{"id":323,"date":"2006-02-17T10:10:34","date_gmt":"2006-02-17T17:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/02\/17\/vail-day-three\/"},"modified":"2006-02-17T13:42:07","modified_gmt":"2006-02-17T20:42:07","slug":"vail-day-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/02\/17\/vail-day-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Vail-Day Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug<\/em><\/p>\n

I sing songs to myself while I’m skiing.\u00c2\u00a0 Coming down Born Free this morning this song by Mary Chapin Carpenter went through my brain.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, Mark Knopfler wrote it, but she had the "hit".<\/p>\n

Actually, the song of the day was "Ride Captain Ride".<\/p>\n

Seventy three men sailed up from the San Francisco Bay<\/em><\/p>\n

I came downstairs from donning my ski clothes and I heard
Felice singing along with the ancient Blues Image hit.\u00c2\u00a0 It had come over my iPod.\u00c2\u00a0 Contrary to what Tony Brummel thinks, iPods are keeping the old music ALIVE!\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I wouldn’t even OWN "Ride Captain Ride" if it weren’t for P2P services.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not even worth a buck to me.\u00c2\u00a0 But for a low price…\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I would have spent a buck.\u00c2\u00a0 But, then that would mean I’d have to have spent ninety nine cents for the OTHER 9,000 or so songs I downloaded, shit like Kiss’ "Lick It Up" and Argent’s "Liar".\u00c2\u00a0 I say let the musical past come to the public.\u00c2\u00a0 But the major labels want to keep the music from the people.<\/p>\n

Then there’s "Flying High Again".<\/p>\n

Even though Ozzy is a next door neighbor at the beach, I don’t think Felice has EVER heard any of his music.\u00c2\u00a0 But when this, my favorite Ozzy song of all time, came over my iPod last night, suddenly Felice’s head started to bob.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought maybe I was making a mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the verse started again, there it was, the head movement.\u00c2\u00a0 I asked her.\u00c2\u00a0 She said the song had a good BEAT!<\/p>\n

But, once I hit the hill, the song I was singing to myself was "The Bug".<\/p>\n

You see it’s hard to get yourself up and out.\u00c2\u00a0 Even with seven inches of new powder.\u00c2\u00a0 When it’s so FUCKING COLD!<\/p>\n

Really, today reminded me of my formative years in Vermont.\u00c2\u00a0 We got off the Vista Bahn at Mid-Vail and the thermometer read FOUR DEGREES!\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got no problem with the teens.\u00c2\u00a0 But when it starts to approach zero, bad memories creep into my brain.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the frostbite I endured.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not talking about the wimpy tingling the average punter talks about.\u00c2\u00a0 No, I’m talking about BLISTERS and then SCABS!\u00c2\u00a0 And then the skin is forever ruined.\u00c2\u00a0 Sensitive to NORMAL cold.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, I’ve got a toe I froze at Alta back in the seventies that has never been the same since.\u00c2\u00a0 But that was in December.\u00c2\u00a0 Usually, by time you get to February in the Rockies, you’ve got a steady twentysomething reading, oftentimes creeping into the THIRTIES!<\/p>\n

But not today.\u00c2\u00a0 Today it was COLD!<\/p>\n

So cold the snow squeaked.\u00c2\u00a0 So cold and windy that the Eagle Bahn Gondola didn’t open till almost noon.\u00c2\u00a0 So cold that there were empty chairs on the Mountain Top Express, a sight I’ve NEVER seen.\u00c2\u00a0 And, until just before two, it was snowing.\u00c2\u00a0 Not enough to add any powder, just enough to sting your face and make visibility crappy.<\/p>\n

Still, we had some amazing runs.\u00c2\u00a0 Like lower Minnie’s.\u00c2\u00a0 Serious powder bumps.\u00c2\u00a0 Only one problem, the bumps were FROZEN!\u00c2\u00a0 So, you’d be in the trough, in over a foot of fluff, and then you’d hit this rock hard mogul and your skis would start to FLY!<\/p>\n

Lower Ledges was a bit more skied out.\u00c2\u00a0 But by this time we were a bit wiped, from blasting through the crud on the upper mountain.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, once the gondola opened we did laps.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the only way to survive.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, the gondola broke, and we had to ride the chair.\u00c2\u00a0 Which brought us in for a bite to eat, going up sans enclosure was just too much to handle.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was then that the sun came out.\u00c2\u00a0 And the whole day changed.\u00c2\u00a0 We made a run down Giant Steps in the kind of packed powder that’s the best day you EVER get on the east coast.\u00c2\u00a0 And then took another gondola ride and didn’t make it down till almost four.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is kind of amazing considering the temp.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, my fingers are still tingling.<\/p>\n

After blowing two hours in Gorsuch waiting for Billy to deal with a problem customer we got insoles for Felice’s new boots, just FedExed from Kittredge in Mammoth, and then we headed for the jacuzzi.\u00c2\u00a0 Where our hair froze as we were sitting in the hundred degree water.<\/p>\n

Then, we borrowed a Volvo for the trip to the Minturn Country Club.<\/p>\n

You see at the Lodge they’ve got this deal with the Ford-owned Swedish car company.\u00c2\u00a0 We got an XC90.\u00c2\u00a0 All I can say is the bun warmers worked fantastically.\u00c2\u00a0 As we slowly wound our way into Minturn and watched the temperature drop to zero.<\/p>\n

The slogan for the Minturn Country Club<\/a> is "Where the only thing missing is the Golf Course."\u00c2\u00a0 You see it’s a restaurant.\u00c2\u00a0 A steak house.\u00c2\u00a0 Wherein you cook your own steak.\u00c2\u00a0 I went there with the Lewis and Rob Gordon back in ’96 and had an hysterical time.\u00c2\u00a0 Believe me, there’s nothing funnier than cooking your own food.\u00c2\u00a0 How long do you leave your steak on the grill?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you throw on salt, pepper, TERIYAKI SAUCE?\u00c2\u00a0 And the funny thing is you figure you’ve completely fucked it up, but then it turns out you’ve cooked it PERFECTLY!\u00c2\u00a0 Ever cook and eat fish you’ve caught?\u00c2\u00a0 Same deal.\u00c2\u00a0 NOTHING tastes better.<\/p>\n

And after catching up on the demise of our fathers, how the Big C beat them, and discussing "thirtysomething", it was time to exit into the atmosphere, for the ride home.<\/p>\n

I hesitated.\u00c2\u00a0 I know the drill.\u00c2\u00a0 You can run to the car.\u00c2\u00a0 But then, even though you’re inside, until the engine warms up, you’re FREEZING!<\/p>\n

I held the beeper in my hand as I ran towards the car.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want to risk finding a locked door when I finally reached it.\u00c2\u00a0 And after cranking the key I immediately turned on the bun warmers.\u00c2\u00a0 But they didn’t do much good.\u00c2\u00a0 Because although the temp started off at one degree, it quickly worked its way down to minus three.\u00c2\u00a0 I started wondering if the Volvo had a heated steering wheel, it had everything else, but I wasn’t about to slow down and break out the manual, I just wanted to drive fast and long enough for the heat to kick in, which finally happened just shy of Vail.<\/p>\n

But now we’re back in the Lodge.\u00c2\u00a0 Cozy.\u00c2\u00a0 The concierge said it was going to be twenty six tomorrow, but I don’t believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I just went to the ski area’s Website and although it DOES say it’s going to go up into the twenties, they say with a west wind of fifteen to twenty five miles an hour, and forty mile an hour gusts, it’s going to feel like minus ten to minus twenty.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, it was so cold today I could feel it to my core.\u00c2\u00a0 Even the chili I ate at lunch didn’t warm me up.\u00c2\u00a0 Only when I poured down some hot chocolate did my insides come back alive.<\/p>\n

Still, we’ll be out there.<\/p>\n

Because that’s what you do.<\/p>\n

It makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something.<\/p>\n

It makes you feel alive.<\/p>\n

And then, despite the frozen digits you have this one run, at Vail, usually two or three, that make it all worth it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you’re the windshieldSometimes you’re the bug I sing songs to myself while I’m skiing.\u00c2\u00a0 Coming down Born Free this morning this song by Mary Chapin Carpenter went through my brain.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, Mark Knopfler wrote it, but she had the "hit". Actually, the song of the day was "Ride Captain Ride". Seventy three men sailed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-5d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}