We arrived in Frisco a week before our vacation was due to start – we weren’t here for a holiday, we were here to work. Ah well, maybe a bit of both, there’s time each day before and after work of course. And Colorado is on Mountain Time, an hour ahead of our usual Pacific Time. Which means we’ve got oodles of time in the morning to have fun in the wilderness, before the work day has even begun. Likewise, it means the evenings are somewhat short. But that just means we need to drink faster 🙂

Frisco is a cute little town nestled in the mountains, centered around a lake (actually a reservoir). The campsite is a couple of miles out of town, a picturesque little spot by the lake, with a bike path into town. As Annie said to Daddy Warbucks “I think I’m gonna like it here!”

All settled in for the week. This will do us just nicely.

So. The morning’s activities (before work I would remind you) consisted of trail running, mountain biking, paddle boarding and hiking. Not all on the same day. But we fitted in what we could.

Difficult to get my runs in, I had to keep stopping to take pics
Nice view from the peninsular on a morning run. If you look really closely, you can spot the Basecamp down there.
Biking to work
… And biking back to camp after work and brewery

For a couple of days, Darren even chose the SUP as his mode of transport for commuting to work via the lake.

Nice way to start the day!
He got some funny looks walking down the street from the marina to the co-working office.

Evening activities as I mentioned were time limited. But we still managed to fit in a little trip up to the nearby ski town of Breckenridge (they have a brewery AND a distillery!).

Broken Compass: One of our favorite breweries so far… some really good beers here, including a ginger pale ale and a toasted coconut porter
And not forgetting the nights we spent around the campfire, back at Base

It was around this time we thought a fun addition to our trip would be a drone. Fun to learn to fly and hopefully get some interesting photos and videos of our trip. Within two days, a Mavic Mini was delivered to the co-working space. Hence an evening of practicing take-off, flying and landing (lesson number one: do not land in long grass with the propellor blades acting as a multi-purpose strimmer. It messes up your new drone and quite honestly, a lawnmower does a better job.)

Yay, successfully managed to get a shot (and not crash the drone!)
Very hairy moment for Darren launching and catching the drone from the paddle board. But worth it for clips like this.

None of this would be possible if we weren’t able to work along the way. So the EVO3 co-working space bookmarking both ends of our Colorado vacation was uber-important. Having been office-based for over 15 years, this remote working was new to me. And in this COVID-19 era, neither of us really knew what to expect. But we had WiFi. Tick. There was an individual desk for each of us, screened off from anyone else. There were masks. There was very blatant cleaning going on, and often. Anti-bacterial wipes and sanitizing gel in abundance. And it was next door to a coffee shop that excelled in afogato, a shot of espresso poured over their home made espresso chip gelato ice cream. Good job we were playing hard as well as working hard.

Ah and I cheated and had a bit more time off than Darren. Packed it in with a pootle round Dillon Dam on the bike path. And an awesome morning’s hike up Mount Royal, right from town, up a big mountain, views back down into town, sweet.

Loving the aspens on the way up Mount Royal
Not a drone shot – the view from the top of Mount Royal is courtesy of my own two legs. For which I was rewarded with the last of my leftover homemade Spanish omelet.

And then get this… I was able to get an appointment for a cut and blow dry at a nearby salon. Five months of hair growing longer and lankier, it felt sooo good! Both me and the hairdresser wore masks, which was the weirdest thing ever. But I’ll take it. The New Me. Ready for vacation. 🙂