at-the-table magic by Jacob Jax, who took a hiatus from performing in Las Vegas to do this show for a week. There were only 8 of us in the dinner/showroom, and our seats were next to the magician.

We continued to ski of course. Late March through mid-April is really the best time to ski – the days are longer, ski resorts and backcountry areas are virtually empty, avalanche risk is lower, and you can ski tour in a tank top 🙂 One day we went to the place JD & Tim built their igloo and it was still standing strong two weeks later! We spent the weekend a little closer to SLC before making our way back to Deer Valley for a repeat petsit to finish our time in Utah. Jeremy checked out Woodward to work on his backflip skills, and I worked on flipping my ski gear for next season.

We spent our final ski week in Silverthorne, CO petsitting two dogs. The highlight of this petsit was the dog door – big fan of houses with dog doors. The first afternoon we skied with Lauren & Natan and after that JD embarked on ‘big objective’ mode. He was able to find two takers and knocked two ski lines off his list – Cadillac in Montezuma w/Jon and JChute w/Tom for ski day #100. To celebrate another fun ski season and Jeremy’s birthday, we made our way to Nozawa for teppanyaki and Sierra Trading for everything from clothes to essentials for camping.

Birthday! Jeremy really only wants one thing for his birthday – to camp and play in the snow. This year his birthday fell on a Saturday, so were able to spend our final night camping. In the past we’ve stayed in huts/shacks, but this year we decided to explore a new area and build a basic snow shelter/cave. Doing ‘snow’ activities in late April is great (for me) because it is even warmer, but it also means you need to go to higher elevations and may need to hike. We filled our packs and hiked/ski toured the 3.5 miles to our camp area. It was really a beautiful day to be outside. We made our snow cave/shelter which entailed digging a large hole in the ground big enough for our two sleeping bags plus an entryway to help block wind. We put our skis and poles above the hole as a base for the ’emergency tent’ (aka piece of plastic) I bought at Sierra for $5. We made a campfire in the snow, and Jeremy even built out seating and stairs for easy access to our sleeping area. The next morning we did a little ski tour before packing up our things to ski/hike back to the truck. That night we made our way to Denver to continue the celebration with friends, wash clothes, and pack up Beefy to make our way to Nebraska to pick up the camper!

Season stats: This winter season we had a mix of petsitting and hotels. We’ve been on the road five months (11/27/24-4/27/25), of which we spent two months petsitting; 2.5 months in hotels/AirBnB and 2 weeks in the camper/staying with friends/family and driven about 5,600 miles between travel destinations. We skied in 7 states and at four new ski resorts together (Killington-VT, Windham-NY, Blue Mountain-PA, Sun Valley-ID).

Crowning achievement? Going Platinum. In those two months I’ve achieved elite status in the finest of hotel chains – Wyndham, Choice Hotels, and Best Western. With this top tier status we get perks like being able to checkout an hour later, two bottles of microplastics, and even elite parking spots near the door.