What does 9170 feet get ya?

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A lot less oxygen!!!!!!!  We flew to Breckenridge, CO after driving stops in Austin, TX and Madison, AL.  It was a lot of fun catching up with the kids and grandkids.  Good food and good company is always welcome.

Wow, Breckenridge is a sight to see - so much beauty!  Here is the view from our condo window in the first days of our stay.

The elevation of Breckenridge is 9600 feet...... that's 9170 feet higher than Dallas, TX.  On the first day we might have overdone it walking two miles round trip to the grocery store and carrying a heavy load of groceries back to the condo.  Donna felt some altitude sickness but feels much better now.  Did you know that the oxygen in the air at sea level averages 21% while the oxygen at 9600 feet is only 14.5%?  No wonder small tasks such as eating, talking, and casually walking can cause shortness of breath!  Even our bags of chips experience the high elevation differently.  Note the oximeter (checks oxygen level in the blood) in the photo below.  Our levels were a bit low for the first week but have recovered to normal levels.
We packed heavier clothes thinking that 50s and 60s for daytime highs and 30s for lows would require them.  However, 50s in Breckenridge feels much warmer than in Dallas.  T-shirts (and some shorts) are the norm for the locals.  The first two weeks we spent wandering around town with beautiful weather.  We even went hiking up the mountains a few times. (Pictures in subsequent posts.)  Surprisingly, people are still skiing!

A friend mentioned when we last saw him that one of our blog themes is pizza, beer, and ice cream.  Not wanting to disappoint Corey, we have included photos of our first restaurant stops here.  We did wait for the beer until we were better acclimated.


We've used the free county bus service to visit nearby towns - Frisco, Silverthorne and Copper Mountain.  We got our fix of Chipotle in Silverthorne.
The weather can change quickly here.  We went from 65 degrees on Thursday to a winter snowstorm on Friday.  Around our condo, we got about 15 to 18 inches in less than 24 hours.  It is so picturesque! The next several photos are a time lapse of the storm from daytime to night to morning.  You might even take note of the difference in snow between our first photo in this post to the ones below.






The hot tub felt great in the cold and snow!  Of course, Don had to run the jets twice before he would agree to get out!  We may try it again tonight.
We'll try to post more often while here in Breckenridge.  A few of our friends were worried we had fallen off the map as we had not posted for a month.

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