On-Callski

I woke a couple of times in and around 530a but found my way back to sleep. I woke for good at 730a and headed downstairs to make coffee, exercise, and check in with work. It was cloudy and icing, the temperature around 30 degrees. Must’ve had warm air aloft. I love that term.  I didn’t take Frankie out for a walk until almost 830a. She was having quite the lazy morning. Work was going remarkably better than I expected. I wasn’t betting on it staying that way, however. I worked on my blog until 930a when I decided it time to run. During the three mile run it did a little bit of everything: snow, sleet, and rain. Quite ugly really. If it was gonna be like that all day, we definitely wouldn’t be skiing. The forecast was still calling for the precip to turn to all snow by noon. Mindy was still asleep when I returned from my run. Frankie wanted to head out again. I took care of that too. Mindy got up before 11a but not by much. Asked how work was going. Smooth at the time. We sat around through the rest of the morning, me working and playing, Mindy sipping coffee and playing on the internet, a rare restful Saturday. Mindy headed for a shower around noon, but before committing the day's attire she came downstairs asking if we were skiing or not. That answer would dictate how she dressed – obviously. In the meantime, the ugly sleet, rain, snow changed over to all snow, just as they predicted it would. Work was cooperating too. I decided that we should go skiing. A few more weeks may be all we have left in the season. End of February usually spells the bitter end for MRM. From that point forward, we prepared to ski and had ourselves and our gear ready and packed by 110p. I packed my work laptop just in case I needed it. I had my Blackberry, too, of course. It was 33 degrees when we got on I-270 but already down to 30 by the time we hit route 33. It was snowing pretty good, too. As we neared Plain City and Marysville, the weather turned into a full blown winter snowstorm. The road conditions were hazardous. Traffic slowed from 65-70 to 40-45 mph. We saw numerous cars off the road, and actually watched one heading the opposite direction go barreling into the median at a high speed spinning and heading near us. Thankfully it came to a stop in the valley of the median never making it into oncoming traffic. The last 10 miles in was white knuckle driving with Mindy clutching the oh-shit bar numerous times. MRM was more crowded than we guessed it would be. And they already had a good 2” of fresh snow on the ground and more coming down. We had to park fairly deep but directly behind the lodge making for relatively easy access to our cooler later. We ran into Zach, Scott’s son, at the entrance to the gift shop, where we pick-up our daily pass. Said his dad was somewhere on the slopes. I asked that he give Mindy Scott’s number so we could call/hook up with him. Just before we were heading to the lift, we passed Scott who had just come inside for a break. Agreed to hook up later. The snow was still coming down pretty good, although it was a wet snow. The conditions were loose granular over ice, which translated into medium speed. We skied several runs, or for about 90 minutes before taking a break. It seemed to be getting colder as the afternoon wore on, something we both appreciated. Mindy talked with Chrissy just before we headed in for our break. They were heading up to ski a little later. I expected them around 4 or 5 pm. At ski check we happened upon Scott, who was just heading back out after a break as long as our first ski session. Since we were heading in, he agreed to beer with the two of us. Cool! I went to the Honda for the cooler while Mindy & Scott headed in to get a table. Scott already had a pitcher of Sam Adams waiting by the time I returned with the cooler. We had a nice long break, probably about an hour. As you might guess, we all had a good ski buzz as we headed back out. By then the snow was no longer the wet variety, which made riding the lift much more enjoyable (think wet ass). We broke out the liquid courage through the evening –lemon nip and gold schlager. We had a ball! Kenny & Chrissy showed up near 5p best guess. The five of us skied together for about an hour or so before Scott called it an evening, sought out his son Zach, and headed for home. At the same time, Chrissy was ready for a beer so we all headed in for another break. I had a few beers in our cooler. I opened those during our 2nd break. My work peer, Ken was there again with his family. Came over to the table to say hello. Wasn’t skiing because his son left his ski pants at home, so Ken sacrificed his own. I’m thinking that our break lasted until 7p before we headed out for our final hour of skiing. We skied until 8p then made a beeline for the Honda. The snow had finally stopped. Guessing by the parking lot, they got 3-4” of snow during the day. I started the drive home but quickly decided it best if Mindy drove. We did a Chinese fire drill at the stop sign before getting on Rt 33 east. I fell asleep as we neared the Honda plant and didn’t wake until we were approaching I-270. That felt heavenly. Slept through the longest, most boring part of the drive. Mindy ate a bowl of soup and I ate leftover pizza as soon as we got home. I checked in with work and took Frankie out too. Sometime after 9p, the neighbors called inviting us down. Why not? We took my Jack Daniels and headed that way. We didn’t visit for too long. I’m thinking that we were home before 1030p.