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PDFI love spontaneous, spur of the moment adventures. These unexpected moments often turn out to be the most fun and memorable. This weekend we took advantage of a last minute great deal at Aspen Meadows in Aspen, Colorado. Our stay at Aspen Meadows was fun from the first second. Did there ever exist a kid who didn’t love a golf cart?? This is one excited boy getting a ride to our room:
Built in the Bauhaus style, the resort sits on 40 acres. Our room was gorgeous, modern and perfect in my opinion. In the late afternoon, we hung out at the Pool and Fitness Facility:
Bliss.
Aspen Meadows is also home to The Aspen Institute, host to exciting festivals and conferences such as The Aspen Environment Forum, and next week’s Ideas Festival. The Aspen Institute and Aspen Meadows together offer a gorgeous, sprawling campus with many fun walking trails, nooks and crannies, hiking along river trails, and the award winning restaurant Platos. We didn’t eat there but have heard raves.
Check out this pretty path with “Idea Panels” set up for the Ideas Festival next week:
Up close, each panel has a quote. Here are two that I liked:
The Aspen Meadows campus also features what turned out to be the highlight of our weekend: The Benedict Music Tent. The Benedict Music Tent is a concert hall inside a permanent tent structure, with panels that open up onto the picturesque music lawn outside. The best part of the music lawn is that you can sit outside underneath the pretty aspens and hear whatever concert is going on inside, for free. Here is a view looking towards the back of the music lawn:
You can imagine our delight when we arrived and found out that Sheryl Crow was playing in the Benedict Music Tent the night that we were there. OK, let me rephrase that: my delight – it was all mine, and I am grateful to my husband and family for humoring my overzealous and enthusiastic pleas to skip our original plans and instead go see the Sheryl Crow concert. Thank you!
On the Music Lawn outside Benedict Tent, everyone shows up with picnics, wine and chairs. Look at this:
It was a blast sitting and watching all the people – Aspen people are gorgeous and they dress nicely. The kids ran around and checked out the sundial, outdoor sculptures and waterways that meandered through the campus.
As concert time approached, I snuck behind the building and discreetly spied on Sheryl’s fancy tour buses. There were four of these lined up in a row. Which one do you think she is in? What is the psychology behind who gets in what bus?
If you walked up to the very side of the tent, you could peak in and see the stage really clearly. You could also hear everything perfectly, as if you were right in the tent. It’s hard to believe that you can have this experience, regardless of what concert it is, for free. Here is Sheryl on keyboards:
We didn’t stay for the whole concert because the kids got sleepy about halfway into it. But what we did hear was awesome. This is the second time I’ve seen (ok, heard) her in concert and I think she is one of those artists that sounds even better live than recorded. I was really impressed.
I love acts of spontaneity and this was no exception. This will definitely be one of the highlights of our summer, but not because of Sheryl Crow. What I will remember is how happy, relaxed and appreciative I felt to be sitting under the gorgeous aspen trees, eating awesome food, hearing great music and spending time with my family.
About Author
SJPmama is the schemer, founder, and the editor at San Juan Parent. She created San Juan Parent because she wanted to find fun activities for families in the San Juan Mountain Region that would tire her kids out and make them go to bed at a decent hour. She has been banging away on computers for longer than she can remember and freelances at various tech jobs. She considers herself extremely lucky to have such awesome friends and family who are willing to let SJP feature their stories on the interwebs.
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