The change in our lives across the nation has brought on many things that weren’t expected. Seeing Steamboat a sleepy town is much different than the normal shoulder season.
Normal shoulder (mud) season has some tourist and second home owners in for the season. It’s slow paced. Though some restaurants and stores are closed, there are enough open to satisfy happy hour, dinner, or just strolling along looking at Springtime sales.
Not right now! Holy cow! The streets are empty. And so is the resort.
From the Coronavirus regulations of stay at home and more, no one is visiting and locals are staying inside. Well, mostly inside. The warm part of the day has many persons out and about walking, biking, running, fishing, and chasing kids.
Talking with my friends, most folks have cleaned their homes twice by now. Which is great! And also makes for great inventory for a garage sale or second hand store donation. Friends are also planting seeds, getting ready for Spring gardening.
I took a stroll late on Sunday and found the resort very empty. The bus transit center was completely empty. No buses were nearby. No people walking back and forth, looking for rides or the route back to the hotel. Gondola Square was quiet.
There are few times of year this happens. For the most part, there are several times a day when this happens at the resort.
Walking around the mountain side of town, there are people out, yet a person walk down the road without care of automobiles. Few people are driving and the bus system is down to a skeleton schedule.
This weekend is when the resort was scheduled for closing. This weekend is always fun with the Cardboard Classic, Pond Skim, and live music. This year, the season ended quietly with no finale. The weather has been very Spring and much has melted, leaving large expanses of exposed soil and rock. (Not really anything snowcats pushing snow around wouldn’t fix. It’s the lack of March snow we normally see.)
That being said, it has been nice not having a schedule of events to attend. Slowing down has been good for most of us in Steamboat Springs. The Winter is really busy and a long break before the excitement of Summer is valuable. And though many vacations were cancelled, our community has done much to replace trips with short jaunts to Steamboat Lake, Stagecoach, Buffalo Pass, and Lake Agnes.