Almost Home

I am currently sitting in the Chicago airport waiting out a layover before we can get on our last leg back to Greensboro. Time to catch everyone up on the events of yesterday and today. In order to feel like we got our money's worth out of the lift tickets, we decided it was best to get up early and hit the slopes as soon as the lifts opened (9am). Amazingly, we all were ready to go at the allotted hour for departure. We had to shuttle down to the van, which we left beside the highway again. We got to the slopes to find that four of the lifts were shut down due to high winds. Three of them didn't really matter, but the fourth was one of the major lifts that moves people from one side of the mountain to the other. Bummer, but there was plenty of mountain open, and plenty of lifts operational. We headed over to the Mary Jane side, more or less as a group, and went down a run called "Sleeper". At the bottom, Mac's legs were burning pretty good (or bad?) so he decided to take a break at the warming hut and we were going to pick him up on the next pass through. Trouble was, he wasn't there on the next pass. And they had shut another lift down due to wind - another major lift that effectively prevented us from getting back up the mountain on the Mary Jane side. We had to take a cutoff run back to Winter Park and start over again. By this time, with all those big lifts closed, lines on the Winter Park side were starting to back up. They were never really that bad, but compared to the wait time of, well, nothing really, waiting five to ten minutes was a major drag. The good news is, they did open most of the lifts again, and the lines thinned out significantly. By then, we had broken up into a couple of groups, but no one had seen Mac since the morning. We figured he was either: A) skiing on his own, B) drinking a beer in one of the many pubs, or C) found a cougar in need of some mountain lovin'.

Z and my dad came out a little later in the day. My dad joined us for some runs, and Z checked into some lessons. Unfortunately, the lessons didn't pan out, but he found some runs that were his speed before taking an early exit and enjoying the beautiful mountain afternoon from the deck of the lodge.

Towards the end of the day, my dad headed back to the cabin, and I twisted Buddha into playing a game that I have played with my sister many times in the past - one we affectionally call "Race The Lifts". Here's how it goes. Starting around 3pm (the lifts close at 4pm), you start making runs as fast as you can to see how many runs you can squeeze in before the lifts shut down, all the while trying to end up on the top of the mountain for the last run of the day. In twelve minutes time, we made two speed runs down Cranmer, which is probably at least a mile and a half long, in time to make the last lift back up to the top. Mission accomplished. On the down side, Buddha has sworn off playing any games with me ever again. You know, the view from the top of the Hughes run at the end of the day was well worth it. You can decide for yourself:

Last night's meal was the leftover stew, which was, as stew is so often, even better the second night. We had a plethora of bananas left over, so we also whipped up a batch of Bananas Foster to enjoy over the five gallons of chocolate ice cream we had left. A heated poker game ensued after dining, in which I think Vrettacos eventually cleaned everyone out, aided in part by Kent (spectating). Kent's part was to reveal what Mac's "tell" was.

We packed up as many bags as we could last night and took them down to the van (once again at the highway), so we wouldn't have much to pack in the morning. Luckily, today has gone very well, and mostly according to plan. Scott did get put on a different flight, but should hopefull be back home this evening. The bad news is that he gets to spend the day in Newark. Mac is flying non-rev, and is currently in Philly. He should also be able to make it back tonight, though he doesn't know exactly when since he's going standby.

I've got about 45 minutes before my flight, which gives me time to reflect on things that I've learned this trip:

• You can carefully plan out every detail, but in the end, God just laughs at you
• No matter how bad you think pond ice is, it can be worse
• When staying in a house full of guys playing in a pond hockey tournament, it is beneficial to not have a good sense of smell
• Even if a tournament had a division called "We Really Suck At Hockey And Are Terrible In Bed Too", there would be some team of yahoos that drop down to try to run the division
• Brett cannot open a Colorado dumpster, but a black bear can
• Full-size passenger vans are not the ideal vehicle for wintery mountain regions
• Full-size SUV's are not the ideal vehicle for wintery mountain roads if you don't stay on the road
• Tow-truck drivers make good money
• Arugula is what it's all about

Hope you enjoyed reading once again. We have a multitude of pictures from the trip that we will try to get posted on our Shutterfly account soon. They are probably worthwhile taking a look at, so I'll get a link posted as soon as they're ready.

 

In the meantime,

 

Arugula, my friends, arugula.

 

The Blustery Day

Another beautiful day on the slopes, save one thing - the wind! Very gusty and they've shut down some if the major lifts. Consequently, the others have long lines starting to form. The wind is supposed to die down a little later, but it may not be in time to help us out much getting up the mountain. Lots of fun, regardless. 

Self explanatory

A Rough Start - A Beautiful Finish

After the night we had on Sunday, we were all looking forward to hitting the reset switch and doing some skiing at Winter Park. The forecast had no mention whatsoever of anything remotely resembling snow for either Monday or Tuesday, so we were very hopeful that we would have a good couple of days. The morning started off fantastic. A clear view of the valley unfolded as the sun came up. We had a nice, leisurely breakfast and got ready for the slopes. Our plan was to be there by around 10-11am, getting in most of the day on the powder that Mother Nature had so nicely tried to blow us away with the night before. We stuffed everyone in the two vehicles we had at the cabin. The Yukon got up the drive fine, but we had to help the VW a bit on one patch of slick snow. Nevertheless, we were soon at the bottom of the hill at the highway, and loading up the van for our trek down the road to Winter Park. The road, although it had been scrapped, was slick as hell, and driving, especially in the van, was still very dicey. About ten miles from the ski resort, we ended up in a long, slow moving line of traffic. At first, I thought there was an accident or stranded vehicle that was slowing things down, but it became evident that the traffic was just backed up. We had no way of knowing how far it was backed up, but we were just creeping along. Finally, around 11am, everyone arrived at the Winter Park base, with most of our equipment, and geared up for what looked to be a glorious day on the slopes. The groups split off into smaller groups, and everyone had a fantastic time, as the snow conditions were splendid. Here are a couple of pic from the day:

Buddha at the Parsiene Bowl

The view on Cranmer

After our day on the slopes, we arrived back at the cabin (after stashing the van back down at the highway - the road up the hill was still a little slick) to the smell of the stew that we put in the oven that morning. Following our dinner, the games were on, as Mac hosted poker night in the mountains.

The forecast for tomorrow is nearly identical to today's, so we're looking forward to another great day on the slopes to cap off a rather eventful trip. We'll be flying out Wednesday morning, if all goes as planned. I'll try to post some more pictures tomorrow.

Good night, and good luck.

 

Whiteout

So, I promised you a story about Sunday, and here it is. I'll pick up with our last games at the pond hockey tournament. Each team had one more game Sunday morning, and we thought with a record of 1-1-1 that the Holes might have a chance to advance. They played first against the Brown Santas, named such because the guy that organized the team works for UPS. Clever, huh? Skill-wise, this was one of the lower level teams we played this weekend, but they were a fun bunch. They had one gal on the team, and the captain, before the game, told me, "When you guys get up 15-0 on us, please let the girl score." We agreed that if we were up 15-0, we'd let the girl score. I filled in as the sixth skater for the Holes in this game. It was a very enjoyable game for many reasons. First, the ice on this rink was really pretty good. Certainly better that the death trap that Clusterpuck played on the day before. Second, there wasn't a lot of pressure, as it was evident early that we could have easily blown this team out. And third, we got heckled and called "ringers". Ringer? Us? Actually, the heckling was very good natured, and they really gave Mac hell after he stole the puck from the aforementioned girl. Even our own guys were booing him. We ended up winning the game like 16-9, and that 9 that they got was VERY generous of us. The "girl" scored 5-6 of those goals, I think.
My dad was able to drive over that morning to watch the games, and took a few pictures, as well. I'll try to get the extended library of trip pics posted on Shutterfly soon. Buddha also was burning up his camera that morning, so we should have a sizable collection to look through later.
On to game number two. This was Clusterpuck's last game, facing a team that hailed from Dallas. It was a fun game, and we were able to pull out a victory. It think the final was 13-9. This ice was also a LOT better than what we skated on Saturday afternoon, which made it all the more enjoyable. Scotty filled in for us on that game.

As we waited around for the other Brown Bottle division teams to finish their games, we took in some of the attractions at the pond, including live organ music. Buddha posed with the organist. On display were the various tournament trophies, one of which can be seen in the photo.
Checking the results board, it was clear that Clusterpuck was not going to advance (no surprise). We finished with a 2-2 record, and in third place in our pool. Only the top team in each pool was guaranteed to advance. Now, the only question was whether the Holes might make it through. There were two teams left in their pool that were playing each other, and would factor in the Holes' future. After scrutinizing the results, including wins, head to head, and goals against, I figured out that the Holes could advance. All that would need to happen is that the two remaining teams would have to end the game with tie of more than 17 goals apiece. Okay, so it's a longshot, but we headed on down to watch the game, mostly to keep Buddha out of hot water by making SURE that the Holes didn't advance this year. As you might guess, the 17-17 tie didn't happen, so it was off to pack up and head to the Winter Park area for the skiing portion of our trip.

The trip from Silverthorne to Tabernash (where my parent's cabin is - just down the road from Winter Park) was uneventful, and took just over an hour. The road up to the cabin is steep in places and covered with a lot of snow, so there was a little concern that our 15-passenger van with rear-wheel drive might have a hard time getting there, but it soldiered on, and we finally arrived at the cabin. We unloaded all of our bags to make room in the van for skis, boots, and poles, and headed down to the ski shop to get our gear. It was late in the afternoon, with some snow moving in, so we wanted to get geared up and make a grocery run before it got too late (and the roads got slicker). The skis took a bit to get doled out, but we got everyone taken care of, then went across the road to get some food for the next couple of days.

When we went into the Safeway, the snow was just starting to lightly fall. A "pitter- patter" as Kent might say. Not surprisingly with a group of this size, getting the items that we needed took longer than it should have, but we finally checked out and rolled our carts for the exit. It was then that we discovered all hell had broken loose outside. It was snowing. Sidewise. And up. A sticky, slippery, wet snow that quickly had all of us looking like a Yeti. As we loaded up the vehicles, our concern level for getting back up the hill to the cabin was increasing. As we pulled out on the road and were instantly engulfed in near white-out conditions, concern was quickly turning to worry. The wind was ripping around, and that nice big 15-passenger van was doing its best impression of a kite as it edged over toward the shoulder of the road with every gust. All we could do was follow the tail lights of the car in front (hoping they were still on the road, since it was rather hard to tell at this point) and keep the tires in the tracks created by the slowly moving line of traffic. As we traversed an overpass, a few fishtails told me the roads were quicly becoming very dangerous. Still, we plodded on. We did finally make it back to the turnoff off the highway and we headed up the hill to the cabin. There were several places along the road that I thought might pose problems for us, but I tried to keep my speed up and power on.

Unfortunately, shortly after the first switchback, our luck ran out. I could feel the van slowing as the rear wheels started to slip. Very quickly, our forward progress was halted, and even more concerning, the van was now moving backwards (unintentionally). Knowing that if we slipped too far back, we would be approaching that same switchback I mentioned, I tried to gently glide the back end of the van into the snowbank on the side of the road, just to stop it from sliding and get it out of the middle of the road. We made a few unsuccessful attempts to get it moving again, including every available person pushing on the back, but it was unquestioningly stuck.
There was nothing to do but call a tow truck at this point. "Marvin" at Hilly's Hooker Service told me that it would probably be about 35 minutes before he could make it. There was no reason that everyone needed to stay in the van, so my dad shuttled the extras (and our food) back to the cabin. Kent, Vrettacos, Brett, and I decided to stay with the van and wait. After about 20 minutes, Marvin called back to tell me he would be later, as he was called out by the highway patrol to assist elsewhere. He didn't know how soon he would be there, but thought it would be at least an hour. We called the cabin and had Dad head back down to pick us up, so we could at least have some dinner. We hopped in the Yukon and started back up the hill. With all the blowing and drifting snow, it was becoming very hard to see exactly where the road was, and my dad fell victim to snow. We got a little too close to the soft snow drift on the right side of the road, and it pulled the front end of the Yukon right down into the deep bank. We were actually lucky there was a deep bank there, because we might have slid right off the road and down a steep incline otherwise. Once again, some attempts were made to free up yet another foundered vehicle, with similar results to the first attempt. Nothing we could do but hike back to the cabin and wait on the wrecker to pull out two vehicles. Let me take this time to remind you that we were still in blizzard conditions, so the hike up was not pleasant.
We settled in and started on our dinner, when the phone call from Marvin came. He was headed our way and would be there in about 15 minutes. I informed him that we now had two vehicles stuck, and told him where the Yukon was in relation to the van. Kent and I bundled up and headed back down the road we just came up to meet Marvin. Still in the blizzard. One good thing - Marvin knew what he was doing. With a little effort, we finally had the Yukon freed up and back on the road, then rolled on down the hill to liberate the van. We didn't think it was a good idea at all to try to get the van up the hill, considering the maelstom going on around us, so we decided to take it back down to the highway, and park it there until morning. The van was a lot easier to deal with, and shortly (and after a considerable investment in Marvin's finacial future), the van was nestled all snug in its bed at the highway - ready for use tomorrow. Kent and I then made our way back to the cabin, going very slowly and driving right down the middle of the road.
The rest of the evening was much less exciting, other than some tense moments as we tried to talk Jim's son and his son's girlfriend through driving up to the cabin in the blizzard. Eventually, everyone made it where they needed to go, and we went to bed with the faith that tomorrow would be better. Some days are much more fun to talk about them later than to live through them.

Coming soon

Okay, Sunday was a hell of a story. No time to relate it now, but I promise to give full details tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Here comes the sun

The sunrise on our last day of hockey. 

Saturday Wrap-Up

So here's a summary of the rest of Saturday:

Following our morning games (Holes tied, Clusterpuck lost) the Holes had another game around 3pm. They did quite well, dispatching their opponent 16-5. We had two more games in rapid succession, so there was no going back to the cabin for some R&R. Clusterpuck played their third game of the tournament around 5pm, with the help of Jared. What, I haven't mentioned Jared? Well, let me elaborate.

When we checked in on Friday and explained that three of our guys were not on the trip, the gal in charge of the check-in mentioned that she had a guy that was looking to play on a team. His wife was playing, and he wanted to find someone to play with. I told her that, considering we only had 9 players and would have a difficult time fielding two teams, we would be happy to have another set of legs. Jared got up with us Saturday morning, and our intention was for him to mainly play with Buddha's team (Ice Holes). It turns out, Jared can play. Even with Jared playing we only had five players per team, and only having one sub on pond hockey (especially at 9000 feet) is really tough, so we "supplemented" each team to make a full roster of six players. After helping the Holes play Saturday morning and afternoon, Jared helped Clusterpuck in our afternoon game.

Bad Ice

The ice in this game was horrible. No, that's not a strong enough word. The ice was freaking HORRENDOUS! We literally (not figuratively) could not skate on it. We basically shuffled around on the ice, falling whenever we hit ruts or holes. The game was basically a matter of whacking the puck up the ice and trying to put it on "net". It turns out, we were better at whacking than the other team, and we won our first game of the tournament.

There was one particularly exciting moment early in the game when OS was parked out in front of our net. As one of the other teams' players came cruising by, he shoved (OS says he punched) OS in the chest, who went down like a sack of potatoes. We believe the other player was upset with what he considered to be goaltending, which is not allowed in this tournament. Of course, OS would never do something that was not allowed, so this attack was utterly unprovoked.

The Holes had their last game (on a different rink, thank goodness) at 6:30pm, under the lights. Unfortunately, they were matched up against a team that certainly is above the "Brown Bottle Division" pay scale. It wasn't pretty. They did make a late push that narrowed the goal differential, but lost 13-9 in the end. They finished the day with a respectable 1-1-1 record, setting them up for possibly advancing to the next round if they are able to tack on another win tomorrow morning.

Following the last game, we cleaned up and headed out to eat at the Dillon Dam Pub & Brewery. The food was good, but as tired as most of us were, we could have probably eaten a tire and thought it was a fine gourmet dinner. We're all back at the cabin now, watching some replays of the Winter Olympics and slowly heading to bed, one by one.

For your enjoyment, some snapshots from the day:

Namaste, my b*tches

 

What a setting!

The ballad of the traveling tosselcap

This is the story of a little lost tosselcap that finally found its way home. It started several years ago in Wisconsin when Kent's custom tosselcap (made by Big John's wife, Melanie) went missing. At the time, Kent was quite upset and had the impression that Mac was behind the disappearance. Some disparaging remarks were made. Fast forward to a year later in Vermont. Getting ready for our first games, Mac presented Kent with the "missing" tosselcap. Many skeptics felt like the tosselcap that was exchanged that day was not the original, but a clever copy. Skip to the last day of the Vermont trip, and who's tosselcap comes up missing this time? You guessed it - Mac's. Mac was upset at the disappearance, and, of course, blamed Kent. Truth be told, though Kent seemed a likely suspect, he really didn't have anything to do with this one. Mac had left the hat, which was found and returned to our team. Kent, however innocent of the actual disappearance, did seize upon the opportunity to get back at Mac. He stowed it away, disavowed any knowledge regarding the missing cap, and bided his time. On a humorous note, the cap has actually made some candid appearances in pictures, none of which has ever been noted by Mac. Case in point: here is a photo from last year, after the tournament, where Kent is actually wearing the cap.

So I told you all of that to explain what happened today. Kent brought the cap on the trip and we all tried to come up with a clever way to return it to its rightful owner. The opportunity presented itself this morning when Mac checked in. As Mac was filling out his paperwork, I took the cap to one of the gals helping check people in, and asked a favor. The plan was, when Mac presented his registration form, that she would look at the name and say, "Oh, you're Daniel McGovern. I have something for you." She played it perfectly, and the picture tells the rest of the story better than I could describe:

The View

Here's the view from the cabin

 

A Good Morning

It's Saturday morning, all of the guys who were traveling yesterday are now here at the cabin, the men's USA olympic hockey team beat Russia in a shootout, and we are in the Rocky Mountains. Life is good. Hey, someone ought to make a clothing line on that theme.

So, we ended up with nine out of the twelve guys we intended on bringing. If we divided teams, that will leave one team with four, the other with five. At this altitude, that's tantamount to a cardiac incident. Luckily, we've got a plan. There is a fella up here that was looking for a team to fill in on, so we will pick him up, giving us five per side. We also plan on rotating a sixth guy in on all of the games except the first this morning (when both teams play simultaneously). We'll be headed out in about forty five minutes.

So, for your entertainment, here are a few pics from yesterday:

The people mover at Washington Dulles

The stranded

Beau Jo's - pizza by the pound

The five-pounder

The cabin

 

 

Beau Jo's

We stopped in Idaho Springs at a cool pizza place called Beau Jo's. they make specialty pizzas and sell them, not by diameter, but weight. A three and a five-pounder did us in and should last probably until tomorrow. 

The plan now is to get to the pond in time to check in and hopefully play the one game that is scheduled for tonight. 

On the rod again...

And miles to go before I sleep

So, you're probably wondering what's up with the blog. Why aren't there any posts? I thought they were going to Colorado Thursday? What has been said or done? Where are these guys?!!

It's a dramatic story that begins Wednesday afternoon. Our original travel plans had us heading out to Denver bright and early Thursday morning. That was before the perfect storm rolled through the southeast. Wednesday afternoon, it started snowing. And it snowed. And then it sleeted. And then it snowed. All the way until Thursday afternoon around 3pm. As I'm sure you're guessing, this impacted our travel plans. By Wednesday morning, our original flight out of Greensboro was cancelled. Luckily, we had some inside connections in reservations, and we were automatically rebooked for Friday morning. Great, right? Well, yes and no. Let me go on. Our rebooked flights had us split into two groups - one of five going through Chicago and the other of six going through Washington (Dulles). Washington had also been hit by the inconvenient storm, so we had some concern that the six going there might be delayed or worse, but we were ready to just cross our fingers and go with it. Pat, who was coming from Charleston, had also been affected by the weather, but after some doing, we had him lined up to arrive in Denver about an hour after us.

We had a lot riding on this Friday morning departure, because we were told that if those flights were cancelled, the earliest we would be able to leave after that would be Sunday morning. That would completely nix any chance of playing in the tournament and make no sense for Jack, Erik, and Pat who were all coming back on Monday. Lots of prayers, chants, and good thoughts were sent out Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Thursday afternoon arrives, and though the main roads around the Piedmont Triad area were relatively clear, many of the back roads were still very treacherous. This lead Mac and I to decide that we would go ahead to Greensboro to stay with Chris Vrettacos, who lives 15-20 minutes from the airport. While on the way to the airport, the sun came out, the ice was melting, and things were feeling good.

Then Scottt called me.

Despite the weather looking like it was going to give us a break after all, Scott informed me that he had just received an email saying his flight Friday was cancelled, and he was rebooked for Saturday morning. It was like the air going out of our balloon of happiness. I checked on the status of the other flights when I reached Vrettacos' house, and sure enough, all of the guys on the Chicago bound flight were rebooked. Scott and Vrettacos had the better luck, being that they were going out on Saturday morning. Jack, Erik, and Mac were not headed out until Sunday afternoon now. Now, would you like to hear the absurdity of these new schedules? I thought you might. United had Scott and Vrettacos flying from Greensboro to Washington, then to Las Vegas, THEN to Denver, arriving around 6:30pm on Saturday, effectively negating any chance that they would play the tournament. Pretty silly, right? Wait...it gets better. The others were flying out on Sunday at 4:30, going through Chicago, BACK to Washington, THEN on to Denver, to arrive at 11:51pm. Yes, almost midnight. Then, they had those same guys scheduled to get back on the plane Monday morning at 11:30am to go back home. I'll let that sink in a while.

So where are we now? I'll try to condense all the contortions we've been through, but Jack, Erik, and Pat ended up bowing out altogether due to the ridiculous travel. The six going through Washington were still booked and were at the airport bright and early this morning. Mac, Scott, and Vrettacos also got to Greensboro this morning to see, if by any chance, they might get on our flight as a standby. As we were boarding in Greensboro, we were thrilled to learn that ALL of our standbys made it on the plane. We got in to Washington on time, and headed to the gate for our next leg. We were feeling pretty good when the rug got pulled out from under us again. The standby list for the Washington to Denver flight was around 60 people long.

Skipping ahead, I am now on the flight to Denver with five other guys, hoping that by the time we land in Colorado, I'll have a text from one of the other three that they have made it on another flight and are on their way out. The air travel gods giveth and they taketh away.

I'll update you with some more details once we get to Colorado, and I promise the posts will resume their normally humorous nature. In the meantime, please enjoy this picture of my kids and me in the snow right before I left the house yesterday.

 

Rocky Mountain High

Ice Holes - Summer Season 2014

These are exciting times for the Ice Holes.  Just to catch you up on some of our recent activities - the Holes are currently two-time champions in the GAHL C1 division.  After winning a spectacular summer season championship game, we set up an equally thrilling championship win for the fall season.  Did I hear someone mention the word "dynasty"?

Ice Holes - Fall Season 2014

Well, "dynasty" might be a little hasty right now, considering we're winless so far in the winter season, but hey, we're a playoff team.  It'll come together.

Which bring us up to the next big item on the agenda for the Holes:  the annual pond hockey trip.  After an awesome trip last year to Vermont, which included a little skiing for some in the group, we decided the combination of pond hockey and skiing just made too much sense together to not do that again.  And when it comes to skiing, there is, perhaps, one place that comes to mind more than any other - Colorado.  I was tasked with finding a tournament that would scratch both itches, and I found it in the form of the Pabst Blue Ribbon Colorado Pond Hockey Tournament, held in Silverthorne, CO.

If you'd like to check out the tournament's website, you can jump to it here.

Silverthorne is located about an hour and a half west of Denver and in the middle of some of the best skiing in the state.  We've got two teams going again this year and are registered in the "Brown Bottle" division, which is the one level above the "Stay Home and Just Forget It" division.  Maybe we'll be able to hold our own this year. 

We head out bright and early on the morning of February 13th, will play the tournament over the weekend, then do a couple days of skiing at Winter Park Ski Resort on Monday and Tuesday.  With the advance forecast for Silverthorne being in the teens and twenties in the next 10 days, as well as some good new snow on the mountain at Winter Park, it looks like we might have optimum conditions on both counts. 

As in the past, I'll do my best to keep you posted on all the excitement.  In the next installment, we'll discuss the rosters for this trip, as well as a team name change.


Bryan