6th Ski Day in a Row - This Time @ MRM

I slept in until 715am or so. Of course David was already up and had brewed a pot of coffee. I poured a cup but soon realized that it was little more than brown water. David shared that the only coffee he could find required grinding and he only did one cap full. Yeah, I forgot to bring more up from the basement the night before. I thanked him for the effort then went to the basement for more. After dumping out the weak stuff I brewed a new batch. Ahhh ... much better!

We enjoyed coffee and conversation for a spell. A short time later Anita was up and joined us downstairs. And then not too long after that, Mindy was up. Can't remember if I took her coffee or not. Think I did. She had to be up reasonably early to get the kids ready to leave with Jimaken who was picking them up by 10am. He was taking Jacob to the Buckeye basketball game while girlfriend Molly took Bella on a shopping spree. Bella was stoked.

Dad stopped by sometime soon, too. I can't recall if that was before or after my run. The run was great. And while it was only 12 degrees, it felt almost warm after Friday's subzero temps at HV. It was that cold at home, too, I guess. Like most Saturday's, I ran three miles.

As planned, Jimaken and Molly showed up near 10am. Suddenly we had a house full. Jimaken & Molly stuck around for a while visiting, chatting with everyone else. Just before they headed out I headed up for a shower and to ready myself for skiing. By the time I was downstairs again, Jimaken, Molly, and the kids were gone.

We had no real time table for when we wanted to arrive at MRM, but I was much looking forward to seeing all of our ski peeps as well as being there for demo day. Decided we would stop at First Watch for breakfast on the way. The last time we did that it worked out really well, sustained us for quite a while without feeling ridiculously full.

Thinking we left the house sometime after 11am. Anita, bless her heart, was still not feeling well and brought along her kindle to do some reading from the lodge. She was battling a cold. Breakfast was good and fun. I toyed with the help the entire time. Headed for MRM near noon, best guess.

Easy drive. And what started as a cloudy day, ended up being mostly sunny by the time we arrived. The lot might have been the fullest we can ever recall. We dropped David and Anita near the pay line, which was pretty long in its own right. Mindy and I headed back to the lot looking for a parking spot. Round and round we went, along with maybe 20 other cars. Finally, after about 10 minutes of corcling, we gave up and parked out near the tubing park. Never before have we had to park so far removed from the lodge. Yikes! I could tell that Mindy wasn't too thrilled with the parking situation. Neither was I, but at the same time, I didn't want to drive around incessantly.

Gearing up was a snap. It was a long walk up to the main ski area, but in the end not too big a deal. Got our lift tickets without any problems. The line at Four Star exemplified the parking lot - long!!! We didn't immediately spot our peeps or David. Mindy and I skied a few runs, just she and I. Almost forgot, just before we arrived, Mindy got a text from Tina C. sharing that Zach (Scott's son) took a bad spill doing a 360 and landed on his face. Scott was taking him to the hospital to be checked for concussion symptoms. Yikes!

We soon met up with the Cubra family and skied with all of them for the next hour or so. We hadn't seen them since the OSU/Michigan St. Saturday, I don't think. We talked HV quite a bit, them having made a trip their mid-December. They stayed at the Tamarack, which they booked through VRBO. Said they loved it!

I was a little disappointed to learn from the Aspen Ski & Board folks that they didn't bring the Volkl V-Werks Katana's that I was hoping to demo. Disheartened, I didn't try anything else. David did, however. He demo'd the Elan Amphibio's. Pretty sure he skied a 178, which I believe is the right length for his height, weight and ability. Said he could tell a big difference as compared to rentals. I'll bet.

The lines only got longer, and just about the time that Mindy and I were ready to head in for a break and beer, we spotted the Imber's. They arrived around 230pm. Mindy & I went ahead inside to meet Anita. And just as the slopes were packed, so was the lodge. In kind, getting a table was a challenge, but not too big for Mindy, who is better than anyone I know at finding space. We ended up sharing a long table with another family. I don't think the father had any idea what he was in for, though. It started out just being three of us, but quickly ballooned to 10 or more. :) Still, we never lost sight of his right to three chairs. We made sure they were there for he and his kids.

Very happy to share that MRM now offers lots of beer choices including a couple IPAs and a stout. They even had a small batch White IPA brewed by New Belgium called Accumulation. I opted for a pitcher of the Mt Caramel Stout to start. I like it. Later, Bob C. bought a pitcher of Sam Adams Winter Lager, and then Mindy bought a pitcher of the Accumulation.

The whole time we were on break, the lift lines remained ridiculously long. And after skiing five days in a row at HV, I wasn't in any hurry to head back out. It was dark before we finally did. I'll bet that we were inside for a minimum of 2 hours. After break we skied with David, Bob and Mary Ann for at least another hour, maybe longer. By then the lift lines had decreased but only marginally. We skied until we'd had enough. I'm thinking it was 630pm when we wrapped up for the night. Because we parked so far from the lodge, Mindy and I did the long walk and brought the Pilot to the lodge to pick-up David and Anita. We also passed along the festive Xmas gift basket to the Imber's - the last Xmas present we had to give out.

We talked about the possibility of meeting them late morning Sunday at CBC for brunch. Meanwhile, me, Mindy, David and Anita were heading directly to Barley's for dinner - David's choice. Forty, forty-five minutes later we arrived at Barley's. Truth be told, I was more than a little angered by Mindy, who shared how negative I was on the drive home from HV when I complained about the town of Falconer. In reality (my perspective) I only complained about how far it was from the actual freeway exit (about 5 miles). Felt that was somewhat deceptive advertising. The town itself, I thought was charming. I never like it when my wife chooses to share things like that. Not sure her motive.

Based on our sloppy dress, Our Barley peeps quickly picked up on the idea that we'd just come from skiing. Can't recall the kid who was taking care of our table, but he's been there for a little while. David ordered the Wood Reserve nitro, the beer he's been craving since last visit. I went with the Double Dog IPA. We ordered food pretty quickly too. For the first time ever, I ordered a full rack of ribs - half St Louis and half baby back. Yum! I ate the full rack. Enjoyed a 2nd IPA too. Mindy and Anita drank only water. And just as you might expect, Mindy drove us safely home.