Breckenridge, Colorado: After our late afternoon golf yesterday, we took it a bit easy this morning… save My Driver going for a 12-miler on his bicycle. So many great bikes paths in the area, he couldn’t help himself. Our plan for the day was to drive to nearby Frisco, Colorado, then venture up to the Keystone ski resort area. Mission accomplished.
Frisco was another mining and supply town along the railroad. It was named for three railroads. The FR cam from the St.Louis-San Francisco Railway Company, the IS is from St. Louis, and CO is from Company… equals FRISCO. Now you know.
Our first stop was lunch and we chose it only by the pretty outdoor dining area, and it was Italian… but only Italian at night. Bagali’s is across the street from their sister restaurant, Bread+Salt. Both restaurants served the same menu at breakfast and lunch. I chose - because I have never heard of such a thing for breakfast - Duck Confit, served with hash brown, two eggs anyway, toast, salad greens, and for some unexplainable reason, corn. It was only $18.95.
The dish was perfect. Crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. There is a mound of hash browns under the duck. Would highly recommend. My Driver had two eggs, hash browns, toast… and my English muffin. After breakfast, we walked up and down Main Street, looked into a few shops, but couldn’t find a thing that needed to come home with us. Again. After a visit to the local history museum and plugging a quarter into the model train diorama, we hit the highway to Keystone.
The drive is about ten miles, up, up, up, through spectacular scenery and along a reservoir. We saw multi-story, multi-million-dollar “weekend” homes perched precariously on top of rock outcropping. So scary!
After driving around, and walking around Keystone, we have decided it is like SunRiver Resort in Oregon, but on steroids, plus ski-runs outside your hotel room, condo, or house. Just walking through one of the “villages” and seeing at least 20 restaurants, we can’t imagine how many people must stay at Keystone during the ski season. Everything was very pretty and new, but everything was closed (seems Wednesday and Thursday are not popular with summer visitors?).
and over 1.25 million skiers every year.
Several weeks ago, I made a reservation for dinner at Hearthstone for our last evening in Breckenridge. We dressed up, but most people did not.
We started with a Caprese Salad made with vine-ripe Colorado tomatoes (several varieties) and house-made buffalo mozzarella. Very nice. When I made the reservation, I knew the Bison short-ribs would be my choice. DT had a steak. Of course, most of this went home with us… no doubt another slow cooker meal for us down the road?
A great end to our time in Breckinridge. Tomorrow, we continue east and will hopefully soak our old bones in natural hot springs.
Until my next update, I remain, your traveling correspondent.
Was that grits under the Ribs Terry?