Comedy at it’s best.
#173What’s The Best Way To Not Get Hurt Skiing? Don’t Ski.
Bonus:
At a party, how do you tell who the ski instructor is?
Don’t worry. He will tell you.
There have been a few days of cold rain in Park City.
As much as I thought every little Tweet I started to get a month ago about minute amounts of snowfall at resorts all over the country was irritating, as soon as I drove to run errands and saw it was true in my OWN BACK YARD, I felt exhilarated. What was rain down low was a teensy bit of snow on the tops of Deer Valley, PCMR, and the Canyons. I started snapping pics and calling friends. (Don’t worry, no tweets from me about 5 minutes of white).
Then I had a meeting yesterday about what this whole Ski Utah blogger thing is going to entail. It’s meant to encompass and share this emotion that people in Park City, Salt Lake, and around other hills feel when the snow hints it’s almost time in Utah. That little flutter of my heart that had me trying on my new ski coat with my old pants, making sure my head didn’t outgrow my helmet, talking to MK about new boots and skis at the ski swap.
Movies start coming out, like Warren Miller’s Wintervention. We start inviting guests, reminding them to save up. Putting summer toys away and moving the winter stuff to the front. Stocking up the house and garage, bringing out the winter mats, getting the appointment for the snow tires. There is house stuff that still needs to get done before we start shoveling, but it’ll get done.
JK, of Ski Utah, mentioned now is the time she starts wearing her boots around the remind her feet what that immobility is all about. Me, I do wall sits. In heels. Back against the wall, counting first to 15, then to 30 seconds, reminding my thighs that they are going to cooperate and get me through any snow, any trail, any stunt I put them through. They are my weakest link, even weaker than my weak knees, since they support all of me, and just got used to the idea of being awesome last winter. Apparently yoga has helped and I’m feeling pretty good. Many skiers have told me there’s no good workout to get ready for skiing, and in some sense, until you click in for the first time, your body does forget a bit. But I’m thinking since this year is shaping up to best the best ever, I better be my best ever to give it all I can.
Oh, and I watch Ted Ligety work out, I’m sure that helps.
Want your ski lingo for the day? I just learned a new one. There were parties all weekend celebrating the century mark. What’s that mean?
We are under 100 days until ski season.
That’s right folks – around here, sure it’s lovely. But it’s also getting towards fall, which gets towards winter…which gets towards ski season. And that’s what people around here want.
So, the term “Under A Century” is all about the fact that there are some people, sure they might be enjoying their bikes and sun and whatnot, but really, they are already thinking about snow in the middle of summer.
And you know what?
I’m one of them!
Did you know it was possible? Here in Park City, which you remember was home to some of the most exciting events in the 2002 Winter Olympics, we have events at Olympic Park. And for those of you that haven’t skied, and maybe some of you that have, it IS possible to ski in the summer!
How you ask? You fly into a pool.
We attended the Festival Of Flight at the Olympic Park this weekend and got to see former and possibly future Olympians ski down the ramps into the pool they use for training. They train in their normal gear, adding a life vest under their coat!
It was really amazing and we were so awestruck we didn’t take too many pictures – but here’s a taste so you get the idea.
For the record, we’re halfway through the non-ski season – can’t believe I thought I was a beach bum and here I am looking foward to snow!
It just dumped and dumped this past weekend. All we had to do was clear our decks and we got another three feet to clear. If we had known, considering what a lame winter it was, we would have cleared the deck and made it snow more often. You can no longer see the first floor of our house. Enough melted, but for a day you couldn’t see the second floor either! And MK really did hike up there and ski down. Being a grown up rules, because I’m pretty sure our moms would NOT have approved.
We skied like crazy (not just off the roof). I learned from sweet hubby how to pop up in my turns and get through the powder, and he took me to some parts of Deer Valley I wasn’t good enough for until now. It was amazing! Until the second day I came home, used the potty, and fell down the stairs after my legs collapsed! It was a little funny.
Stretching has helped. And the work reminded me I’m not getting my act together getting back on the workout train. It’s about time. I’ve been doing a little weightlifting at home, but it makes me so hungry I’ve put back on all the tons of weight I’d lost while sick… might be time to start running, hiking and biking. Heading to multiple pool time Vegas vacations should be motivating me, but there’s a lot of other stuff going on.
We have a friend coming in to town, then Momm and brother. MK is doing too much trying to make the place ultra nice for them, he’s such a sweetie. We’re almost done – pictures tomorrow – with the master bedroom fireplace gutting and wall making. We redid and painted our front closet, and MK finally cleaned up the seal-ing around our front door. Right now, our house is a maroon color, with burnt red-orange trim, and our front door is BRIGHT FOREST GREEN. Although I’ve been told SB might not think it’s our house if I change it, we’ve been doing so much house work and her mommy’s so preggers they haven’t seen it in forever anyway! SO – what color can I paint the door? I was so close to going with that grey blue I’ve been putting everywhere else, but it really doesn’t match. Then I thought black, but it’ll never stay clean. MK wants white, same problem. Anyone have any amazing idears? (R on purpose, in honor of my mommy.)
I might paint my office, since it’ll be the first time someone’s using it as a 2nd guest room, and hopefully once Momm shows up she can help me make some final decorating and designing decisions. It’s so impossible for us to decide – we spent an hour in Lowe’s looking at lighting after I spent two hours on the internet not finding anything for our master overhead light, dining room overhead light, and basement hall sconce. Ugh!
The problem is totally that as soon as you commit to something and spend the money, you see something better that you wish you could get. If you’ve ever updated part of your house I bet you’d agree with me. We picked colors for our basement redesign,only to see an HGTV episode of a room with those colors and decide it sucked. 🙂
Living in Park City is probably 95% of what has me so excited about the Olympics this year. Many of the athletes have been training here and it’s gotten me very interested in the games. Not only that, but learning to ski changes everything I think about the sport. Wanting to get better has me reading about skiing, trying new skis, and even working out through ski season to be in the best shape I can. It had a lot to do with our decision to get the house here, I love San Diego but I’m not as good at any beach sport and I’ve become at skiing, and it’s become a real passion for me since spending last winter here.
It’s laughable compared to these athletes competing, but just like watching a Warren Miller movie, seeing the Olympics makes me itch to get out on my skis and try my hardest to get better and better, even if it isn’t at 75 miles an hour. I can’t wait to try more runs, to gain experience and just have a blast on the mountains.
I also think a major contributing factor to my excitement is just how accessible the Olympics are this year. We don’t even have cable at the house, and yet there’s plenty of online video access and news coverage for me to see. This page –
http://www.nbcolympics.com/olympicpulse/tweets/index.html
a link to all the athletes that are Tweeting, has me totally hooked. It’s like I know these people. I get a glimpse into what it’s like to be there, what they are thinking. Too cool.
Holy forever ago, this was Jan. 15th!
The night after The Bravery concert I mentioned here. If you recall, I was too worked up about something else to even tell you about our night. It happens.
We were running late due to house work, and only made it to the tail end of the women’s finals and got to see the men’s finals and the fireworks. But it was worth the hike up the hill. It was packed but we found a spot on the far right and got a great view. They had a fun DJ and like I mentioned on Twitter, I’d go every night for fireworks at the resort, too cool! Kids and adults alike were running around and sliding down the hill.
MK took a ton of pictures, too many to post here, so here’s an album:
Click for the Deer Valley Visa Freestyle Invitational Photos.
One of my favorite views. From last week.
Click to enlarge.
DM came to visit! Not us, exactly, but it just so happened the boys planned a trip to Park City and let us hang out! I got to ski two new-to-me resorts last week, Brighton and Snowbird. They were both a ton of fun! We also got to bowl for the first time at Jupiter Bowl and eat a bunch of good food, and play a bunch of silly bar games.
It was a blast. Here’s my helmet, representing my ski resort attendance. Hopefully more to come!
DM and the bunch of boys was a fun experience. The snowboarders were all about the jumps and falls. Totally different style than what we are used to, a learning experience. They even had a helmet camera which made it all the more hilarious. I skied my first bowls at Snowbird. Pretty much blind, with the fog.
This is the second year that we attended the Park City Ski Swap. (I don’t think I’ve written about it – couldn’t find anything by searching but not sure how well that even works.) Anyway, last year MK and I went with BB. Some strangers gave us beer. It was hilarious. Like I said, maybe I told you.
This year, BB didn’t need anything. It was just us. MK got us coffee, which was sweet, and we met some nice neighbors of ours in line.
The line is crazy. I took one picture of the line to pay inside. Pretty much everyone you see is in line.
The line is totally worth it – I got a pair of skis that retail right now for over 800$ and only cost me around 120$.
Cat Killfoil 