Getaway, Part Two

What a difference a day in the Rockies makes. Sunshine soaked Saturday and snow greeted us on Sunday morning.

We slept well, but woke early because we had Joel Lag—similar to jet lag, but not due to any time zone difference. Joel is our early bird and he has trained us to automatically spring to life by 6am, at the latest. From 100 miles away he still had the capability of waking us. Hubby made special Broadmoor Blend coffee and we faced our final getaway day.

Starving because of the petite non-American portion sizes from the night before, we went to breakfast at one of the non-Frenchified hotel restaurants. They had a breakfast buffet with herb smoked sausage (saucisse smoked d’herbe), griddle potatoes with onions (pommes de terre de gauffreuse aux oignons), bafflingly good scrambled eggs (oeufs brouillés), and croissants the size of NFL regulation footballs (croissants la taille des football de règlement de NFL). John Elway could have launched one of them across the lake in a hail Mary bid for his third Super Bowl ring. But he’s retired, so I settled on eating one instead.

After breakfast we explored some of the nooks and crannies of the Broadmoor, admired the artwork, looked at photos of dignitaries and celebrities that have stayed there over the past one hundred years, and enjoyed the silence because we were the only people awake, aside from the staff.

Here is a Lifenut premier…a picture of moi, in the hallway that led to our room:

Eventually, we had to check out of our room, request our minivan to be pulled front and center, and head north, toward home. It was a bittersweet farewell. I missed the kids, but I would also miss the relaxation and sumptuous surroundings. Our shower head is more Holiday Inn sized, but it works. Our bed isn’t four feet off the ground, but it is ours.

As we left Colorado Springs, we popped over to The Garden of the Gods because we had never seen it with snow on the ground and I suspected that it was even more spectacular with the contrast between jutting red rocks and white snow.

After a quick drive around the loop we were on our way back to our home and our kids. Au revoir, Broadmoor, weekend, 3,000 thread count sheets (by my estimate), and getaway.