A few weekends back we ventured up north for our annual winter weekend getaway with the Dale-Gaus. I do realize that there is something inherently wrong with a winter getaway happening further north in Minnesota, but we have found that when you do get out in it, you get just a little bit more positive about that white stuff.
This year we headed to BlueFin Bay- partly because ye olde Telemark Lodge has finally closed its doors, and partly because I really like having the waves of Lake Superior crashing outside our windows. I love that lake. And then there's the shuttle bus drivers at BlueFin. They'll drive you anywhere, and even come back to get you if you want them to. But often we don't, because if they drop you up the bluff at the ski trail head, and you can ski around up there and then take the 4k trail back down to the lodge. All downhill. It's fabulous.
But this year we decided to change things up a bit. We had old snowboarding Ildar along and we decided to all spend a day at Lutsen Mountain on downhill skies. When we went into the rental place (I had just brought our skies from 1985 to Goodwill in November) the guy asked me if I would rate myself a 1 (beginner), 2 (assertive/experienced) or 3 (aggressive and really good). I said, "Well, I used to be a 2 for sure...." and he reached for a fairly longish pair of skies and then I added, "when I last skied in the early 90's" and he put those down and grabbed a pair that came to about my waist. Clearly he thought that maybe I had lost my edge in the intervening 15+ years. Ok, maybe 20. But guess what....I strapped the little training skies on and hit the slopes and it all came back. Except for my derring-do. I can still get down the hills with a modicum of grace, but dang did they seem steep and dangerous and sometimes downright stupid. And those were the green hills. When Ildar and I got lost, we did end up on some blue runs and I made it down. I don't think he even noticed my knees knocking. But it brought be back to my cavalier teens, when we'd be skiing out in Colorado and the scorn we felt for my mom and dad as they horseshoed back and forth so so so slowly across the whole face of the hill....that's tempered a bit now. I don't think I used the complete acreage of every hill I tried at Lutsen, but plenty of it.
Luckily for me, my kids, as newbies, had no time to examine my style and cast scorn. They were too busy trying to get down the hills themselves. There were no surprises in the styles they adopted. Eli mastered the snowplow the first time down the bunny and then utilized it early and often. Effectively. Always in control. Except that one time when he got his speed up to about 4.5 mph and crashed into the snow bank off to the side. When I caught up to him he smiled at me while wiping the snow out from under his glasses and said, "I guess I got a little cocky." Guess so.
Theo. He tried to snowplow once and clearly found it overrated. He preferred the bomb and crash, bomb and crash. I couldn't watch. But he enjoyed himself and appears to be made of mostly rubber so came out unharmed. We thought we might only last a few hours, but ended closing down the place, heading out with our friendly shuttle driver only as the sun was dipping behind the hills to the west.
The weekend ended with one final xc ski down the bluff from the trailhead on our last frigid morning. It was really really cold and Eli was not feeling great. But he's a trooper and kept a good attitude. He and I fell just a little behind at one point and as I watched him carefully snowplow down a short hill I was filled up with love for the kid and decided I would glide up behind him, one ski on each side, and give him a quick hug. Only I misjudged my speed and when I bumped into him he bent over at the waist and somehow fell backwards through my legs, causing me to topple over and do a somersault. We ended in a pile of hopelessly tangled skies and poles and laughter. I laughed so hard that the tears came and then froze on my face, which made me realize it was time to get untangled and start moving again. Which made me laugh again. And what I love is that Eli, pinned under me, completely stuck, was laughing with me.
In the end the weekend worked. I recharged my winter-tude and am feeling excited about the prospect of there being a few more great skies left in the winter of 10-11.
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