Hays Kansas

I’m still stoked about yesterday! What a wonderful 4 days of skiing this week was. I’m already looking forward to next year.

Got up early to get an early start. I was all packed up and ready to go. Put all my luggage outside my room and checked out of the hotel. A bellman brought my luggage down while I went to get the car. It was cold! About 8 degrees above 0. The water bottle I left in the car was frozen solid. By the time I got back with my car the bellman had brought down my luggage, my monoski rig, and my ski and outriggers. I supervised his loading of my car, gave him $5, and was on my way.

Snowmass Village is about 8000 feet above sea level. I figgered the temperature would rise as I dropped down to the valley. Nope. Still in the single digits. It stayed in the low teens until I passed through the Eisenhower Tunnel, which is about 10,000 feet above sea level. I really love the drive from Glenwood Springs to Vail driving alongside the Colorado River.

It was a great day for a drive. Unlike my trip out, Vail Pass and both sides of the Eisenhower Tunnel were snow free. Then, after I passed Denver, the speed limit became 75 mph. Same with Kansas. Driving back, I always stay in Hays. Snowmass to Hays is around 500 miles and with the good weather conditions, I made it by 4:15 CST.

Tomorrow, I’ll stop in Illinois.

Snowmass Village Colorado

Wow! Today was even better than yesterday. Everything finally clicked. It’s only taken twelve years. I bombed down the mountain today! First thing in the morning we did some more work on slow turns down steep pitches. Then, Crystal turned me loose. I skied blues faster than I have ever skied them. Runs that used to look steep to me, didn’t anymore. I skied super fast and totally in control. There are two shredders who normally come to the camp, but for various reasons didn’t make it this year. Crystal told me that I would be skiing with them now. Anyhoo, the last two days were the best I have skied in my life. Now, I’m really looking forward to next year.

Time to pack for the trip home. Bummer!

Snowmass Village Colorado

So I woke up this morning feeling kinda blah. I don’t want to go skiing. Put on all of those clothes and bomb down the mountain. Ugh! Fortunately, I came to my senses and had another awesome day.

My instructor today was Crystal. I’ve skied with her many times. She is really good at tweaking and has taught me a lot over the years. This morning we worked on slow turns on steep pitches. Anyone can ski fast. What’s hard is skiing slow on steep runs. That’s what we worked on and it helped. I’m gonna suggest we do the same thing tomorrow morning. I like to learn and do drills in the morning and free ski in the afternoon. When my sister and bil come skiing with me, they only ski with me in the afternoon when they won’t have to work so hard. This year would be different since I’m skiing so much better. The first day when Nicole skied with me in the afternoon, I was bombing down Sneaky’s and she had a hard time keeping up with me ’cause the wind was slowing her down.

Today was lunch on the mountain. We do this every year. There’s a cabin we ski in to and they serve grilled burgers, baked beans, and some really good cookies.

This afternoon, we were all over the mountain and got to ski some of my favorite runs like Naked Lady and one of my sister’s favorite runs, Gunner’s View, which has a lot of nice rollers. Since I’m now skiing fast, but in control, none of my falls have cracked the top ten of Denny’s Fantastic Falls. I haven’t even hit my head, which I know will make Cindy happy.

One more day of skiing and then it’s back to Atlanta. Only one trip this year since the Shepherd Crip Trip is going back to Park City. The skiing was OK and I had some good instructors, but the accommodations sucked and were five miles away from the mountain. Ive been spoiled by Snowmass and Breckenridge where we stay right by the slopes and can go to our rooms over lunch and chill out.

Snowmass Village Colorado

Another good day with the exception of being stopped on a chairlift for ten minutes in a nice cold wind. Got to ski with my buddy Scottish Tom in the afternoon. More tomorrow.

Snowmass Village, Colorado

I woke up this morning about 5:30 with an anxiety attack. Don’t know where these are coming from. Maybe it’s the methadone I take for my pain.

When we set up my ski this morning, we put some additional padding in my bucket to balance me out. Bad move. I fell three times skiing down to the first lift. When we got down, we removed the padding and that made all the difference. And I was back to skiing like I skied last year. We made two easy warmup runs and then moved to steeper terrain. I was skiing faster than I have ever skied in my entire life and I felt in complete control. Made five runs and didn’t fall at all. My instructor, Nicolle, whom I haven’t skied with since she was an intern at my second Challenge Aspen Monoski Camp, was busy in the morning with another skier, but she caught up with us after lunch and we started skiing some fun blue runs further up the mountain. On my favorite run, Naked Lady, I skied into some powder that I wasn’t prepared for and fell. I fell a few more times, but that was a result of me getting tired and getting sloppy with my technique.

All in all, it was an awesome day. Too bad my sister and her husband weren’t here to see me ski. I didn’t lose a single thing since last year. I hope the weather cooperates the rest of the week.

From Richard.

Smitty was a heating and cooling technician. His assistant was a small chimpanzee he had trained to do all the duct work. The chimp had no fear of heights or confined spaces, and besides, he didn’t have to be paid.

One day, Smitty got a call from a customer who said his air conditioner had broken down. Smitty went over and discovered some defective ducting. The customer asked if it would be hard to fix.

“No problem,” replied Smitty, (more…)

Toejam sent me this. Jim said it came from here.
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Thunder Rodent Thighs is a Dimocrat. Dimocrats good. Khristy Kreme is a Republican. Republicans bad. Any questions?

If you ever had any doubt that the LSM is the propaganda arm of the Dimocrat Party the difference between the coverage of Benghazi versus Bridgegate should erase that doubt. Goebbels would be proud.

Snowmass Village Colorado

Made it! And I’m the only crip who did.

I’ve had some anxiety attacks on this trip. Before I even left, I had one. I’m not getting any younger. As it was, the first three days were a piece of cake, and since I took my time and took three days to get to Denver, I was able to meet another blogger. I’ll have to move him from one blogroll to the People I have met blogroll.

Yesterday, was one of those really awesome driving days and driving at 75 on an American interstate highway listening to Megadeth’s Hangar 18 and Tornado of Souls made it even better. That’s driving music right up there with Deep Purple’s Highway Star.

I’ve been watching the weather closely on this trip and last night before I went to bed, I saw that there was a storm right where I was going. That gave me a little anxiety attack this morning. I left Denver around 8:30 and after about thirty miles, it started snowing. The two trouble spots were gonna be the Eisenhower Tunnel and Vail Pass. Fortunately, since I got an early start, there was not much traffic on the way up to the tunnel. It was snowing pretty hard. I think I am ADD which is one reason I got in trouble a lot in junior high school and never worked up to my potential. Yeah. I was lazy, too, so that also had sumpin’ to do with it. Anyhoo, I turned off the stereo so I could give all my attention to my driving.

Before the ascent up to the tunnel all of the trucks had to stop and put chains on. That took some traffic off the road as well. Made it up to and through the tunnel with no problem. On the other side, the road was covered with snow, but the plows had been through and one lane was clear. I have all wheel drive, but I didn’t push it and drove within my limits. Vail Pass was OK as well. About 20 miles past Vail, the temperature was in the 30’s and the highway was clear and I was able to drive 70 all the way to Glenwood Springs. Then it was up the valley to Aspen. The closer I got to Aspen the worse the road got until it was completely snow covered. The valley was socked in, so I knew the Aspen airport would be closed to commercial flights. It’s not the safest airport to land in. There was a crash just last week of a private jet. Even though the airport supports ILS (instruments), commercial ailines use VFR (visual flight rules). I’ve ben on a plane that was diverted to Grand Junction and I’ve been stranded there twice. That’s one of the reasons I drive. Another is the TSA (Motto: We make flying a touching experience. Alternate motto: Fuck you passengers)

I have made it from Denver to Snowmass in four hours, but today, I took five.

So I made it up to Snowmass Village and to my hotel. The ramp to get into the hotel hadn’t been shoveled, so I got stuck going up it. I had to ask someone passing by to give me a push. Of course, my room wasn’t ready. At least, I got my car unloaded and I got it parked in a handicapped space in the closest parking lot. One of the few perks in being a crip. From there, I rolled over to the Challenge Aspen office where I found out that I was the only crip who had made it. The rest of the crew were on flights that got canceled so they weren’t gonna come in until tomorrow.

Back to the hotel, where I got stuck on the ramp again. My room still wasn’t ready. Finally, after waiting an hour, it was finally ready and I was able to go up, unpack, put my rig together, and chill.

Camp starts tomorrow at 8:30. Hopefully, I’ll be out skiing tomorrow afternoon. It looks like the weather is gonna be nice for the next few days.

Denver Colorado

Yesterday the weather was miserable. Today it was beautiful. Blue skies all the way. Great day for a drive. East of Manhattan I-70 was crawling with cops. West of Manhattan I only saw one cop. I made it to Denver by 3:00 PM so I was able to see most of the NFC playoff game. Got to see all of the AFC game. They did a nice tribute to Dan Dierdorf. I was living in St. Louis when he played for the football Cardinals nd he was always a class act.

Heard on the news today that I-70 through the mountains had a bit of snow. I’m hoping the plows have cleared it and I’ll be able to make it to Aspen OK.

Some 2nd Amendment boobage from David. Toejam will definitely love her man nips. (more…)