Andy's cousin, Scott, said that it was crazy in the village for closing day so we weren't sure where to park. When the pay lots fill up they let you park on the street but at noon, when we got there, they were still packing people into them. It's $25 to park in one of these lots. Andy headed to the valet lot where it was $35 to have them park our car in the garage or $45 a VIP spot near the exit. Andy let us get ready in that lot then he went off to find a spot on the street and met up with us later.
We headed up to the top to get a run in and to get over to the lift where we would all meet up. Here is the sign at the top Welcoming everyone to opening day.
The whole point is to dress a little crazy. Most people have on grass skirts and leis or beads. But some people go above and beyond and actually wear costumes but you never know if they're contestants for the Pond Skim.
This is the first time that I've skied without a jacket. My closing day outfit. (Thanks for the tri-pod dad!)
And no I'm not wearing jeans, those are my rockin' Gortex denim snowboarding pants. Sheila said that there were some resorts that had 'No Denim' signs for closing weekend but that wasn't the case at Vail. Lots of people were wearing regular jeans or jean shorts.
While I was watching the gear while Pete made a quick pit stop I saw this cool snow structure. It was filled with what looked like ski rental returns and as the sign shows it's for employees only, even thought I don't think that little girl is old enough to work.
Now that we were all back together we took a run and headed back up again. I think the rules were a little lax for closing day because usually you aren't allowed to drink on the lift, people do but you never get on at the bottom with an open beer or get off at the top with one, this was not the case today. This is the trash can at the top of one of the peaks.
It's so nice to have someone to hang out with again. Sheila and I had a good laugh over this guy. I don't think he found us laughing at his outfit amusing but we sure did.
Here's a shot of everyone on the mountain.
We stopped to take some video, unfortunately the one with Pete and Andy didn't come out. Something was majorly wrong with my phone yesterday. A lot of my pictures came out black and I'm missing at least 3 videos. Here is the only one that it managed to keep.
I said in an earlier post that they renamed the International trail at Vail after Lindsey Vonn. Here is the sign that proves it. I'm really lucky that Andy pointed it out or I never would have realized.
So we finally made it to Golden Peak where all the festivities were taking place. Andy wanted a pic in front of the pond skim crowd. For closing day he was rocking his onesie.
Here is a shot up the course
We took the kiddie lift up to the top for a better view
It was a pretty big crowd. Much bigger than Steamboat
I think that the funniest thing that I saw there was when a guy dressed as a cow made it all the way across, it's much harder here since there is a kicker (jump) at the end, all the other people dressed as cows in the crowed came charging to the front. There had to be a good 20 people.
Since we were standing by the starting gate we got to have a look at the contestants costumes. There was a lot of animals, in this shot a shark, a giraffe and a rabbit.
This was my favorite, the penguin. Now you can't tell from the shot but that is a guy wearing ladies bikini bottoms. In the end his costume got the best of him and he had a nasty wipeout.
And someone even had pyrotechnics
We were waiting for the guys and I saw this group of people. Someone, not me, asked him about the suits and he had the best response. They were from the 2010 Versace collection and it was impossible to get a hold of them. That made me laugh and when he turned and saw me laughing the least I could do was back up the story so I said I saw them on the runway during fashion week. They even had a lady in their group with a matching dress.
We headed over to 'The George' to have a drink and get a bite to eat. It was a long day and all we had been snacking on was cookies.
Pete and I split the George burger, it was pretty good, the onions on the burger could have been sweeter. See one Martha onion lesson and I'm an expert but Pete agreed.
We headed over to Andy & Sheila's when we were done eating. They have a spot like we do, right on the water.
And we even got a nice sunset over Breckenridge
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