Snow Ski Season

I got up near 730am to the return of sunny skies. After a couple cloudy days, that was awfully nice to see. I headed downstairs and started some coffee then played on the PC. I checked the weather forecast. It was supposed to be sunny and 83 – a perfect summer day.
After playing around for nearly an hour, I readied and left for a run near 9am. I ran the usual 3 mile weekend route taking the warm-up loop essentially right across the street. I spotted Connie, Darwin’s wife, out on her walk/run. As I finished the warm-up loop I saw Mindy out walking Eiknarf. She and Connie hooked up for a few minutes as I continued onward with my run. I was home after 30 minutes or so.

Mindy and I planned our day, which included a trip to ASBCO at Polaris. We wanted to take in all of our gear for tune-ups, but also trade-in Bella’s stuff for new/bigger, and then possibly look at new skis for Mindy. We also planned to buy our MRM season pass if they were throwing in the freebies.

Before heading to ASBCO, we both took showers. Mindy headed to the neighbors to get Bella, who spent the night. We expected a bit of push back, but that didn’t materialize. She was excited to get new skis. I loaded all the gear into the Pilot while Mindy made everybody breakfast (Bella ate at the neighbors). I ate Friday’s leftover Cuban. We left for ASBCO near noon taking I-270.

The lot was packed with cars and people. Plus, they had a lot of ski gear outside too. A couple young employees helped us carry in our gear to be tuned. Once that was addressed they assisted Bella with picking new, longer skis, and then sized her up for new boots. She chose some very colorful skis. Mindy was next. The young lady now helping us was very cute and helpful. Mindy wasn’t sure what to look at or ask for. I chimed in that we wanted to explore a wider, lighter ski much like my Mantra’s. Up to that point she was looking at skis similar to those she already has.

That lead us outside where they had a pair of Volkl Auras, which are the women’s version of the Mantra. They were 156mm long, which is 7mm longer than her K2s, but they had a rockered tip which according to tech info makes them ski shorter. Perfect! The young woman showed us a few others as well, but we opted for the Auras if the price was right. Bottom line, we got em with high end bindings and poles for about 50% off. What a deal! I picked up the tab for everything: the tune-ups, Bella & Mindy’s new equipment. It was actually less than I expected. Everything won’t be ready until 8/26.

We headed home, planning dinner along the way. I suggested that we have steak and risotto. Mindy wasn’t sure how many steaks we had in the freezer. If we didn’t have enough, we planned to have brats. OK by me. Once home I headed out to take care of the lawn. I spent about 2 hours on the yard mowing, whacking, edging and blowing. I’m thinking it was 4pm when I finished. All afternoon I was thinking that Mindy wanted all of us to attend Jacob’s soccer scrimmage, although I knew that Jimaken was coming over to take him. However, when I asked what time we’d be leaving she shared that she didn’t plan for us to attend. Oh!

Mindy started dinner, boiling the brats in a variety of beers we had available in the garage along with putting together a fresh garden salad. I took a very brief nap then whipped up the risotto. Took about 30 minutes. By 530pm dinner was ready. Because Jacob doesn’t care for brats, Mindy made him a blue-cheese burger and set aside in the fridge.

Dinner was delicious. The risotto was really good, even Bella liked it. After dinner Mindy and I went on a bike ride while Bella headed down to play with the neighbors. Our ride was relatively brief, just around the subdivision. Probably about three miles given that it closely resembled my weekend run trail. I talked Mindy in to raising her seat about 2” to allow her legs to extend fully on the down pedal, thus giving her more power. I think she liked the change.

I planned to watch the NFL preseason game at 8pm, but was surprised and disappointed to learn that it wasn’t televised on Time Warner. Dang it! Instead of football, I watched the Universe, which proved very interesting, mostly about Mars, and what we’ve learned to date as well as what we speculate to be the future after Curiousity’s mission.

Mindy headed to bed near 915pm, still overly tired/stressed. I’m sure she’s worried about the coming school year as well as her mammogram follow-up appointment scheduled for the coming Wednesday. I stayed up until darn near 10pm. Bella stayed up with me. She headed to be about the same time I did.