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.