Swooshing down the slopes

I’m back from skiing. Actually, we got back late Friday night, but I've had laundry to do, email to read, etc, PLUS we finally got our furniture that we've been waiting on for about six months! That story is also blog worthy, so when I find I'm dry of ideas to yatter on about I'll jot it down to fill up one of my days.

Back to Spring Break:
We had four wonderful days of swooshing down the slopes of Keystone, Breckenridge and Vail. Keystone is still my fave since I think it is the most challenging of the three. The intermediate slopes (blue) are as steep as many expert (black) runs. Many of the slopes are half groomed/half moguls, so it adds to the challenge. Vail is a close second for simply the sheer size of the place. I think it has 7 or 8 mountains/bowls to ski off—I’d verify it on the trail map, but hubster put it somewhere. And they have the most groomed black runs I’ve ever seen, though some of Keystone’s blue runs were along the difficulty and steepness factor as Vail’s black runs. Breckenridge is a really nice town, but the slopes are flat and freakin’ crowded, really freakin' crowded. Lift lines took anywhere from 10-30 minutes of waiting. And dodging a bunch of newbie skiers is low on my list of fun things to do. Ugh!

But the spring skiing was awesome. No, I was NOT the chick wearing shorts snowboarding! It was nice not to have to wear all the turtle fur to keep warm—and I have the sunburn/tan to prove it! And yes, I DID slather on sunscreen and still got toasted. Oh, BTW, Burt’s bees lip balm DOES NOT have any SPF factor at all and my lips look like a lizard shedding its skin. Purty, huh?

The kiddo did great after a weak start in the car. The night before we left she started complaining of a headache and ear ache. She's been fighting the cough that seems to be going around and coughing up lung puppies in the process. So, of course, the poor thang was puking in the car most of the way to the mountains—12.5 hours of it. Thank God, I always bring a small trash bag double lined with Wal-Mart bags! And the kiddo hit the bag every time! What a little trooper!

Rachel skied with us every day and kept up with only a couple of wipeouts and one face plant—there’s a reason kiddo’s wear helmets. The face plant happened on the first day when we were on Keystone's North Peak, skiing down Last Alamo. It's a fairly steep run, basically groomed icesince they hadn't gotten any fresh snow in awhile and the daily temps were in the 40's. She did a turn, but an edge caught, and down she went. Normally, on a beginner (green) run she would have stopped right there, but a steep blue--NOPE. She slid for about thirty feet before hubster got her stopped. Of course, she wanted to quit, but SORRY, not happening. We were in the middle of the run with no way out except down. After we got down it was time for a break and she wanted to quit. Surprise! We went to the front side of the mountain after that. But the next day at Breckenridge she got her confidence back.

We’ve discovered she likes skiing bumps (moguls). Too bad, neither hubster nor I can tolerate the bumps any more. The knees just can’t take it, so we tend to ski groomed stuff, unless we venture down a mogul blue by accident.

By the last day of skiing, the kiddo was going full tilt. Her cough seemed to have disappeared--until I looked at her eyes. Yep, conjunctivitis. Once we got home on Friday, I had some eye drops left from a couple of years ago and we doctored her up. Luckily there were enough drops to do the trick.

That's it for now. I'll talk about the books I read on Wednesday. I read one FANTASTIC book that I highly recommend.
Hope you all had a great Spring Break!
Write on! ---yeah, I need to get back into the saddle with that again!