We’re ensconced in a campground north of Breckenridge, Colorado. With the long weekend available, I’ve taken Friday and Tuesday as vacation days so we can get a five-day stay in this ski-resort area. We left Colorado Springs just before 10 a.m. today and arrived at the campground about 12:30. We drove west out of Colorado Springs on US Route 24 to Hartsel and then took Colorado Route 9 northwest to the campground. It was a lovely drive through some beautiful territory. This was a much better drive than coming on the freeway.

To call this a campground is like calling a Boeing 747 just an airplane. This is a so-called "Resort Campground" — no tents, popup campers or junky-looking rigs allowed. It’s also fairly expensive compared to normal campgrounds, but then how many normal campgrounds have an indoor heated pool and two hot tubs? We were intrigued enough with the writeup to make reservations, take the time off from work, and drive up here (is is UP — Breckenridge is at 9,600 feet compared to 6,400 feet of altitude in Colorado Springs).

While I’m not sure what I was expecting, this place has turned out to be different. There are many, many sites. All of them are privately owned and the vast majority have small cottages on them. The camp office keeps some part of the camping fee and the lot owner gets the rest. Some of the cottages are also available for rent. Many of them are quite elegant! Lots of money in some of these sites. I think that these are used during the winter when folks come skiing as well as during the summer as summer cottages. Several have the owner’s name and city displayed. Many of those owners are in Florida! Perhaps they spend the summer here and the winter there?

We walked through a part of the business district in Breckenridge this afternoon. Many stores were closed or closing because the summer is over. Skiing doesn’t really start until around Thanksgiving so it looks like there aren’t many tourists between now and then. The area is very pretty. We’re in a valley in the middle of a bunch of very tall mountains, most around 14,000 feet. However, I don’t think I’m a good candidate for buying a lot in a place like this. I’m content to rent one from someone else once in a while.