On our dining room wall we have a print of a painting. The view is looking up Steamboat’s main street straight at Mt. Werner’s ski slopes. In the foreground the street is covered with snow and a crowd of people stand in front of FM Light, Allens, Chief Theater watching as a horse pulls a child on skiis up and over a small jump. Do you know what this is a picture of? A horse, rider and skier participating in the Donkey Jump, one of the several street events that goes on during Steamboat Springs’ Winter Carnival.
On our living room wall we have a photo of our own son, caught in mid-air as he too participated in the Donkey Jump years ago. And I’m sure ours is not the only home in Steamboat to have such a picture on their wall or at least in their treasured collections, because the Winter Carnival with its crazy mix of street events, parade, Night Extravaganza and activities at downtown Howelsen Hill and the big ski resort mountain Mt. Werner is a cherished part of the local’s life here.
Our son is grown now, flying off much bigger jumps now in Europe as a ski jumper and Nordic combined athlete. With the age limit set at 14 years old, it’s been four years since he last did any of the street events. And my husband, retired from the Ski Patrol, no longer joins the other patrollers in their crazy ski jump through a literal fiery hoop during the Night Show Extravaganza.
We’ve outgrown the Soda Pop Slalom and the Parent/Child downhill. but we’ll never outgrow the Winter Carnival as spectators. And as we stood outside of our downtown office with spiked hot cocoa in hand to watch the Night Show Extravaganza last Saturday night, we learned that we weren’t alone – that many tourists and second home owners make sure to visit every year during the carnival, to watch the Lighted Man descend the steep face of Howelsen with fireworks shooting off his back.
I took two short clips of the Street Events and the Parade, finding the crowd with their dogs and babies to be an equally entertaining part of the events and the Parade.
If you’ve missed the Carnival and want a peek view, go to The Shack, my favorite long-time breakfast spot on Lincoln Avenue between 7th and 8th, and look up above the plate-glass windows that look out onto the street. there in all its glory is a large vrsion of the painting I have hanging on my dining room wall. And there at The Shack I believe you can still buy a copy of that painting for yourself.
Looking for somewhere to load yourself up with real estate information about the Steamboat Springs, Colorado, real estate market? Want to browse without being bothered? Want access to stats and graphs?
Want to chat with an experienced Exclusive Buyer Agent who can 100% represent your interests as a real estate buyer in the Steamboat market?
Well, we’ve created the space just for you:
Buyer’s Resource: Steamboat Springs’ Real Estate Information Center for Buyers, in downtown Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Located next to Off the Beaten Path Bookstore and Cafe, at 56 Ninth Street between Lincoln Ave (Steamboat’s main street) and Yampa Ave (running alongside the Yampa River), we’re centrally located in the heart of downtown’s activity.
Our hours are M-Sat 8:30 am to 7:00 pm, and Sun from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
At Steamboat Springs’ Real Estate Information Center for Buyers you can:
Check out Harry, the Moose’s, interactive story about how he came to use an Exclusive Buyer’s Agent when he bought his Steamboat home.
Have one of our Exclusive Buyer Agents help you conduct a property search in our virtual screening rooms.
Browse the Directory we’ve put together of local FSBO (For Sale by Owner) properties.
Review our list of the current Bank-owned Properties which are for sale.
Reserve the use of our classroom/conference room for your organizations’ next meeting.
Or just come by to say hello! We’d love to see you, and hope you’ll find this to be a true “Buyer’s Resource” for all your real estate needs, before, after and during a purchase!
Living in Steamboat Springs Colorado brings with it familiarity with things like the sport of Nordic combined, neighbors like Olympians Todd Lodwick or Johnny Spillane and volunteer opportunities like hanging with athletes from 13 different nations during competitions like the Continental Cup. Not bad for a community of 10,000 now is it?
I just finished two weekends of spactating (yep, that’s a verb) and volunteering at the Nordic combined Continental Cups (previously known as World Cup B) during their two-weekend visit to the United States.
Our 18-year-old son Cliff competed in this international event all four days (two in Steamboat and then two in Park City Utah), so of course my husband and I were cheering and biting our nails and studying the Start Lists and Results sheets and cheering some more, when we weren’t actually working the event as volunteers.
Probably 99.99% of the world’s population hasn’t a clue what Nordic combined is, or so I’m guessing - it could be more! It’s two sports really, ski jumping and skate skiing which is a form of cross-country skiing, and Howelsen Hill in downtown Steamboat Springs has both the ski jumps and the skate skiing course, along with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, which is the training arm of the sport.
So probably most people in Steamboat Springs Colorado know what it is, or at least have seen the words before in the local newspaper and are familiar with the local, Olympic-medal winning heros Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane. After all, just last week’s headlines and stories read like this:
I worked as the Volunteer Coordinator for Steamboat’s event and was also up in the Judge’s Tower during the ski jumping calling in the distances to the announcer, so I wasn’t as free to video as I might have been otherwise (and consequently didn’t get any ski jumping footage).
But I did get some behind the scenes footage, capturing the agony of the skate ski race for the finishers that gave it everything they had, and the joy of Todd Lodwick as he easily crossed the finish line and took his accustomed place at the top of the podium.
Did the whole town turn out to watch the event? No, although we did have a respectable crowd, because believe it or not, for a small town of 10,000, hosting a big-time event is just as common place as volunteering at them, as having a child competing in them and as having an Olympian as a neighbor.
I can’t believe it, and I feel incredibly negligent. After months and months of blogging regularly, a month has slipped past until now!
I have though been posting daily on my Steamboat Gal facebook business page (only because Hootsuite allows me to schedule posts!), so I encourage you to check out that page and “LIKE” it if you are a facebbok user. Since every day I’m reading industry news as well as local Steamboat news – typically on my smartphone while having my morning latte on my red couch – it’s easy for me to pass the best stories, with a personal comment or two, along to you.
Writing a blog is something I love but it still fell apart this last month. Here’s my excuse:
I was sick as a dog for a week, and laid up in bed for the last 4 days of it, and trust me you would not have liked anything that would’ve come out of my mouth.
My packed up boxes at our old office
I had to force myself out of my bed to pack my entire office into boxes in one day, and then went home to pack my suitcase.
I woke after a couple of hours of sleep to sit next to my 18 year-old son as he drove me to the local airport, normally a 30-minute drive away, in a blinding snowstorm in the pitch black of early morning (yes, in Steamboat planes often still fly in snowstorms).
I landed safely in sunny Orlando at my sister’s home (who’d just arrived from her business in China) and went straight to sleep. A couple of days later the limo appeared.
The Limo arrives at my sister Tania's house
Then who would’ve guessed that in this modern day of electronics a crusie ship would dare to charge $50/hr to use their very slow satellite internet connection. So much for using our Caribbean sea days to get caught up on blogging! I had to play Rummikub instead (and won the first 4 games straight – so I wasn’t slacking, mind you).
Our first land day in Nassau, Bahamas, I spent the day at an internet cafe working, while my dad and his wife shopped for jewels (he did gift me one from his collection; a ruby necklace) and my sister, along with the other 7 people in our party ate fresh conch and drank Gumbay Smashers It’s just as well I didn’t join them). But alas there was no time for blogging!
Tania treats me to lobster in St. Maarten.
My sister, who I was sharing my cabin with, berated me for wanting to plant myself in an internet cafe to work while they went to a beach in St. Thomas, British Virgin Islands. It’s pathetic to say that it really did take some nudging on her part. I acquiesced – thank you Tania!
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Ditto for the day we had in St. Maaten, although it didn’t take any pushing on Tania’s part really.
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Me working in the Judge's Tower during Continental Cup
By the time we returned to Orlando my work and internet addiction had abated, and although I was back on the computer it was just to attend to urgent stuff. And until you guys start begging for me to blog regularly, and sending me money in the mail, catching up on 3 weeks worth of blogging just wasn’t urgent enough.
My first day back in Steamboat was entirely spent unpacking the boxes I had packed on my last day in Steamboat. they were unpacked in our new, very cool office.
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Then bright and early the next day, I was up at Howelsen Hill, checking on the volunteers who had gathered to work the Nordic combined Continental Cup that weekend (my being the Volunteer Coordinator for the international event – yep, that was part of the “urgent work” I was doing at that cafe in Nassau and Orlando).
Our 1st office meeting in our new real estate info center on 56 9th St. From left Ulrich, Gery, me in front, Mary and Doug.
Then back to the office for our first meeting in our new digs and a celebratory dinner afterwards
Followed by two more days working the Continental Cup. And then wrapping it all up.
Now I’m back at my desk and guess what is (still) first on my TO DO list from before I went home sick? Doing this blog of course!
So what is the lesson from this all? If you missed me dearly and want more frequesnt updates go “LIKE” my facebook business page. You can even click back to my website from there by clicking the website header that is on my Welcome page!
And please leave a Comment here. Like, did you even miss me?
Dogs in costumes and french fries for treats. Businesses turned into Haunted Houses, shop owners into costumed human candy dispensers and a bank into an inflated kid magnet. Every year Main Street Steamboat Springs Colorado turns into a people-watching, dog-trotting, child-feasting, Community Stroll for Halloween.
If you’re a local, how many people or dogs do you recognize? If you’re a downtown business owner, did your store front attract my camera? And if you have kids or grand kids and are thinking of moving here… show them this video to get them all on board, and start planning next year’s costumes today!
I am partial to Downtown Steamboat Springs. As a place to live , to work and to play, give me downtown Steamboat Colorado any day,
with its:
43 restaurants and 78 shops
1 cowboy salon and 1 rodeo arena
10 art galleries and 2 museums
4 spas and 4 fitness centers
1 movie theater and 2 bookstores
2 health-food grocery stores and 1 deli
1 drug store with 1 old-fashioned soda fountain
3 schools, 1 college and 1 public library
1 bike/walking path which is plowed year-round
1 Alpine Slide and 1 Water Slide
5 Ski Jumps and 6 churches
1 post office, 2 banks and 1 county courthouse
1 free-flowing river that runs through it
and cool things for a mountain gal (and guy) to do…
Fishing and river tubing on the Yampa
Soaking in the Old Town Hotsprings
Night skiing and snow tubing at Howelsen Hill
First Friday Art Walks and Art in the Park
Winter Carnival, parades and fireworks
The Haunted House of Horrors and the Halloween Stroll
Hiking and mountain biking on Emerald Mountain
Cross-country skiing and swimming in the “C” Hole
Storytime at the library, book clubs, movies and speakers
The playground at Little Toots and dog frisbee at “stinky park”
Outdoor concerts and the Writer’s Group at the Depot
Yoga at the Bear River Center overlooking the river
Community Celebrations and vigils on the courthouse lawn…
But that’s just me. And like I said, I’m partial! How about you? How do you think Downtown Steamboat Springs rocks? And can it rock even more? Please share your thoughts in the Comments below…
Anyone that’s driven into Steamboat Springs Colorado has surely seen the antique-looking yellow billboards advertising FM Light & Sons’ cowboy boots. FM Light does have a wall chock-full of boots, but if I had a wad of cash and wanted some new boots I’d also head over to the corner of 5th and Lincoln in downtown Steamboat to a cool boutique called Cowgirls and Angels.
I’ve currently got my eyes on a pair of boots and a stylin’ black dress to go with them. Yeah, this is Steamboat and we can dress that way and fit right in without anyone batting an eye.
Peta Elmes is the shop owner. You’ll see her in the video, and tell her hi for me when you see her in her shop. I’ve known Peta the entire 17 years I’ve lived here, and she’s always topped my list of the best-dressed gals in Steamboat, so it’s no wonder her shop Rocks!
Consider this a modern electronic billboard ad from one Steamboat gal to another, and head over to 435 Lincoln Avenue for western wear with a twist.
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