Observations on this ski trip

#1 - This place is as crowded as Disney World, but the temperaments are totally different. No whining or crying kids. No parents threatening, "If you don't stop this right now, we are leaving." Perhaps the fact that the kids are bundled up like mini Michelin men with hoods, hats, helmets, and goggles that cover their whole face has something to do with it. They can barely move, let alone utter a string of words. And if they do manage to say something, it is, for the most part, lost in the wind or it can't penetrate their parent's bundled ears.

#2 - If I were the CEO of Kleenex, I'd have advertisements everywhere. I'd pass out free samples and set up booths. Everyone here carries facial tissue for their runny noses.

#3 - It takes longer to suit up in all this ski gear then it does to ski down the mountain. Pants, socks, ski pants, thermals, shirt, sweater, jacket, hat, neck warmer, gloves, scarf, goggles...and all of this is put on in the room. Then they hike down the hall to the storage area for their skis and off comes the jacket, the gloves, the hat and scarf and on go the ski shoes which have 20 different clasps and laces. Then back on goes the jacket, the gloves, the hat, and the scarf. By now, everyone is sweating and whining about sweating. Jeez, all of this for a ride down the mountain on your feet? I don't get it!

#4 - No McDonald's, but there is a Starbucks!

#5 - The thing about vacationing with three men....no one cares what you look like. I don't need make-up, a matching outfit, or a purse. I don't even need to comb my hair or brush my teeth (although I do this for my own sanity). The downside, of course, is the raised toilet seat, but that is quite minor in comparison.

#6 - High atop the mountain, above the ski slopes, there is a house perched at the peak. Who the hell lives there? I'm sure the view is fantastic, but who wants to have a cliff as a backyard?

Overheard (at Nordic Center before my lesson)

Lady Patron: "Well, I hope I'll be fine out there. Yesterday was awful. I had a pounding headache and was dizzy, and I kept vomiting in the snow. I couldn't stop the vomiting. I don't know if it was altitude sickness or a bug."

Overheard (Sunday before I skied)

Breckenridge Employee: (approaching a patron) "So is he going to need surgery?"

Lady Patron: "We don't know yet."

BE: "So what exactly happened?"

LP: "It was awful. The snow was completely red. Apparently, his binding broke while he was on the jump. He landed with his leg bent, but the other ski came across and sliced through his ski pants, his thermals, and his leg. It hit a major artery. There was blood all over the snow, and all the snowboarders just kept coming down toward us, ignoring the crossed skies we had set out. I mean, the snow was completely red!"

Yep, I'm feeling terrific about this whole skiing thing.

Day Two - The slopes

I was awake every hour last night, peeing. I'm irritated, but not concerned because I'm supposed to be urinating according to my article. My mouth is dry, so I drink water, thus perhaps the constant bathroom trips. The water here in Breckinridge is nasty. It beats Florida drinking water in the yuck department. I try to ignore the particles floating in my glass. My article said to drink plenty of water, so I'm drinking water.

Monday, February 4, 2008

We hiked down the hill to the village to enroll the kids in their ski school, and the instructor looked at us and said, "Okay, parents see you at 3:30." 

Tom and I retreated, hiking back to the resort to sip coffee with Dick and Clint. Later, we drove up Peak 8 to the Nordic Center to check out the cross-country skiing. I have nixed downhill skiing for myself, sticking to my original plan of trying cross country skiing. Tom thought I could probably walk to the center, but I opted for driving it to get the lay of the land.

Good plan. Peak 8 was up, up, up the mountain. On the passenger side, I looked out the window and tried not to panic. What the hell? I thought I'd be on a level surface, and instead, I'm traveling further up the mountain. The sky was darkening in the east.

The Nordic Center was a small log cabin in the middle of a forest. The employees gave us information on skiing, and we decided to join a pregnant woman in the 10:30 AM class. Dawn was a teacher from Ft. Lauderdale. She loved skiing but discovered she was with child right before they left for Colorado. Why didn't I think of that?

Dawn decided to cross-country ski instead. She was a cutie, and suddenly Tom, who spent the last month telling me how hard cross country is, decided he will join us. We were later joined by an Indian woman named Carmen.

We were fitted for boots and skies, and off we went with instructor Matt. He led us to a spot where he taught us how to attach the boot to each ski, how to turn in them, and how to stop when going downhill. Huh? Downhill?

Me: "What do you mean downhill?"

Matt: "Well, Cara, we will be doing a lot of uphill climbing, but then we will have to go downhill. That's the way the hills work."

Me: "Well, I hadn't counted on that." (Notice I turned the other cheek on his sarcasm)

Dawn: "You'll be fine."

Matt had us get into ruts made by some other skiers. It began snowing. He taught us to slide our skis forward, to push with our poles, and to head out. 

I pushed and slid. I looked up, and everyone was gone. Poof. Vanished. They skied off and left me. 

I ignored their meanness and continued sliding and pushing. I felt like an old man from Florida shuffling along in my bedroom slippers.

Both skis suddenly slid, and I locked my knees, scolding myself aloud. Matt told us locking the knees was the wrong thing to do. I'm supposed to bend my knees and lean forward, so I got myself back on track and continued with the sliding and pushing.

Suddenly Matt appeared at my side. Oh, did you notice someone missing from the group? I did not voice this aloud, nor did I mutter anything when he encouraged me to go at my own pace. He, however, must've gotten a sense of my irritation because he skied back and forth between me and the others, always encouraging me to bend and lean forward. I follow his instructions.

Eventually, I got to a point where I could see the others ahead. They had abandoned their ski poles and were getting instructions on descending a small hill. They spied me, and everything came to a halt while they watched me ski.

Matt took away my poles. I felt as if he removed my lifeline. Matt discussed how we were to slide our skis out to the side, how we would make a V, and turn our feet in toward our bodies.

Uh? Okay.

The others flew down the hill. I shuffled, slid, and tried hard not to scream as my feet moved faster. I reached the others and immediately fell on my ass.

Matt was kind. He took the opportunity of me on the ground to show the proper way to get back up.

He fell to the ground. Dawn, being kind, joined him. The others followed, and we practiced the two ways in which to get back up on our skis. Then we turned around and skied up the hill. I did that quite nicely.

The rest of the lesson involved practicing going up hills as well as going down the hills.

I talked aloud to myself for encouragement. I listened to Matt's advice to bend, lean forward, and put my hands on my knees.

I got pretty good at stopping while skiing downhill. I was quite good at going uphill. The lesson ended after an hour, and Tom and I went off on our own on a trail. I felt pretty good.

It snowed pretty hard during the lesson, and it continued on the trail. By the time we finished, we were covered in snow from our head to our toes. I was sweating, but that turned out to be snow melting in my hair.

My knees are sore, my legs are feeling the exercise, and my triceps are aching from using the lifeline ski poles. But I have done it. I have skied.

Day One - Denver to Breckenridge, CO

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Tom and I are awake at 7:15 AM. I slept fairly well despite the small bed and Tom's knees in my kidneys, but upon awakening, I feel like I have been out bar hopping all night. My sinuses are clogged and the room is spinning at a fast rate. I lie back down and worry about what ailment I may have caught on the plane. I try to read a book, but the words on the page are revolving around each other. Tom informs me that is due to the change in altitude. I say I will muddle through.

We eat breakfast at the hotel, get a grocery list from Dick and Clint, make a Walmart stop, eat a taco burger from Taco John's (that is for my SIL, Susan), load everything into the Caravan and merge on to the interstate. The car gives a "beep" noise.

Tom: "What was that?"
Me: "That means a door is ajar."
Tom: (looking at the controls) "It isn't showing any door opened."
Me: "Then don't worry about it."

We merge on to 70 and start down the hill. A gust of cold wind blows the back of our heads.

Tom: "What was that?"
Me: "The window is open."
Tom: (looking around) "Where?"
Me: "Who opened the window?"
Tom: "Is the back hatch opened?"

I turn around and sure enough the back of our van is wide open and flapping in the Colorado wind as we travel down the hill. We have to pull over to the side and carefully get out to close the hatch. Everything is safe and accounted for so we laughingly set off again to Darcy's "Where is the snow?"

The scenery is beautiful. In front of us the mountains loom, rising up into peaks, some covered with a layer of light snow, the others green with the pine trees. The girls are entranced and spend most of the travel time looking out the window. We speculate how Laura Ingalls and family traveled the mountainside in a horse-drawn covered wagon. When you travel between the mountains on a nice paved road it is amazing to think how they did it. As we get farther up the mountains, and at a high altitude we start seeing snow. It starts out slow, but as we go up, up, up, the sides of the road get higher and higher with piles of snow. Darcy is thrilled.

We reach Breckenridge around 3:00 PM. We stopped at an information station in Frisco and I now have a magazine with an interesting article regarding altitude sickness. Dizziness, headaches, and vomiting are all symptoms. The treatment is to avoid alcohol and drink tons of water. We should also be peeing twice as much as usual. If we aren't, it is bad, bad, bad. I read that breathing will be more difficult as we hike around so we are to take it slow and easy. All good info to have.

We are staying at Valdoro, a Hilton timeshare resort, that Dick and Clint own points in. They have invited us to share a one bedroom condo, but we must quietly sneak the girls in as four is the limit in the one bedrooms. Tom checks in and returns to let us know the lobby is empty. He is nervous. He parks in the underground parking area and instead of entering through the lobby, we go up one flight, walk over the lobby, and haul our luggage downstairs to our condo.

It is a small one bedroom with a kitchen, full bath, and living area. We deposit our luggage, put on our hat and gloves and head out into the frozen tundra. There is snow everywhere. Darcy and Madison engage in snowball fights and soon their hair is wet and snow is down the backs of their coats. We hike up a hill and head into Beaver Run, one of the many peaks for skiing and classes.

Unfortunately, we are up too high. All of our reservations are down past our resort. The lady sends us out on to the ski trail to walk down into the "village". Adults and tiny children ski past us. The girls climb the many mountains of snow and watch the skiers as they ski or ride up in the lift. I begin to think that I can do this type of skiing if I'm on this hill. I'm getting excited picturing myself slowly descending the hill on purple skis. Then we come to the point where we must cross the trail and head down the hill to the village. My vision pops.

Me: "I can't go down that hill."
Tom: "What do you mean? It's just a tiny hill."
Me: "I can't do it." I start down the hill and suddenly I'm slipping and sliding, my arms twirling wildly as I reach out for something, anything, to save me. "My boots aren't getting good traction. Help! Help me."

My family looks at me as if I'm an alien. I feel like one. I'm now a Floridian stuck in the middle of snow. That is alien if you ask me. Tom takes my hand and guides me down the hill. We watch the kids in the ski school. Tomorrow Madison and Darcy will attend this school. They will be skiing down the slope we just hiked down. Tom stands in line for his rental skis and boots and then we hike back to the resort. We are about 5 minutes from the village.

We meet Clint and Dick at the ski check-in at the resort. We spend the latter part of the evening watching the Super Bowl, eating unhealthy snacks and chatting. Dinner consists of frozen pizzas and beer. I'm over the dizziness, ignore the article and down a Corona. We hit the sack, the guys in the bedroom, Tom and Madison on the pull-out sofa, Darcy and I on the blow-up mattress in the kitchen.

We must have the girls at school by 8:30 AM tomorrow. Snow is forecasted. The Giants have won the Super Bowl. What a day!

Out of the Mouth of My Babes

Me: "Now listen, Darcy, I want you to try to relax and not be so wild around Uncle Clint"

Darcy: "But I like Uncle Clint and I haven't seen him in like 3 years!"

Me: "That's fine. I'm just saying not to let him get you all riled up."

Darcy: "But it's fun!"

Me: "What you ought to do when you see him is give him a big kiss."

Darcy: "Why would I do that?"

Me: "Because it would not be what he expects or what he wants."

Darcy: "Then why would I waste my lips on him?"

Arrival - Denver, CO

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Our flight was about 4 hours long, and I left the plane hungry and tired with a parched throat and dry skin. We hiked miles through the terminal to get to the baggage claim and waited several minutes for our luggage to make it around to where we were waiting.

We dutifully put on our jackets over our warm non-Florida clothes and stepped outside to catch the bus to the rental agency. It was chilly enough to see our breath, but not so cold that we complained. That is for the first 5 minutes.

We watched every other rental agency's bus drive past us three times while we stood breathing in the cold and exhaling air that made us seem like we were smoking. We put on our gloves. We put on our hats and lifted up the hoods on our jackets. We jumped up and down and looked so pitiful that the driver at the agency next to our stop got off his bus and offered to house us until Advantage Rental's van could pick us up. We bravely objected and suffered until the van scooped us up.

The drive to the rental agency wasn't too far, and we rode with people we had seen in the airport back home. Tom had sat with the parents on the plane. They had two daughters, were from New Port Richey, were headed to Breckenridge, and had never skied. We chatted with them on the ride and again while waiting for our cars.

We received our red Dodge Caravan and spent a half an hour seated inside it while Tom read directions, played with controls, and studied his map and blackberry. The parking lot and surrounding area were snowless. Ever so often, we spotted a small circle of snow, but for the most part, Denver was clear.

Darcy kept asking, "Where is the snow?" as if someone was holding it waiting to release it.

The room at the Hyatt was huge. We had a kitchen area, a living room, a bathroom area with a sink, a huge mirror, and several drawers, a shower room, and two double beds. We had a 35-inch flat-screen TV with High Definition, and we showered and curled up in bed to watch television, despite it being midnight our time. We figured staying up would help us get acclimated to the two hour time difference. Tom and I nodded off around 1:30 our time, the girls at 2:00 AM. We set the alarm for 9:00 Colorado time, figuring that was plenty of sleep and an excellent time to start our first day.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

I have agreed to go to Colorado for one week of skiing. I have absolutely no desire to do this, but Tom is so happy at the thought of it that I had to agree. I took the girls out of school for the week, something I NEVER do, and we are joining Tom's brother, Dick, and his better half, Clint, for a week of snow and skiing. I am afraid of heights and of falling...what about skiing has my name on it?

I had to buy all of us winter clothes. We live in Florida. We don't own jackets, ski boots, hats, gloves, etc. We own swimsuits.

Lands End to the rescue! We are now outfitted with the latter and ready for snow. I'm not prepared to fall, but I am prepared for the coldness. I think.

I shall try to blog my adventures.

Out of the Mouths of My Babes - Times 3

#1

Me: "What would you like for your birthday dinner, Madison?"

Madison: "Spaghetti"

Me: "I can do that."

Darcy: "Mom, can we have it this time without the whool grain pasta?"

Me: "The what pasta?"

Darcy (speaking slowly): "W - h - oo -l Grain pasta"

Me: "How do you spell that?"

Darcy: "W-h-o-l-e .....Whool"

#2

I pick the kids up from school and start the drive home.

Me: "So, what things happened in school?"

Darcy: "We were working so hard today, but we could not get microscopic word to work."

Me: (thinking along the Montessori lines): "What is microscopic word?"

Darcy: "You know on the computer. We have it at home. Microscopic Word."

#3

We climb into the van after eating at a restaurant. Darcy is closest to the van door.

Me: "Darcy, can you close the door, please?"

Darcy: "Madison, close the door."

Me: "Darcy, I asked you to close the door. Madison is in the back."

Darcy: "I can't reach it."

Me: "Darcy, I know that isn't true. You closed the door on the way over to the restaurant."

Darcy (rubbing her stomach): "Yeah, but that was before my gutter got so full."

Out of the Mouths of my Babes

Me: "What are you doing?"

Darcy: "I'm doing my homework."

Me: "What are you working on?"

Darcy: "Vocabulary"

Me: "Where are you in the book?"

Darcy: "I'm working on the cinnamons and antonyms."

Spygate

I am not a Bill Belichick fan.

The coach of the New England Patriots is too smug, too pompous, and too big for his own britches. I disliked his attitude with Eric Mangini's employment with the Jets (Belichick didn't want his former assistant to go within the Patriots' division) and the childish way he behaved when the two met before and after playing each other. Now Belichick has been caught cheating, and we are learning this is not his first time.

The Patriots were caught videotaping a game against the Jets, filming from the sidelines, which is against the rules. Apparently, this is not the first videotaping of games.

There are many things wrong with the whole episode. Why in the world would you cheat against a former assistant who knows you've cheated before? Did Belichick consider himself immune to the rules re-enforced via a letter on videotaping? For me, there are more critical questions. Why didn't Belichick's former employees report him earlier? Why didn't the Packers organization report him when they caught him videotaping last year?

I'm tired of hearing and reading the excuse that "cheating goes on in football."

Because it shouldn't. You don't report cheating because that is the norm? Have you seen the ESPN report on the downfall of Floyd Landis and Barry Bonds?

Cheating should not be happening in sports. We should not be letting it happen. Those who know and do nothing? They're part of the problem too. 

Now the Patriots Super Bowls are in question. Tom Brady's reputation is tarnished. If we are going to put an asterisk on Barry Bonds and exclude him from the Hall of Fame, then we need to be asterisking these three Super Bowls and excluding Bill Belichick from the Hall of Fame.

The punishment he and the Patriots received was a slap. It was harsh, but it wasn't severe enough. Someone soon has got to step up to the plate and put an end to all the rule-breaking going on in sports, whether it's steroid use or videotaping the opposing team. We teach our kids sportsmanship at home. Who is going to continue to show them that when they get into the professional world?

As for the notion that everyone cheats, I don't believe it. You cannot convince me that Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning cheat. Maybe instead of the AFC and the NFC, we should have the Cheaters and the Non-cheaters. Those that want to cheat can be in a league of their own, and those players, coaches, and owners who feel cheating is all "part of the game" can be upfront about it. Wouldn't it be interesting to see which league fans would follow?

I'm disappointed. I'm angry. I doubt there will be changes.

As for Belichick and the Patriots? Did they show any regret? No, they went and beat the stuffing out of the San Diego Chargers the next week. So, what? Cheaters always win? Let's hope not.

Out of the Mouths of my Babes

Darcy: "I just don't get this division stuff."

Me: "Well, let's put it this way. Let's say you have 49 pieces of candy and there are five people that want some. How many pieces of candy would each person get?"

Darcy: (working the problem) "9 pieces?"

Me: "Yes, but there is a remainder. Each person gets 9 pieces of candy, but there four pieces are leftover."

Darcy: "For me!"

Look at that hair!

My niece, Brea, was born Wednesday, August 15, 2007. She was 20 inches long and weighed 6 lbs. 9 oz.

Her older cousins are very pumped their aunt produced a girl! 

Congratulations to her parents, Julie and Mike, and her older brother, Michael, and older sister, Taylor.

Summer Vacation - Fill-in days

Fill-in days while Grammy recovered

While we waited for Connie to get the okay to head home, I tried to do things with the girls while staying at my friend's house. Before my friend left on her own summer vacation, she took us to Holiday World, which back in my day was Santa Claus Land. It's much bigger now and mostly a water park, but the old Land of my day still has cheesy rides where you can get nice and sweaty before hitting the water park.

The girls enjoyed Holiday World. The next day my friend and her family left for their vacation, allowing us to stay behind in their home. It was beyond kind.

The weather in Evansville had hit the 100-degree mark, and so I decided to head somewhere cool. What better place than Indiana's caves?

Indiana has 100 caves that have been discovered. We went to Marengo Cave and signed up for the double tour, which took us through a 70 minute walking tour of one part of the cave and then a 40 minute tour on another part of the cave.

Marengo Cave was discovered by a girl and her brother. She overheard some school children talking about a sinkhole near the cemetery. She decided to investigate it before the other kids. She and her brother found the hole and went down into what they realized was a cave. It took them 3 days to tell the owner, and within a week he had it opened to the public. Ah, American Enterprise.

The tour we took was 200 feet below the ground. It was 52 degrees. (I had to spend $40 on sweatshirts for the girls before we entered....more enterprise) It was beautiful, and I got quite a lot of lovely photos with my new digital camera. The girls were very interested in both tours and retained most of what they learned. After the trips, we went gem mining, where we found surprisingly two bags full of precious gems that we will do nothing with if the bags should even make it home with us.

We ate lunch at a place where my mother used to take us as kids in Leavenworth, Indiana. The restaurant overlooks a beautiful part of the Ohio River and we watched barges with loads of coal pass by. We ate a home-cooked meal and then headed down the road to explore Wyandotte Cave. 

This is the cave where my mother was a guide in the late 50s, early 60's. It was right before closing, so we only got to take the small cave tour, but there were only five of us, and the guide was a good one and quite funny. His uncle used to work with Connie, so he was excited to meet me or to at least have heard about Connie.

This cave was quite different from Marengo. It was full of cute little furry bats in all shapes and sizes. Most were quietly hanging from the ceiling watching us, but occasionally we had them flying over our heads.

We also saw cave spiders, cave grasshoppers, which were very opaque, and a salamander. It was very wet and slippery, and there were bridges we had to cross where we could look down, down, down farther into the cave.

Wyandotte was discovered by two men rescuing their dog. The dog fell into a hole, and the cave was found during the rescue. (I probably would have just gotten a new dog) I'm fascinated by the findings of these people. Imagine discovering something like this while out wandering!

The tour lasted about thirty minutes, and we headed back to Evansville. I'm thinking next year I'll just start off with Indiana caving (maybe venture into some Kentucky caves) and do some canoeing down Blue River before going to the farm for the reunion.

Hey, maybe on the way back to Florida, I'll even stop into Nashville!

Summer Vacation - The Storm

Days 15 - 27

Our itinerary for the rest of the trip was four days in Nashville, TN exploring the sites, three days in Evansville, IN visiting friends, and then on to my brother's house in the South Bend, IN area. Unfortunately, there was a change in plans.

My mother noticed before she left Florida that her foot had dropped. This is a condition where the motor nerve (anterior tibial nerve) that innervates the muscles that pull the foot toward the knee is injured or diseased, and the result is complete weakness of those muscles The defect causes the foot to mostly be limp, and the weak foot involuntarily flops away from the body to produce what is referred to as a "foot drop."

Connie got a brace to wear on her foot, had an MRI of her back done, and off she went on vacation. In Mt. Carmel, IN, she had some work done via a massage therapist and a chiropractor. Two days later, she was in such pain that she had to go to the ER for a shot of painkiller for some relief. She insisted on going to Nashville the following day with my SIL and her children.

We made it to Nashville, and I got to see the city of Nashville while following the back of the ambulance as it took Connie to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

No sooner had we arrived at our Wyndham, then Connie was on the ground crying. The ambulance was summoned, and at Vanderbilt, she was given more pain medication, another MRI, and sent home with a steroid pack. By the next morning, we were frantically packing our belongings and heading back into the car for Evansville because we knew the hospitals and the area.

Connie rode in the backseat of Juanita's car. Susan and the kids and I followed in Connie's car, frantically using Onstar to find help. Kelly called her doctor father, who called us and gave us the name of a neurosurgeon he recommended. He sent us to St. Mary's Hospital and said to spout his name, although he wasn't sure what good would come of it.

My friend Robin met us at the ER. Susan took the kids to her parents and Juanita drove home while Robin and I dealt with the ER. Connie had another MRI, which showed a cyst tangled in the nerves between the L4 and the L5 of her spine.

Connie chose to have the operation to remove the cyst as the pain was so bad she was unable to walk to the bathroom. Because she was on a blood thinner, she had to go off of that medication and wait five days before they could operate. She was in the hospital up until the operation. The girls and I stayed at Robin's house.

The operation went well. The cyst was utterly void of liquid and hard and gunky and completely tangled in and around the nerves. The doctor scraped out the cyst and straightened one of the nerves that had gone flat. The operation was three hours long, with a two-hour recovery. By the third hour, she was back in her room and on her feet walking the corridor of the hospital. She was released the next evening.

Connie was unable to ride in a car for a long period of time so the trip to my brother's house was cancelled. Susan and her two kids stayed with us in a hotel for the week. We tried to keep busy with various activities and outings such as bowling and the zoo.

My brother popped in for an overnight visit, and at the end of the week, Susan returned home, Connie went to Juanita's, and the girls and I went back to Robin's house.

Five days later, Connie returned to the doctor, had her stitches removed, and got the okay to head home to Florida. We left that day.

Not the vacation we were expecting, but we were together, and in the end, all turned out well.