Marshal's Bachelor Party- Steamboat Springs, CO

Last weekend I headed to Steamboat Springs, CO for Marshal’s bachelor party. 6 of us headed out there on Wednesday and the remaining 5 guys showed up on Thursday and Friday. Cory and Marshal drove down from Charlotte on Tuesday night and then we headed to the airport EARLY Wednesday morning. When we arrived in Steamboat, we met up with Andy and Kurt came to pick us up. The adventure began with fitting 5 grown men, all of our luggage, 2 snowboards, 1 pair of skis and food for 11 guys for 4 days in a Land Rover. We managed to make it work by strapping luggage to the roof and the back of the car. Our room at the hotel wasn’t ready so we headed to “The Tap House” which is a very popular bar/restaurant and we ended up hanging out there watching basketball, playing foosball and participating in a VERY competitive trivia game. Our trivia team name was “Your Mom” and we came in a respectable third place, which landed Marsh a sweet Tap House T-shirt.

Team "Your Mom"

The next morning we loaded everything in the car, so that we could move it in to the place that we would be staying in for the remainder of the trip (we stayed in a Comfort Inn the first night because there were only 6 of us). 5 of us headed up to the mountain (Marshal, Cory, Kurt, Mike and I) and Andy manned the food and luggage. We had an awesome day on the mountain, we ended up staying in a very small section of the mountain all morning because the snow was awesome and we didn’t see a reason to leave. After eating smashed PB&J that had been in our pockets all day, we made a couple more runs and then headed down the mountain. The craziest part about going from the top of Steamboat to the bottom was that we went from powder at the top to crusty icy conditions in the middle of the mountain and total slush at the bottom. A couple of the guys called it a day when we got to the bottom, but Cory, Marsh and I decided we would spend the rest of the day in the park. Here are some pics:

Cory's first day in the park-pretty impressive

Marshal going big!Kyle

At the end of the day Mike came and picked us up and as we headed back to the resort that we were staying at and he had been at the place all afternoon. The following conversation took place in the car:

Marshal: How is the place?
Mike: Well…
Kyle: What’s wrong with it?
Mike: It’s okay…
Kyle: What is wrong with it?
Mike: It’s not that new…
Kyle: It was built in 2007!!!
Mike: Well they didn’t use the best materials…honestly its kind of “Chinsy”
Kyle: Chinsy??? Seriously??? Take me to the front desk…
Mike: Guys, I’m kidding…the place is AWESOME!

The reason for my strong dialogue with Mike is because I spent at least two weeks looking for the right place at the right price that had the right amenities, etc. So when Mike told me the place was chinsy, I was not happy. Here are some pics of the “Chinsy” place where we stayed:

Our Kitchen

Our Private Outdoor FireplaceOur Private Hot Tub

When we got to the room there were several more guys there and all the guys had brought everything in from the car, including all of our stuff, which was awesome. We spent the first night by the outdoor fireplace, in the hot tub, eating burgers and chicken and just getting to know each other.

The next morning we got up to a dusting of fresh snow and 6 of us headed to the mountain. They were only reporting 1” of new snow, so I was not expecting anything special, but when we got to the top of Storm Peak, it was a white out, the wind was blowing 40mph and the powder in the hike to terrain was knee deep. When we got into the woods, it was the best snow I was ever had! We got fresh tracks all day and we skied REALLY hard. We had more smashed PB&J and frozen granola bars for lunch, but it didn’t really matter because it was such an incredible day on the mountain!

Cory, Mike and Kyle on the lift

Cory, Kyle, Chris, Kurt, Mike and Marshal in the POWDER

Mike "Glunk" getting some nice air!

Kyle dropping off a little rockMarsh and "Glunk" Collided

We headed back to the house at the end of the day and the shuttle driver asked, “Where are you guys headed tonight?” Kurt said the driver, “Our place is WAY too nice to go out anywhere!” and we all agreed… When we got home, we all hopped in the hot tub and the chefs, Cory and Kurt, cooked for us for about the next 3 hours.

Kyle and Andy eating Lasagna and Cream Cheese Bagels...MMMM!

The next morning we talked Andy into strapping on a board and Marsh and I spent the morning teaching him and at the same time messing around and taking some pretty good falls ourselves. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day so we spent the afternoon cruising on the groomers and spending time in the park. We finished up the day by picking up a few t-shirts for our ladies and then grabbing some beers at the slopeside bar, where they had live music and an awesome outdoor seating area.

Kyle and Andy on the hill

When we got back, we packed up all of the guys and we headed to a natural hot spring that was about 20 minutes away. These hot springs are what originally gave Steamboat Springs its name because when the pioneers were coming up the valley, they saw steam rising up and thought that there was a river with a steamboat. When they explored further, they realized that the steam was coming from the springs and so the town was named Steamboat Springs…

ANYWAY…we went to the hot springs and there were three different temperature “pools” that captured the water that came from the natural hot spring that people could soak in. All of the pools had seats built in around the edge and they had crushed gravel on the bottom which felt AWESOME on tired feet. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and there was very little light, so we could see approximately 1 gabillion stars. When we got back, we went to a cool bar, called Tugboat and they had a live band and some pretty good Nachos.

The next morning we got up EARLY and headed to the airport and we immediately entered the twilight zone. The reason we were calling it the twilight zone is because so many ridiculous things happened that we couldn’t believe it. Because this post is ridiculously long, I am going to list the things that happened instead of writing paragraphs.

1) We tried to check in and they could not find any of our itineraries
2) When they did find our itineraries, they told us that we were spending the night in Houston
3) We argued with them and then they told us that our flight was cancelled
4) We got to our gate and the woman that was tearing tickets was quite possibly the most unpleasant human being ever…seriously…I personally saw her YELL at kids, parents with small children, old people and foreigners…and that was in about 5 minutes.
5) We ended up in first class, but the guy that sat next to me decided to talk constantly, steal my ESPN magazine, ask 32045566 questions about my ipod and tell me how great the food was on the plane.
6) When we got to Houston we got in the “preferred status” line, which ended up taking 3 times as long as the normal line because the ticket woman was incompetent.
7) She finally got us booked on a flight to Greenville, SC because the ATL airport was closed and then told us that it was boarding in 45 minutes.
8) We had to go to baggage claim, get our luggage, take it upstairs, check it again, go through security, ride a bus to a different terminal and get to the gate.
9) We had 5 minutes to spare so we decided to get a snack and a drink and the woman checking us out evidently had NEVER used a cash register before and it took 4.5 minutes for her to count our 11 dollars.
10) The woman behind us in line was sweating, breathing heavy, pacing, tapping her toe and looking over my shoulder….why? you ask…because she just HAD to have her People magazine. Lady, if you are that late for your flight, skip the magazine…
11) I got upgraded to what I thought was “first class” because I was in row 2, actually I was wedged in a single seat row, right next to the drink cart.
12) A woman came on the plane freaking out about being in row 12 and how she was so claustrophobic and the plane was so small, etc. so I volunteered to give up my seat and take row 12.
13) I got moved out of the seat in row 12, I can’t even remember why.
14) We get to the Greenville/Spartanburg airport and it is quieter than a library, I mean there were like 10 people there…
15) We get to the enterprise rental car desk, because we had been trying to set one up all day and the guy at the desk basically does his best to give us a car for free, but they had some crazy drop fee for taking the car one way, so we went to Alamo (same counter, 3 feet away) and the car was like 1/3 of the price. This is ridiculous because Enterprise owns Alamo…
16) We got in our HOT Chevy HHR and pulled out of the parking deck and it started snowing, harder than it snowed the entire time we were in Colorado.
17) It continued to snow all the way through South Carolina until we got to Georgia.
18) In Georgia it was just ice
19) We saw 16 cars that had lost control in the snow
20) Highway 85 was closed
21) We took a detour, thanks to the iphone, that included:
a. 1 dirt road
b. 1 downed tree
c. Approximately 23 turns
d. A detour past a federal penitentiary
22) We finally made it home at about 11:00pm after starting our travels at 5:00AM.
23) THEN, we had to take the rental car back
24) We went to THE SHADIEST gas station ever and the gas pump tried to eat Marshal’s credit card
25) It took 20 minutes to return the stupid rental car.
26) We went to bed around 12:30 AM
27) Marshal still had to drive from Atlanta back to Charlotte at 5AM

Visibility on I-85 in South Carolina

Double Cheeseburger Stop in Anderson, SC

All in all, the trip was awesome! I think everyone had a great time and got along really well. We had great food, great laughs, a serious amount of movie quotes and a lot of fun. I am really glad that Marshal got to celebrate the upcoming wedding and he is very fortunate to have such an awesome group of friends!