We were planning on waking up at 4:30 and heading out at 5:30, but yet again we set our alarms for weekdays only! Matt woke up at 5:23 and we were ready in 20 minutes, not too bad! We were up in Leadville just in time to see Steve 1/3 of the way through the course. We hung out in Leadville for an hour or so (it was only 8 am by this time), we were pretty impressed with the town. We knew it was a small mountain town, it was definitely a old western main street!
We stopped at City on a Hill for some coffee and breakfast burritos, definitely recommend it if you're in the area! We came out of the coffee shop to Crum talking to a local:
The road between Copper Mountain and Leadville has some beautiful pull of points, this is possibly the most beautiful spot I've seen in Colorado. Plus it was off the side of the road!
We drove down to Vail to watch Steve 2/3 of the way through the course. We got there just in time - we got some chairs out and only waited about 10 minutes for him to come by. Vail Pass is the most difficult pass, so that took some time to get down to Copper.
We found a bar 20 yards from the finish line, so we ordered some beers and cheered on the crowd. Once Steve finished the ride, we headed back to Vail since we were spending the night there. We stayed at the Vail Marriott and were very impressed! Some of our friends work at Marriott and got us a great discount of $84/night (normally $199 in the summer). It's about a 5 minute walk from the Eagle Bahn Gondola in Lionshead. There was a small outdoor whirlpool/hot tub so we hung out there for the afternoon until it was time for dinner.
We took the free bus to Tavern on the Gore, which was in Vail Village. It's only about a mile away from Lionshead, but it was pouring rain so we opted for the free ride! The restaurant was an upscale sports bar/restaurant. It had decent food, but if you're looking for a nicer dinner, I would opt for a different restaurant. Once we finished dinner the sun came out and we decided to take the Eagle Bahn Gondola to the top for the sunset. I read online it was $5, how could you pass that up!? It was hard to leave Vail Village, it's so cute!
We got to the ticket booth to buy the gondola tickets to find out that $5 was for kids under 12.. try $21 for adults! The perk was that you got $10 in drink coupons at the bar and restaurant at the top of the mountain. The bar was nothing special, so we grabbed two beers (maxed out on our coupons) and walked around the summit. It was SO beautiful from the top with the sun setting! There was even a small seating area for about 150 people for a wedding ceremony. Talk about a beautiful wedding (and expensive!).
The next morning we just ate at the Marriott and headed back to Denver. We loved the town and it was surprisingly very active during the summer. It was so nice to walk around a ski town and not be freezing the whole time!!
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