Posts Tagged ‘Town of Vail’

We Never Miss Out On the Fun

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

The Town of Vail was overwhelmed last week with the arrival of The Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute (www.rmcmi.org).  Hundreds of members of this organization chose Vail for their 100th anniversary conference.  They arrived from all over the United States and Canada to participate in training and educational seminars.

Of course the Antlers, a hotel and conference center that is always afraid of missing out on the fun, volunteered to host “emergency disaster training” for 2 days. This involved real life, re-enactments of rescue operations involving different scenarios around our property and common areas.

The pictures really don’t illustrate how life-like these situations were.  Some guests actually thought there were live rescues occurring as they passed through the staging areas.  What made it believable were the “victims” that were not afraid to scream as though they were in pain and the rescue teams shouting out instructions as they assured the “victims” that help was on its way.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

As the second day of mock rescues were winding down, I was approached by a guest who had these comments.  “My kids really were fascinated by all of this and I had no idea  what went on behind the scenes.  These people really are professionals.”  His young son looked up at me and said “Mister, do you have a coal mine here?”

“No we don’t, but there are some not too far away in the mountains” was my reply.

He looked back at his dad and said ” too bad because I sure would feel safe if something happened in your mine.”

Greg

 

“As the Antlers Turn”……16

Sunday, August 21st, 2011

I’m Baaaack and oh what a summer it has been.  Here’s a few things that haven’t been reported in the past couple of months (partly because I’ve been busy and mostly because I wasn’t sure I should admit it.).

Every time you think you’ve seen it all……….

- A guest finds animal teeth in a dresser drawer.  Upon further review, it turns out it is a human tooth broken in two pieces, from a small child, hidden away by the parents, who forgot to put the quarter under the pillow.

-The employees throw a going away party for Sara and the building manager gets a call for a noise disturbance.  He doesn’t answer the phone because he just fell into the pool after celebrating a victory in a beer pong match.

-Rob travels to Australia with a group representing the Town of Vail to “sell” our resort and never had a chance to play golf.

-While the rest of the country is suffering in record setting heat and humidity, Vail is 71 degrees with puffy white clouds.

-For whatever reason the New York Stock Exchange is boiling over, freezing and boiling over again but our winter bookings are ahead of last year.  Go figure.

-We have purchased and placed new lobby furniture which includes amongst other items, leather couches (smells good).  We also have new carpet in the lobby and elsewhere (that smells good too).

-My son got married in Vail and the Antlers served as host for all of our guests.  As an outsider looking in for once, this is a great place to have a Vail wedding.   (I’m coming back and I’m staying at the Antlers.)

-A squatter moves into the Antlers and goes unnoticed for 3 days.  He is seen only at night between the hours of 10 and 12 PM rummaging through the garbage cans.  Finally we set a trap and catch the little rascal.  The raccoon is relocated to another property.

-Isabelle, Magda and Tony’s daughter, has turned one year old and she is already familiar with RDP (our reservation software).  We plan on having her cover some vacation slots when she is needed.

-Darci adopted a dog for her daughter Mariah.  He is 3 inches long and weighs 7 ounces and is still growing.  He was “misplaced” a while back but Joel found him later in Mariah’s school lunch bag between 2 oreoes.

-Mark is back for the winter season.  He returneth from the bed and breakfast in Sicily, Italy and can still brew some of the best lobby coffee in Vail.  I walk up there every day for another cup of “Markbucks”.

-Amy has been doing mountain bike races every weekend this summer.  She has been very careful and avoids crashes because the doctor told her one more mis-hap and they will need to do a body transplant.

It’s nearing the end of August and as it goes “what happened to the summer?”  Labor Day weekend is closing in and the Fall Season will surely bring new stories and adventures to the Antlers.  Personally, I look forward to the additional compliment of owners that arrive for that particular weekend.

Let the pen write and the story be told.

Greg