Friday, February 22, 2008

No pictures

This year’s ski vacation has come and gone. Flew by, actually, like snow flakes driven horizontally in a howling wind.

Come to think of it, that analogy pretty well sums up the vacation.

It snowed every single day we were there. We almost never saw the sun, even between snow showers. And pictures of mountain slopes covered in white, taken during a snow storm or even on a gray, cloudy day, just don’t have a lot of appeal.

“Oh, look! There’s John skiing down the slope. Wait... or is that Carol? I can’t tell what color his/her jacket is because everything looks gray!”

Then on the day before we were to leave we had a real storm with heavy snow falling for 24 hours straight. The only highway through Berthoud Pass back to Denver was closed with no estimate of reopen time. We made arrangements to stay where we were for an extra night, cancelled the hotel reservations in Denver, cancelled our annual Macaroni Grill dinner, worried about everyone else in our party making early flights out of Denver on Saturday morning. And we waited.

A few of us went to the mountain and skied in the falling snow. Carol and I didn’t, because Carol was sick with some kind of intestinal bug that had kept her up most of Thursday night during the blizzard calling for Ralph in the bathroom. (Ralph never answered.)

Late Friday the pass opened. We drove two vehicles in convoy over the icy, snow packed roads to Denver (after making NEW hotel reservations!) to deliver three couples to a location close to the airport. Then I drove back over the pass to Carol, arriving about midnight. Yes, it was snowing hard in the pass again!

But all’s well that ends well, and by Saturday morning Carol was well enough to travel. We packed up the car and headed back for Texas. Shortly after arrival I had to mow the yard to knock down the weeds and thistles that had sprung up in the warm, wet weather Victoria had been having. What a contrast!

We played golf the following Sunday. In shorts.

6 comments:

kenju said...

Golfing in shorts is infinitely preferable to skiing in snow!

Karyn Lyndon said...

You don't even have one sweater picture???

Nankin said...

I'm glad you got home safe. I'll take warm and humid over cold and snow any day.

Unknown said...

I heard the long version of your vacation... didn't sound like much fun for anyone!

Duke_of_Earle said...

Tracye,

Actually, most of us DID have fun for at least part of the trip. And we figure we've been going there for 17 years now, so every once in a while you have to expect some problems.

Most years have been better than this one, though!

John

Hale McKay said...

Interesting trip to say the least. It was like being in two different worlds - Colorado and back home.

Glad you had a good time in spite of the less than ideal conditions.