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Tags: Stupid Ideas / Denver Travel / Balloons / Colorado Travel / → All Tags

Balloon Boy Story Deflates In Face Of Possible Criminal Charges

For the hour or so that the nation stopped on Thursday, dying of anticipation and worry for the boy that supposedly had floated off from his family's backyard in a homemade balloon, we were entertained, titillated, alarmed...but most of all we were duped. It was declared over the weekend, after authorities spoke with the Heene family and after the boy, Falcon, made the statement that "we did this for the show" during an interview with Wolf Blitzer, that the whole incident had been a hoax to gain publicity.

Publicity for what? Well, a reality show of course, although one that doesn't exist and probably never will if felony charges are filed as promised. The Heenes, a storm-chasing family that regularly conducts science fiction-y experiments (hence the balloon) and has been featured on several dramatic episodes of Wife Swap had been shopping around a reality show following their family life; a "Jon and Kate Plus 8," but more like "Richard and Mayumi Plus 3 Boys Living Dangerously." So dangerously, that everyone believed that Falcon was indeed inside the balloon, only to later discover that he was hiding in a box in the garage's attic at home.

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Tags: Breaking News / Balloons / DIA / Denver / Denver Travel / → All Tags

Homemade Balloon Lands Near Denver Airport, Wife Swap Son Missing

Update 8am EST 10/16: The boy was found hiding in the attic at this house. Since then, the family has been interviewed several times, managing to embarrass themselves when the boy possibly revealed it all as a hoax on Larry King Live and then vomited live on air during the Today Show. We're sure this story will continue.

This afternoon, an emergency story gripped the nation and the internet as it was announced that a 6 year-old boy, Falcon Heene, had taken off in a homemade UFO-shaped balloon and was floating towards Denver International Airport, causing helicopters and air traffic authorities to mobilize in order to track it and bring it safely to the ground.

The balloon, a weak craft with a plywood bottom and a small door through which it is believed the child entered, floated between 5,000 to 7,000 feet for hours, taking off from near Ft. Collins and landing a field near Hudson, CO. The child was not inside of the craft and the search for him continues.

In the meantime, we have realized (as has Huffington Post) that the boy is the son of one of the families featured on the popular TV show Wife Swap. The family, the Heenes, were the reckless family who were stormchasers and daredevils; the wife was switched to a ultra safety-conscious mom. The episode was so spectacular that it opened the season for the show, and one of the children notoriously says "F*ck these rules" to the swapped mom. Check out a clip of that here.

The video, after the jump.

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Tags: Ski Travel / Skiing / Ski Resorts / Snowboarding / Sports Travel / Active Travel / → All Tags

The Ski Season Is Already Underway In Colorado

Many people are still putting the final touches on their jack-o-lanterns, but it’s already time to break out the skis from the storage unit. Winter has arrived extra early in some parts of Colorado this year. Last week a baseball playoff game was canceled due to a little snow and sleet, and the Loveland Ski Area fired up the lifts for the first time this season on October 7. It’s been cold enough and they've had the snow-making machines running at full force to get everything ready for the beginning of the season.

The resort is about 50 miles outside Denver and this is the first time they’ve opened this early in about 40 years—guess there’s no trouble with global warming up on the slopes. Unless some other ski resort sneakily opened their facility without any fanfare, Loveland is the first ski resort to open in North America this year.

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Tags: Parties / Airport News / Vail Travel / EGE / → All Tags

Party On The Tarmac Tomorrow At Vail Airport's Reopening

Wooohoo! Party at the airport! Well, Vail's Eagle County Airport, to be more exact, and they're opening up their newly revamped runway to the public tomorrow for their "Romp the Runway" event. From 4:30-8pm tomorrow, aviation fans and locals alike are welcome to celebrate the end of the airport's summer closure, which has been in effect since April 15.

According to Today In The Sky, festivities on the tarmac will include a bike race, 5K run, food concessions and live music. We also hope that there will be face paint, because how awesome would it be to run around this event with airplanes drawn on your cheeks?

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Tags: Beer Travel / Beer Festivals / Green Travel / Events / Colorado Travel / → All Tags

Drink a Beer, Save a Tree in Colorado this Summer

Colorado is home to one of the nation’s highest concentrations of beer geeks, and probably has more nature geeks than anywhere else too, so it’s only natural that the state would hold America’s first solar-powered beer festival.

The 7th Annual Craft Lager Beer Festival comes to Manitou Springs, Colorado on August 8 and 9, and $35 gets you an all-you-can-drink pass to more than 60 craft brews, including lots of locals like Colorado Spring’s Rock Bottom and Pott’s of Fort Collins. Plus, 14 different CO breweries collaborate each year to brew up a few barrels of “Warning Sign,” a super-strong small-batch lager made only for the festival.

And eco-conscious drinkers can do all of this guilt-free, because the theme of this year’s festival is “Drink a Beer, Save a Tree”—all proceeds from the event support efforts to preserve open space and parks in Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs. We'll raise a glass to that.

Related Stories:
· Craft Lager Beer Festival [Official Site]
· Beer festivals coverage [Jaunted]
· Beer travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Craft Lager Brew Festival]

Tags: Top Chef Travel / Food Travel / Reality Television Travel / Restaurants / → All Tags

Top Chef Whips Up a Surprise, But Can He Break the Top Chef Curse?

For the most part, Top Chef's "surprises" got pretty weak in season five—cook with alligator! Cook with oatmeal! cook with Dr. Pepper! Cook with your eyes closed—but we have to say they got us in the finale.

After cocky Stefan dominated most of the season and spunky Carla took over late in the game, Padma and Co. went ahead and gave the crown to Hosea, who until now was mostly known for kissing Leah a couple of episodes back (and kissing Leah again in the closing scene of the finale! What's up with that?)

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Tags: Recessionomics / Barack Obama / Stimulus Package / → All Tags

How Does The President's Economic Recovery Plan Affect Travel?

Yesterday in Denver, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law, his job-creation and spending bill aimed at getting the economy back on track. Comprising $787 billion in spending, there's something for everyone in the stimulus package; while the American Society of Travel Agents called the bill "a missed opportunity" for its failure to help small-business owners, you may already be a winner thanks to infusions for these sectors:

Road-trippers and commuters. -- One provision in the $82.1 billion slice dedicated to tax credit payments will allow buyers of new cars to deduct sales or excise taxes on vehicles up to $49,500 (as long as you make less than $125,000). City dwellers got some goodies too: You can now set aside $230 a month in pre-tax dollars to pay for public transit to get to work (up from $120) if your employer participates in a program like TransitChek.

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Tags: Crime / New Year's Eve / Skiing / → All Tags

Aspen Defuses New Year's Bomb Threat

God save our aging, semi-retired celebs! After four homemade "gasoline bombs" disguised as holiday gifts were found in Aspen, police there say they found the body of the would-be bomber, a convicted con man who apparently shot himself before his New Year's plot could unfold.

The explosives were found at two banks and in a nearby alley along with notes demanding $60,000, leading police to seal off a 16-block section of downtown, shuttering restaurants and bars gearing up for a huge night. Celebrations in the celeb-stuffed ski village ground to a halt, and the professionally planned fireworks show was also canceled.

Locals say the suspect, James Blanning Jr., was upset that he hadn't cashed in on the town's transformation from mining outpost to celebrity ski haven, though we'd classify his apparent expertise in grandstanding and dramatic plots as straight out of Aspen resident Don Johnson's playbook.

Related Stories:
· Bomb Plot Interrupts New Year’s in Aspen [NYT]
· You, Me And Some Skis [Jaunted]
· All She Wants For Christmas... [Jaunted]

[Photo: non no yes]

Tags: Celeb Travel / Skiing / Kate Hudson / Goldie Hawn / → All Tags

You, Me And Some Skis

Kate Hudson and mom Goldie Hawn were spotted shopping in the celeb haven of Aspen on Sunday while Kate's son Ryder was actually checking out the slopes. With 65 inches of snow at Aspen Highlands and a 58-inch base at Snowmass, it's good to see someone's taking advantage of high quality pre-season skiing!

Kate and former husband Chris Robinson were married in Aspen back in 2000, and her mom and Kurt Russell are part-time residents, along with Michael Douglas, Kevin Costner, Jack Nicholson and Don "How's my stubble?" Johnson.

Even more celebs swing by for occasional visits: Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon dropped in this Christmas and Paris Hilton and new BFF Brittany hit the town this weekend.

Related Stories:
· All She Wants For Christmas... [Jaunted]
· Skiing coverage [Jaunted]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: PopSugar]

Tags: Holiday Travel / Mariah Carey / Celeb Travel / Skiing / → All Tags

All She Wants For Christmas...

If you're going away this Christmas, at some point you have to pick: Sun or snow? Mariah Carey, original artist behind one of the best modern Christmas songs ever, picked snow--specifically, celeb magnet Aspen. (Probably just so she can hang out with longtime resident Jack Nicholson, right?)

Well, at least the ski patrol won't have trouble finding her. She might be alone up there--a lot of celebrities have opted for the beach instead of the slopes this year, from Simon Cowell and Gwen Stefani to president-elect Barack Obama, whose trip home to Hawaii must be bittersweet after losing his grandmother earlier this year.

Related Stories:
· Baggage Fees? But I'm Mariah Carey! [Jaunted]
· Ice Fishing Too Easy For You? [Jaunted]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Faded Youth Blog]

Tags: Accidents / Airlines / Airline News / Airline Travel / Airline Fees / Continental / → All Tags

Denver Jet Crash: Scary, But It Could Have Been Way Worse

A Houston-bound jet skidded off the runway and caught on fire during takeoff in Denver Saturday night, resulting in 38 injuries but no fatalities. Some witnesses said the Continental 737 hadn't left the ground yet when it veered off the runway and into a ravine.

There's no doubt it was a terrifying situation for the 112 passengers on board, who had to exit the plane via inflatable slide, but I'm sure most of them consider themselves lucky right now, like they just got a new lease on life. Just think about how much worse it would have been if the plane was a few hundred feet in the sky before going out of control.

It also sounds like the evacuation went pretty well. College student Emily Pellegrini told the Denver Post that she just "went with the flow off the plane," leaving behind her cell phone and carry-on bag. Somebody's been paying attention to the passenger emergency procedures demonstration.

Investigators are on the scene, and the cause of the accident is under investigation. Not surprisingly, the incident has resulted in some delays, but for one fortunate group of fliers, that probably doesn't seem like a big deal right now.

[Photo: AP]

Related Stories:
· DIA Crash Injures 38 [Denver Post]
· Accident Coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: World's Best Vegetarian Restaurants / World's-Best-Vegetarian-Restaurants / Food Travel / Restaurants / → All Tags

Green Is Good In Boulder

Are you ready to expand your palate? Put down that steak and look beyond the salad plate at the world's best vegetarian restaurants.

The city of Boulder, known for its primo skiing and its smug hippies, doesn't exactly lack for vegetarian options. But even among these Leaf Vegetarian Restaurant stands out for its drive to create a perfect place for meat-free fine dining.

Leaf pairs classic white-tablecloth accoutrements like prix-fixe dinners and a full bar with a tablecloth-free atmosphere decorated with living plants. And the food? Try white polenta risotto, BBQ seitan and jerk tempeh, as unselfconscious as it is delicious. As one Yelp commenter puts it, "Leaf is not imbued with a sense of macrobiotic-holistic, health-induced vegetarian dining. It's just yummy food presented in a lovely way."

Want to see your favorite joint featured? Tip us off.

Related Stories:
· Leaf Vegetarian Restaurant [Official Site]
· Go, Go to New York's Gobo [Jaunted]
· Eat Like a Buddhist in Shanghai [Jaunted]
· Food Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: gwenbell]