15 Years Later...

So it started snowing last night, and this morning I get up around 6am to this view out my front door...

Fortunately for me, I already had plans to meet friends at a local Starbucks and then head to the mountain. When we get there, we find about a foot of new snow, and seemingly every person within a 50 mile radius that owns a pair of skis.

This was at about 8:20am. Lifts open at 8:30...

When I saw this, I about lost my excitement. 15 years ago, this line would have meant a 20 to 30 minute wait, and then a 15 minute chair ride to the top. Wasting 45 minutes of precious time before I could carve my first turn was not what I had hoped for.
Things have changed dramatically to say the least since the last time I stood in this parking lot.

This lift line took about 5 minutes to clear out, and we were standing at the top of the mountain 3 or 4 minutes after that.I took this photo with my iPhone on my 2nd run. I was so excited to be up on the slopes again, that I completely forgot to take a picture during my 1st run!

I couldn't have asked for a better day to be my first back on skis.

By noon, we had skied nearly 10 runs. These high speed chair lifts make it impossible to rest between runs!!! My legs were on fire, and my lungs were burning with cold, thin, 10,000 foot air. This summer shall be spent getting back into shape. I cannot allow another day like today to be only a half day.

My wife was out of town this weekend, but we already have plans to head up next weekend. I'm crossing my fingers for another Blue Bird morning like this one.

...and we can't go skiing.

I didn't sleep well last night, for a couple reasons, but mostly because I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that soon I will be skiing for the first time in nearly 15 years. I feel giddy.

So I get up this morning around 7am to this view from my front door.

Generally speaking, weather in my neck of the woods comes over this mountain, and moves east (behind me). That means that we may likely see crystal blue skies in a few hours, and this ski resort is no more than a 30 minute drive from where this picture was taken on my front lawn.

I am bummed to say the least. Today we have a number of pre-planned (before we bought the skis yesterday) activities that we cannot change.

Don't get me wrong, I have a number of hobbies (one of them is cooking), and I'm excited about the souffle demo/class we are going to this morning, but back in the day, this was the kind of day when I'd wake up drooling all over myself while trying to get my gear loaded up.

So as I write this, I'm considering what day I could possibly take off this week to go carve a few turns. The problem is that my wife likely cannot take any days off, and thus she would miss out.

Skier 2.0

My wife has been begging (bugging?) me for years to teach her how to ski.

When I was a younger man, I skied every chance I got. Weekends, holidays, sick days... You get the idea. Then some time shortly after high school, something happened. I quit skiing. I am not going to point fingers, lay blame or anything like that. It was my decision, right, wrong or otherwise.

So for the last 5+ years I have dodged, denied, deflected the idea of ever going skiing again. I figured I couldn't ski at the level I had been accustomed to, and so I just wouldn't ski ever again.

Well today my wife and I went to the REI garage sale... and we bought 2 pair of skis. It was no small investment, and we decided that if we were going to invest the money, we were going to commit to skiing as much as we could afford to.

So starting today, with this new blog, my intention is to chronicle my endeavors...

To report when I ( or we as the case may be) decide to do or try something, and stick to it, for all to see, criticize, or applaud.

Interestingly enough, the focus to update this blog regularly with my exploits will test my will power.

"First name Will, Last name Power."