Skiing etc.

Life as of late:

Potential plans to go to Mt. Bohemia were dropped this past weekend due to lack of followthrough (not my fault). They have been tenatively rescheduled for next weekend. Since I was here, I decided to go to Caberfae with Doug a radio friend of his Jeff, Jeff’s girlfriend Paula and Mark.

So, Saturday night lab folks gathered at my place to drink and such. We had blended drinks of a couple varieties – the worst of which was some combination of MD 20/20, grape vodka, rasberry daquiri mix and ice. It wasn’t bad so much as it just wasn’t good. Result of the night: I got rather drunk and we all watched Temple of Doom. Doug came home sometime in there and we decided to leave at 8 am for skiing on Sunday.

OK, so I wake up at 6 and can’t fall back asleep. Doug, Mark and I all start to converge and get ready around 7… we pack, etc. and leave about 8:10. We get just past Saginaw on Hagadorn and I realize I have forgotten my coat because I usually wear it instead of packing it and had failed to do so. Meh, turn back to get coat, and end up leaving about half an hour later than planned.

So, we stop for breakfast as planned to meet up with Jeff and Paula. After breakfast we head out in two cars now, Mark and I in my jeep and the rest in Jeff’s Jetta. When we’re just beyond Claire I realize I left my boots at home. WTF! How do I leave to go skiing and forget my boots! Apparently I am a completely mindless twit in the morning without coffee. Annoying, but too far from home to do anything about it, so we continue to Caberfae.

We get to the ski hill, I rent boots, we’re all ready to go skiing, except the second car hasn’t show up yet, and D’s boots are in my Jeep. We fritter about for a while waiting for them. Eventually they show up, having stopped at some gear shop for a while. Great. About 1pm we actually get skiing.

The skiing was pretty good, a little icy in some places but not enough to so ruin the skiing. Doug snowboarded all day and Mark switched back and forth between board and skis. Everyone else was skiing. Caberfae doesn’t have much along the lines of ammeneties. No high speed lifts, no crazy resort, but everything necessary is present and reasonably nice.

At the end of the day we met up in the lodge – Jeff and Paula were going to head out while the rest of us stayed. Upon the communal ready-break, we all went back out to find that Jeff’s poles had been stolen. In hindsight, we’ve figured out that Caberfae seems to have much more problem with theft than most places – probably because of the location. It’s more of a local place than a resort for downstate people.

So, morals of this story:
Remember your shit.
Organize your shit.
Keep an eye on your shit.

If we had been fully organized we could have been on the hill by about 11. Instead we burned two hours with me forgetting my coat, meeting up for breakfast (not counting the time taken for breakfast), then not getting there together anyway because of an unannounced stop somewhere to look at gear.

The poles getting stolen sucks, and is odd. They were nice poles, but have a separate strap that unclips and stays on your hand. Without the straps, the poles are a fair bit less useful – particularly to the type of person who would want such nice poles.

My thoughts on rented boots: My boots are far too big for me. I rented a 9.5 and they fit as well as could be expected. My boots are a size 11. My boots have a significantly greater forward cant to them. I was finding it difficult to keep pressure on the front of the ski – important if you want the ski to turn all nice. It makes me feel kind of bad for people who want to learn to ski and have the desire to improve but are stuck with rental or otherwise bad gear. In this case, the right equipment can make a big difference.

It also occurs to me that likely no one really cares about the details of my Sunday.