I’m side-stepping over rocks down the incline on the shore of Dillion reservoir in Frisco, Colorado.  I have a travel washing cup in hand and a tuna sandwich parked alongside my bicycle in the waiting. I left my Garmin watch back in New York, but I think this stop was about 12 miles since the start of the trail in Breckenridge.

I am a Chabad on Campus Rebbetzin in Queens and this is a ‘rebbetzin retreat’ of sorts.   Chabad on Campus International gave us a stipend to get started on planning a getaway so we could refresh and recharge.  One of the women has a brother with a house in Breckenridge – the mountains and fresh air were beckoning, so we packed our bags and made our way to the high altitude.

The journey began two days prior in Denver.   We met some of the local Chabad on Campus Rebbetzins for lunch.   “I asked my son what he misses most about Colorado,” said my Denverite friend Chanie whose son is in Brooklyn, “and he said, ‘the open sky.’”

“I know,” I say a mere two hours after landing.  “I noticed the difference as soon as we got in the car.”  I spend a lot of time behind the wheel at home, zig-zaging around cars on tight NYC streets. The expanse of the Colorado sky was a real change.

At the restaurant I hug an old friend, Leah, and regret that I won’t have a chance to visit her Chabad House in Boulder.  “They say Colorado is like a magnet,” she tells me with a smile, “if you come once, you’ll come again.”  Leah and I met on a different mountain in the Holy........

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