skiing in steamboat

i've been away. it was fuuuuuuuun. karl and i flew out to denver (philly to denver: $204 roundtrip per person via hotwire), took the bus to boulder ($8 per person), and rode with ingrid and her boy tom to steamboat springs, co. check out the trail map, if you've only ever skied on the east coast. ooooooh, it was gooooood. Even though it was slightly above freezing the days we were skiing, and thus the powder was a bit melty and "heavy," it was still REALLY REALLY good skiing.

as we drove from boulder on friday (the 15th) the temperature reading from tom's car dropped from a balmy boulder 59 to a frigid steamboat 17. brrrrrrr. but saturday and sunday were warmer, with highs in the mid 30s and lows in the low-mid 20s. not bad, not bad.

ski rental cost us $62 for the two days. lift passes were $122 for two days. the condo was $116 per person (there were 7 of us) for three nights. beer and breakfast food came to $27 per person. so it was kinda expensive, but it was soooo fun.

after skiing, we put on swimsuits and ran over the snow to the outdoor hottub, beers in hand. gawd, was that hottub ever heavenly.

i hadn't skied in a couple years, and even that was only one day in the poconos. and though i was more cautious than i wish i had been, it was still great to hear that lovely swooshing sound of skis on snow, and feel the exhilaration of heading downhill *really* fast, and to stand at the 10,000+ ft peak of the mountain and look at the view of all the other snow-covered peaks around.

yesterday, our first day back at work, karl got word that his boys back in england are planning on going to france to ski sometime in march, and did we want to join them? it would be for a week, probably. and the crazy thing is: we might just. it would certainly be loads of fun, and i haven't skied in europe since i was a wee girl of about 3 and my family lived in geneva.

as we left steamboat on monday morning, it started snowing. perfectly bad timing. not only did we miss skiing on the fresh powder, but we had to drive on mountain roads through it. luckily, tom has a 4-wheel-drive.

oh, so the company included: me, karl, ingrid, tom, ruth (works with ingrid), ben (works with ruth), and dave (drives a schoolbus). ben and dave were definitely the diehards. though they were stopped briefly when ben's snowboard got stolen from outside the cafeteria where we met for lunch on saturday. some board shop at the bottom of the mountain took pity on him and lent him a board for the rest of the day, free of charge. the next day, he skied (he had brought both skis and board to the mountain).

all in all, it was wicked fun and i hope we get to go in march (though i fear that other committments: prospectives weekend (where new prospective grad students come to visit), CUNY (annual sentence processing conference that i go to), and karl's parents coming will get in the way. blurg.)