It’s not a huge secret that I absolutely love living in Colorado during all times of the year. My summers are full of hiking trips and my winters are full of weekend skiing. I have to confess though, we are currently in the midst of one of my favorite times of year: the transition season. Allow me to explain.

I spent all summer (by choice!) waking up at 4:30 a.m. on weekends to hike 14ers, running in relay races and generally just getting after it. I had a blast, don’t get me wrong, but it was also somewhat exhausting. I basically treat Denver like a bedroom community to the mountains. I think this gives me the best of both worlds but I admittedly sometimes neglect to spend much time in the city.

This brings me to the transition season. Okay so a few ski resorts are open and we’ve had a couple snowstorms here already but it’s not quite full blown ski season yet. It’s also still possible to go hiking but there is now snow in the high country. We are in a middle zone, somewhere between peak hiking season and ski season. Consequently, in an unprecedented Paula move, I’ve just been bumming it in the Mile High for the past few weekends. It’s peak Denver season! And you know what? I’ve been having a great time.

1/2 mountain girl, 1/2 city girl.

This past weekend I went to the Denver International Wine Festival on Friday night with my friend Cayce. We ate at Euclid Hall downtown beforehand, enjoying mussels and duck confit french fries. It was the first time I’d spent an entire evening in downtown Denver in many moons.

City life tastes so good.

I spent most of the day on Saturday recovering from the wine festival and laying on my couch. With the exception of that horrible time that I had strep throat, it was the most quality time that my couch and I had spent together in awhile. On Saturday night I headed to Boulder to watch Flow State, this year’s Warren Miller movie with a group of friends. Every single one of my activities on Saturday involved sitting, and I didn’t hate it.

On Sunday morning I slept in and woke up in time to make coffee and sit on my couch and watch the Broncos game. That’s right, more sitting. It’s what I do best these days.

Really I’m enjoying these precious few weekends in the transition time, because I know ski season and early morning wake-up calls on the weekends are just around the corner again. You know what though? There is something to this whole “lazy weekend” thing. It doesn’t suck.

Maybe I’ll have to have another lazy weekend in the middle of January! Probably not though, let’s be real.