ski pics

this past Sunday we brought Alina up with some friends, Ethan and Logan, to go skiing at Breck. unfortunately the high winds forced lift closures, so the usually not busy chair 7 was swamped. Alina wasn't in a great "patient" mood, so we bailed. but we had fun taking the bus and gondola!

 

Logan's dad, Scott, on a xc ski tour on the B&B Trail, just about 1/2 mi up the road from our house. Mineral Hill in the background, a big producer of silver back in the day.
 

last xmas pic dump

 
 
 
 

xmas pics

 
 
 
 

more xmas pics

 
 
 
 

yuck

days like this make me wish I was in a different line of work. sure there are days where things are much smoother. But today sucks.

Alina on Christmas morning

thanks George for the picture.

Christmas at the Hills

 
 
 
 

New pjs from (great?) granny

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wow

that's all I gotta say about snowboarding today. Imperial Bowl was spectacular, even at 2:30p, since it was snowing all day. Easily more than a foot up there over 12,000'. Looking forward to more powder, looks like the jet stream is going to be kind to us for the near future. I'm in winter mode now, no bikes. I'll be ready to ride bikes again at some point in late January I think, maybe early Feb.

Lunch break

11" reported. I'm going to mop up what's left up there...

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Alina on the green

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Alina and our tiny Xmas tree

just her size. with a little step stool, she was able to decorate just about the entire tree.

 
 

E chair powder

Mineshaft trees.

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skating

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Ice scootin..I mean skatin'

She loves it!

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oh what fun

The onslaught at work begins today, with a steady ramp up over the next few days for the huge AST Dew Tour here in Breckenridge. Hopefully we can take Alina up to the superpipe or slopestyle on Saturday to see the young guns going HUGE.

warmer morning

warm is a relative word here. Although it was 30 degrees warmer than yesterday morning, it was still only 15 degrees when I woke up! Fortunately it's not just all cold and no snow. A couple inches overnight, and it's been snowing off and on all day. Looking forward to skiing Peak 10 and the T-bar and such later on this month.

Well below zero

-14F at 7a

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bbrrrrrr

Went on the hill today. 4F before windchill. Snow was good at least.

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Dogs on sallie barber

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i am thankful

very random thoughts tonight. while i'm not a huge hoops fan anymore, I watched the last few minutes of a college game on tonight. it was pretty good. then i heard a playback of Jimmy Valvano's speech at the 1983 ESPY award show. He was a great coach, but an even better person. Cancer claimed his life early. Very inspirational speech he gave. And just now I read online about the F18 crash in San Diego. A guy lost his 2 daughters, wife and mother-in-law as they were in one of the houses the jet crashed into. One of his daughters was less than 2mos. and the other 15mos. old. He didn't blame the pilot of the jet. Matter of fact, knowing the pilot did everything possible to avoid killing innocent civilians, the man hoped the pilot wouldn't mentally suffer too much over what had happened. The guy, who came over from Korea, said he knew some people endured even worse things than what he is dealing with now. But at this press conference, he wondered aloud how they did it. The poor guy is obviously shell-shocked and devastated by the tragedy, but his words were very lucid. Alina's recent bad cold and case of pink eye are and should be absolute joys to deal with. Just knowing Alina and Helen are in my life give me great joy, and every second I'm with them is a big adrenaline rush.

Airport fun cart

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a few more

I'll have to check out the Financial District, Haight-Ashbury, Berkley, Silicon Valley, and many bike rides (road and mtb) on my next visit.

 
 
 
 

more SF pics

 
 
 
 

San Fran, day 3...true tourists

We checked out Muir Woods Natl Monument in the morning. What amazes me is the size and diversity of plant and tree life over here. But having a temperate climate and some moisture certainly allow that. My observation is also based on the simple fact that I live in the mountains of Colorado at almost 10,000'...home to probably less than 5 or 6 types of trees, most of which are stunted by the harsh winters and lack of oxygen.

Afterwards we headed over to San Fran for lunch and true touristy stuff over at Pier 39 on Fisherman's Wharf. They had a Hematology conference in town, so a lot of Asian and European doctors in town. Some good seafood and an Anchor Steam on draft was just what I needed!