Day 78: The Breckenridge Zero

July 7: Upon waking this morning, I headed down to the lobby of the hostel where I got a pancake and sausage breakfast. Yum! =)

The lobby of the hostel was spacious and comfortable! Not sure about those blue antlers, though...

Then I walked into town and rode the gondola since it was free. The gondola went up a hill through a couple of stops before I got off and wandered around a bit. There were paid activities in the area, but I skipped them all. Mostly, I just wanted a free ride on the gondola. That was my activity! And if I had been lucky, maybe spot a moose or something down on the ground, but that never happened. Still, there were some nice views.

After looking around to see what there was, I returned to the gondola for the ride back to town, at which point I looked for a few letterboxes in town. Found two, failed once.

Riding the gondolas!

 

I headed over to the post office to see what I could do about my package sitting at the Leadville post office, but they told me that I had to call the Leadville post office directly to deal with the problem. They gave me the number that went direct to the post office, however, so I didn't have to deal with their generic customer service number.

While leaving the post office, I ran into Haiku and Prada at a bench outside going through packages they had just picked up. It was good to see them again! The last time I had seen them was way back in New Mexico, so I joined them for a bit and we got caught up on each other's adventures. =)

We eventually went our separate ways, however, and I finally tried giving the Leadville post office a call, but the line was busy. I wound up calling about a half-dozen times over the next several hours but the line was always busy. What the hell was going on there?! Did they deliberately leave their phone off the hook so people like me couldn't call?

In the meantime, I decided to go to the local Subway for lunch. I kind wanted to go somewhere a little fancier, but I already felt like I was spending too much money and decided to go with the cheaper option.

Later in the afternoon, I finally walked out to the Breckenridge troll which I had heard about and wow! What a creature! The thing was massive, and I was particularly impressed with how it's giant hand wrapped around the trunk of a tree like it was a hiking pole, as if it were actually interacting with the environment around it. The whole thing is pretty interesting and clever and well worth a visit!

The Breckenridge Troll is real!

After getting back to the hostel, I tried calling the Leadville post office... still getting a busy signal. So then I tried logging into their website and using the tracking number to look it up and see if I could deal with the problem there, but that webpage wasn't working either. Argh!

Unable to call or deal with the problem online, I finally just gave up. Well, maybe I'll give them a call in the morning, but I wasn't even sure where I wanted the package sent at this point. For now, I'd just let the package keep collecting dust at the Leadville post office. Worst case scenario, they'd eventually they'll return it to the sender which had my Seattle address. 

But overall, a pleasant day in Breckenridge and a nice break from hiking all day! =)

Apparently, Breckenridge is home to more than one troll, but this one wasn't nearly as impressive!

This train car was used to snowplow railroad tracks.

Some skiers wait for the bus.

Watch out for the terminator. He might be hunting giant trolls!