the ski trip

The short post on the ski trip is that I had a surprisingly great time skiing (and have no broken bones or bruises to show for it).

If short posts are your thing, stop reading here. If you want more detail, continue on.

We left Friday afternoon as planned and pulled into the Comfort Inn parking lot in Mars Hill, NC about 4 hours later. The Comfort Inn is your basic Comfort Inn, but it was clean, serviceable, had breakfast, and is near the ski place, so that's really all that mattered.

This trip was pretty spur-of-the-moment, so there wasn't a whole lot of research that went into it. But I made a crucial error in not researching Mars Hill better. I knew it was a college town for a college of some size, so I assumed we could actually eat in this town.

When we checked in, I asked the check-in lady about restaurant options. Our choices were Hardee's, Subway, Osaka Japanese, Wagon Wheel, Latin Grill, and some other restaurant. Oh, but the Wagon Wheel and the other restaurant closed at 7:30pm (and it was currently 7:20pm). What restaurant closes on a Friday night at 7:30, especially in a college town????

We made the choice of eating at Subway because it was closest (and I was paranoid about driving too far in case it got icy - the temperatures were in the teens at that point).

Guess where the Subway was?

In the Shell gas station.

I have a thing about eating in gas stations. It seems so dirty and gross. I only go to the bathroom in gas stations under extreme duress, so eating there really stresses me out. But I had a great turkey melt, right there in the Shell station. And the attendant was very nice and friendly. And Mac got to play in the dirty snow in the gas station parking lot. And Mac learned how to spell "Bud Light" from studying the neon signs in the Shell. To think of all the educational opportunities I've missed over the last 7 years...

After all that excitement at the gas station, we went back to the Comfort Inn, settled in and went to bed.

On Saturday, we slept in, had the free breakfast and headed to the ski resort. We got our gear rented, lessons signed up for, and had lunch before Mac and I headed out to meet Jordan, our young instructor. Now Jordan, who looked young enough to be my child, has been skiing at Wolf Ridge since he was 11 and said this was his 4th season as an instructor. It's just dawned on me that Jordan very much reminded me of my old hairdresser Rus, both in looks and in speech. And Rus would have a son his age by now, so maybe Jordan and Rus are father and son? Anyway, Jordan thought we were beginners, but quickly recognized our talents and we progressed to the "magic carpet ride".Mac and Jordan

When I first learned to ski, you got pulled up on the bunny slope by a T-bar but now it's a little conveyor belt, aka the magic carpet, that you just hop on and ride up. It's all good until you get near the end where the angle gets a teensy bit steeper and slicker. At that point, you may backslide which sort of defeats the purpose of riding up.

After our one-hour lesson with young Jordan, Mac and I skiied by ourselves. Now Jordan thought it best that we stay on the bunny slope and try the harder runs on Sunday. Fortunately we weren't skiing on Sunday so that ruled out using a chair lift to go to a higher and presumably harder run. Yea for me!

We had such a fun time and it was easier than I remembered. The snow was fabulous. Soft and fairly powdery but definitely not icy and crunchy. And it snowed lightly the whole time we were out there. Frankly, I was so brilliant to go this weekend. It must be my royal-ness that allows me to be so brilliant.

And guess what? Those ski pants make a difference. I didn't get cold or wet the whole time I was skiing. And the temperature before the windchill maxed around the 15 degree F mark, so there was plenty of opportunity for cold and wet! Scotchguard has just lost its place on family ski trips.

We never made it to the snow tubing place, but Mom did come out on the bunny slope - not to ski but to watch Mac ski.

And for those of you who were worried about my having to eat in the gas station again, we went to the Latin Grill (aka El Dorado) and it was very good. Mexican/ Cuban/Latin food and the chef is from Colombia so we got to chat with him, which was nice. He gave me some good vacation tips for our tour there, none of which involve snow or cold.

A good time was had by all and we'll go again this season if another "good snow" opportunity presents itself. We've got to get our money's worth on those ski pants!