Author: Cabincrafted1

This year’s winter vacation was not with a ski club.  Instead we journeyed off to Steamboat Springs on our own to visit and ski with our cousins from Atlanta.  Leaving our home at 3:30 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight.  Our accomodations were a beautiiful spacious 3 bedroom house that they traded for 2 weeks for their lovely hacienda in Zijuateneo Mexico.  From the house we can see Steamboat Springs ski slopes, the town and Howlsen Hill training area.

An afternoon adventure took us took us out of town to Strawberry Park to the hot springs.  It had snowed all day and had accumulated several inches, making the steep, narrow road a challenge, but our fearless driver in the rented Subaru Forrester met the challenge.  Upon arrival and paying our entry fee, we were directed to the changing hut, a small wooden structure, unheated, with 3 curtained stalls to change from all our winter layers into bathing suits.  Suits are optional after dark, but it was afternoon, so suits we wore.  The hut seemed freezing cold and to get from the hut to the pools were 30ish icy stone steps.  Back on went the snowboots.  Towel wrapped around the shivering body, out into the snow we went to a tiny stone shelter where you could leave your shoes and towels before settling into the pool of your choice, ranging from 70f to 110 f.  With hats on our heads to keep the snow off, we started in one of the warmer pools until we were about half boiled, then moved to a slightly cooler mineral pool to soak the sore from our skiing muscles and half fearing the walk back to the changing hut would be chilling in the 21 f air temperature and snowfall.  A quick dip back in the hotter pool, we ventured out and much to our amazement, we stayed warm, relaxed and sluggish as we climbed the icy steps back to the changing hut, which surprisingly no longer felt cold.  The rest of the day was been spent in residual lazy relaxation, hung over from the mineral bath under the snowy skies.

Six great days of skiing with more than a foot of fresh powder while we were there.  We arrived home 8 days later just after midnight.  It was a great, exhilarating week.

Snow fog this morning.

     The change in seasons brings new sights and sounds to the lives of the pups.  Our log home has a metal roof and the ice and snow sliding off and crashing to the ground made them jumpy and constantly on guard for the first couple of snows we had.  Now they glance up and ignore it.
     The end of hunting season has brought the deer back out to graze and as the grass is browned and often covered with snow, they come closer to the house where the rain runoff areas that are sheltered from the worst of the winds, often have more grass or clover still available.  Their scent and occasional glimpse of them make the dogs crazy.
     Ranger, the mastiff, takes offense at the vacuum, barking at it like it is going to eat me, brooms and mops are potential toys, to chase.  This makes cleaning up the constant coating of dog hair a bit of a challenge and I have learned to do it when they are outside chasing each other or to our dismay, exploring the creeks that are flowing freely with the rain and snow melt.
     The newest item of their concern, however are two tiny Tufted Titmice that discovered a dried sunflower that I hung last fall from the eaves of the front porch.  They have been flitting in and out grabbing seeds for the past several days.  At first the dogs barked, scaring the little birds away.  Now they sit, vigilant. . .

Ranger, bone in mouth, watching them from the living room windows.

Shadow, alert and probably wondering if she could catch one, she is the stink bug annihilator, chasing them down and eating them.  She also brought me a dead, half eaten squirrel a few day ago.  Only she know where she got that one, but it was still flexible.

The source of their attentiveness.  Our guard dogs.

     The snow caped skeleton trees and frosted cedars, glimpses of the snow through the bare forest on the hillside, snow on the ground and still falling, make a memory to revisit when the temps and humidity soar this summer.  I love the mountains, year-round.

     I don’t know how long it takes to make a tradition, but this is the 4th Friday in a row for snow.

     Another snowy wonderland for puppy play.  A day to knit, spin and read.

     The severe weather in the south has thankfully missed my family living in Georgia.  It is raining hard here, with flash flood warnings and the threat of more trees down and power outages.  The floods are not really a threat to us this high on the mountain and our creek is lower than our house.  The weather was a discouragement to drive two towns over to my weekly knit night.  I missed them last week while we were skiing, and I was looking forward to the socialization, but I don’t like to drive at night in good weather, so venturing out tonight wasn’t going to happen.
     Instead of knitting with the ladies, I stayed in and spent the evening spinning.  I finished half of a 4 ounce bag of Merino that I bought with my daughter in Florida last summer and plied about 130 yards of 9 wpi (worsted) weight yarn for her.  I don’t know what she will do with it when I finish and mail it to her, but it has been interesting to spin and I learned Navajo plying to try to keep the colors interesting.

     Hubby and I were very dedicated to improving our health and stamina and joined the gym about 3 years ago.  We went about 6 days a week, walking the indoor track or on a treadmill, cycling on a stationary bike, using weight machines.  This seemed to help when we went skiing and for hiking our mountain trails.  Last spring, once our basement rec room was completed, we used the money we had been spending for the gym membership to invest in a treadmill and 3 pair of free weights.  Our routine was for me to get up in the morning and go down to use the treadmill and hubby used it each evening.  We were both in good shape, he had lost a significant amount of weight and we both felt good.
     Sometime during the summer with the dogs, trips, and gardening, the dedication to walk each day faltered.  Fall came and with it a series of illnesses and still we lagged from our dedication.  This past week, we took a 3 day ski trip, and realized that we were helplessly out of shape with only a few weeks until a more significant ski trip out west.  This was a wake up call and we decided to encourage each other to rededicate ourselves to fitness. 
     First day all I managed was a 30 minute performance walk with some incline and only about a mile and a half of distance.  Today I was determined to get in a 5K and I wanted it in under an hour, much slower than I was doing before.  I did manage it in 53 minutes with some incline and continued to walk for the remainder of the hour getting up to 3.4 miles.  I’m hoping that between the walking and the riding lessons, that the western trip will be somewhat easier on us and our overall health and well-being will improve again.

     We have arrived home from our mini ski-cation with our local ski club.  The group that participated in this trip was fun for the most part, ranged in age from 11 months to 81 years old.  The venue was a small ski resort in West Virginia, which like the rest of us has experienced weird weather the past two winters, much too warm most of the time for natural or even man made snow.  We lucked out on a cold snap so every run on one of the small handful of open trails took you through the blast of tiny ice pellets of snow making, blinding you, even with goggles on and stinging any exposed skin, and there wasn’t much of that.

     The high we experience over the 3 days was 8 degrees F.  The wind whipped up the only intermediate slope open and for the first two days we were there, they didn’t move the snowmaking machines at all, so this morning, one of the trails we had skied on day one was literally knee deep in man made snow, so coming off of the wind blown upper part to the sheltered lower part of man made snow was a jolt.  On top of this blown snow, we got 3 inches of real natural snow overnight, making this morning’s skiing a much different experience than the first two days, though not any warmer.  Because of the cold, we skied only for a short time each day.

     The evening of the first night, I dropped my cell phone in water, quickly retrieved it, opened the back and removed the battery.  Not having a bag of rice to put it in, I just wrapped it in a bath towel.  Since we didn’t have any cell service anyway and since I did take my tablet for computer access, I didn’t worry too much about it.  We have a spare phone at home for emergencies and I was prepared to have it reactivated if necessary.  It isn’t necessary.  The phone seemed quite dry this morning and when reassembled and recharged, it seems to be working fine.  If it fails, I do have the fall back phone.

     Our return trip was over and through many mountain passes and lots of snow covered roads, but uneventful.  As we approached our home area, we see that the roads have all been pretreated in anticipation of tomorrow’s snow event here at home.  We are really hoping this one doesn’t leave us in the dark and cold again like last week’s storm did, especially since there is again a huge basket of laundry and ski clothes to be washed, dried and repacked for the next ski-cation later this winter.

     It is strangely quiet in the house tonight as we arrived home too late to go get the pups from doggie camp, so we have no critters to bug us for attention and trips outdoors.