Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A weekend in Angel Fire.

Last weekend (Feb. 11 & 12), I went skiing with a group of the other interns and some of their friends from Santa Fe at Angel Fire Resort. It was my first time skiing in two years (Northern California didn't any good snow this winter), and I had a blast! It was also a really good time to get to know the other interns beyond just passing each other in the office.


1 & 2: First views of the slopes from the lodge.
3 & 4: Gorgeous views from the slopes.
5 & 6: I skied until the lifts closed!
7 & 8: The resort at the base of the slopes, where we stayed for free in the press rooms! Score!

Angel Fire is about two hours from Santa Fe, so we drove up after work on Friday. We checked into our (comped!) rooms and went out to find some grub. That was quite the adventure; everything in the town was closed. Apparently it shuts down around 9 p.m. It is a small mountain town, so that's a little understandable, but it was a Friday night! We finally went back to the restaurant in the hotel, which we had been avoiding to save some money, and even they told us they were no longer serving food. Finally, we were saved by a nice man from the restaurant who offered to put some pizzas in the oven for us, and they gave us 25 percent off our tab for "our trouble." I personally thought they were the ones who had to go through the trouble of getting us food, but I didn't complain!

Saturday morning, we hit the slopes! I skied on my own most of the day, trying to get my ski legs back. Every now and then I would run into another group and do one or two runs with them. I skied until the lifts closed and went back to the hotel, where everyone was ready to hit the bar at the lodge. Angel Fire had hosted "Shovel Races" earlier in the day, and the winners were being announced at the lodge bar that afternoon. We had dinner at the resort again and then headed out to Zeb's, which I'm guessing was the town's only bar. There were some pretty fun people in our group, and the boys didn't waste any time getting out on the (empty) dance floor. The DJ played a fun mix of songs that reminded us of our 7th grade school dances and Latin music. As we were leaving the bar a few hours later, an older man actually stopped me and said he and his girlfriend wanted to thank us for making the dance scene so lively that night. Even the next morning, some girls in our group were stopped in the hotel by an employee who had been at Zeb's, who thanked them for the dance lessons we provided. Mission accomplished.

On Sunday, I debated between skiing again or letting my legs rest. I did have a free lift ticket, but I would have had to rent skis again, so there was a budgetary concern. I decided to give my lift ticket to another boy in the group, who wasn't from the magazine and therefore didn't have a complimentary pass, and relaxed with two of the other girls by the fireplace in the resort all morning. I read my book and thought how fortunate it was that I hadn't skied a second day because my legs would have screamed in protest. Around lunchtime, we headed out and stopped at Guadalajara Grill in Taos on the way home. I highly recommend it for a post-skiing lunch! Yum.

Sorry for the long post, but it was my first weekend out in a while, and I had a lot of fun! I can't wait until the next opportunity I have to go skiing!

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