Steamboat Springs

I will wind up the long saga of our relationship soon. In March 1996, I moved into a new apartment, got a new roomie, back to dating Hector for about 3 months and about to go on vacation together to Steamboat Springs, CO and Las Vegas. We planned on driving in Hector's old Honda Civic so we stuffed the car with our snow stuff and set off. Our first main stop was at Park City, UT to visit my friend Marianne from college. Her parents decided to buy a mountain house in Utah since her dad loves to ski and they definitely went all out. A beautiful log cabin along the ski run at Deer Valley. We had a short visit and we were back on the road. Staying at little motels along the way was really fun and we did a little sightseeing at a dinosaur park (?) along a river. The museum was really cool because they built the museum right around the excavation site so there is a wall of fossils on display while they're continuing to find more fossils.

We finally make it to Steamboat Springs which is a cute town with a cowboy vibe. We booked a condo very close to the ski resort and took shuttle back and forth every day. The weather was perfect and the snow there is so light (they don't call it champagne powder for nothin). We spent 5 days snowboarding all day under the sun and had a great time. One night we took a break from cooking and went out to dinner at The Chart House. The meal was great and we decided to split a mud pie. Over dessert, Hector proposed and he totally caught me off guard. I was not expecting that in a million years but I was thrilled & said yes. Hector said that he was going to propose on the ski lift but chickened out. He was 90% sure that I would accept since we never discussed marriage with each other. We then called our families to tell them the good news (apparently everyone knew he was going to propose except me). Needless to say, we had a wonderful time then went to spent another 5 days in Las Vegas where we found my engagement ring. My best friend Kat came out to hang out with us for a couple of days so we partied the whole time. It was a perfect time!