STEAMBOAT SPRINGS II

My son Tony has a slightly different recollection of the furnace detail he had but it's my blog so I will stick with my memory. He was less than ten years old so maybe his memory and mine are correct for different episodes! Anyway, the auger to the furnace in the house quit so we were forced to convert the boiler to gas in that location. This was a dark and small basement with a lot of coal dust to deal with over the years.. The heating system was no more efficient no matter what heated the water!

  We joined the Chamber of Commerce and signed up for their booking system for the ski year of 1976/1977. We were taking reservations soon for the coming year. All looked good at that time but wait! I had been traveling to Steamboat Springs since 1976 and if you ever wanted it to snow just ask me to travel there. By November we anxiously waited for the inevitable snow to arrive. By late November when the skiing usually began there was still no snow!. We lost all of the Holiday season (usually the busiest time}. When the mountain finally opened there was so little snow that volunteers were hauling snow from the pass or any shady area. We had purchased ski passes and skied twice, both times on small icy areas. I don't recall exactly when the ski area gave up and closed but we were faced with returning deposits to skiers who couldn't ski! The ski company returned us exactly half of the cost of our passes which made the two days we skied very expensive. We were lucky to find a few people to rent weekly which through some smoke and mirrors we survived!. I was able to borrow some money from the bank but at an interest rate of 25% and it was a 90 day note. Talk about stressed out; that was me!

My good friend Mike (Bicycle King) moved his family to Steamboat Springs about that time and was a tremendous help to us. He had a buyer for his bike shop and took a note for the sale. In the meantime I decided to forge bravely ahead and update the motel, so borrowed money from the bank for the project. The motel had three open garages with dirt floors which we decided to convert to kitchenette rooms. We received a building permit and, thank goodness, no one ever questioned the  construction and we were not required to bring the place up to code. Ellen's cousin was a building contractor so he and I did all the work. One of the garages we made into a laundry room so we wouldn't have to use the washer in the house. We had to work around rentals as we were so broke from the lost winter money. I won't go into how we financed everything but it all worked out. Ellen's sister Phyllis helped with cleaning and moving furniture and her husband helped with plowing the next season (which wasn't great either!).

Our son Chris graduated from high school in May or June of 1976 and Ellen and I drove back to California for the event. His class was huge. Not sure where we stayed but on the way back through Utah I managed to get a speeding ticket. I'm not sure why, I was only doing 100mph (ticket said 90 as he gave me a break }! Chris moved to Steamboat Springs not long after that. Sometime after that the VW cratered near Craig Colorado. It turns out the catalytic convertor was only good to 5,000 ft above sea level. The town of Steamboat Springs is 6,700 feet. Gas flew everywhere. How we kept from blowing up, I don't know. Anyway, I had to have the convertor bypassed. My luck with autos continues! I finally gave up on the VW and purchased a Ford Bronco with a plow so I could do my own clearing of snow.

We did get a little more snow the next winter but not enough to have a great  year. By then though, we had 10 kitchen units, eight 2 room and two 1 room units with new furniture and TVs installed. Cable TV had made its way to Steamboat Springs! In addition we closed in the front porch and made an office. There was a small house in back of the main house and the driveway was very tight so Ellen's cousin Paddy and I decided to put an angle iron on the driveway corner to help prevent damage to the house. We had no more than finished than Ellen came around the corner in the VW and scraped the angle iron. Oh well, at least the house suffered no damage.


More later


Our family in 1976 at Sheraton Golf Course
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Main house Steamboat Springs



Motel Steamboat Springs (notice angle iron on little house corner!

 

 

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