It’s been a fun few weeks. A week ago we went skiing, me Jeannie and Michelle, at Catamount up in the Berkshires. It was a great time and we got in ten runs, most of them on Walther’s Way, a nice curvy blue trail with a long, strait run out at the bottom. Last year we hadn’t been skiing in seven years or so, and it was great to get back into it. We went once and it was amazing. Definitely a blessing to still be skiing in our 50’s.
Last season I bought new boots and demoed new skis. This year Jeannie got new boots too, and we both did a full-season demo/rental, where we can keep our skis if we like them instead of getting back our deposit. Skis have changed since we got our last generation of gear, getting on twenty years ago. The fashion now is for shorter, wider skis with a narrow waist. They’re better for carving, and better with some powder on the mountain, but don’t seem to hold a strait line as well, and don’t have much control on ice or scraped-off slope. I got used to mine and like them pretty well, although I can’t seem to go as fast. This fits okay with my current skiing style, which is more about cruising than hot-dogging. Jeannie isn’t digging her new slats. I’m still not sure if I’m gonna keep mine or try something else. I like the ones I demoed last year better than the ones I have now.
We went for the late session, starting in the afternoon and going into the night. On the was home we stopped by a restaurant called Four Brothers Pizza. They actually have four locations between our home and the ski slope, this was the third one. I must say it was great, better than I expected. The food was great, hot cappuccino and soup most welcome. Deep-dish Chicago style pizza; I guess we’re far enough out of the New York City Area. The decor was murals of ancient Greek and Roman temples, landmarks, seascapes and scenes out of mythology, very well done, over-the-top but nevertheless appropriate to the ambience.
During the week we went to Hades Town, a Broadway show. It was the first Broadway show for me in many years, although Lizzy and Michelle have been to a few the last several years. We met Jeannie at her office, a major book publisher, and they had some of their all-time best books on display in the lobby, including The Call of Cthulhu, and D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. We went to dinner and went to Yum Yum, a Thai food place in Hell’s Kitchen, one of our favorite lunch places back in the day when Jeannie and I both used to work in midtown. Good to know they’re still there and the food is as good as ever.
One thing that struck me about walking around midtown is how empty the place was. I’ve been in that neighborhood when it was wall-to-wall pedestrians and you had to practically elbow your way thru the crowd to move at all. This night you could move around with ease. Maybe five percent or less of the usual level of foot traffic.
The show itself was great. Hades Town is a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set to the music of old time Appalachian folk, blues, country and jazz. The songs were great, clever and moving, and the performers were fantastic too, especially the actor who played Hades, but the trombone player stole the show.
Then this last weekend we went up to Buffalo to take Michelle back to school for her next semester, and we brought our skis with us. In the past we’ve been up there around Xmastime and brought our skis, but it’s early in the season and there’s a good chance it’ll be too warm or there won’t be enough show. I haven’t been to Buffalo at the end of January for many years, and I gotta tell you, neither of those things were a problem. There were two feet of snow on the ground all around, and the temperature was below 20 degrees the whole time. I grew up in Buffalo, but I’ve almost forgotten what a real winter feels like. Nevertheless, I was quick to adapt.
We went to Holiday Valley, which is the mountain where I learned to ski. Lizzy joined us as well as Michelle. It’s not particularly high compared to the Catskills, let alone Vermont or the Sierras, but it’s enough to be fun. I haven’t been there in thirty years. They’ve made some improvements with more and faster lifts and more lodges. The day we went the high was 12 degrees, so we were hoping the cold would keep people away, but no such luck. We had to circle the parking lot three times to find a spot, and when we got to the base lodge the lift lines were pretty long. But once we got up on the mountain it was fine. Our friend Larry joined us, and he’s been skiing there alot and knew his way around. We went to the back side, to a lift called Tamarack or Tannenbaum. The trails there were beautiful, winding and woodsy with lots of good powder. Perfect soul skiing. We did run after run and went in for hot cocoa after a couple hours. Then we did one more session, up and down the Mardi Gras lift and trail, which was long and strait, mainly going for all-out speed. I think we did twelve or thrirteen runs in all. By the time we got off the mountain it was twelve degrees below zero.
Afterwards we went out to dinner at Ellicotville Brew Club, one of a growing number of craft beer places in the Buffalo area. While we were gone, there was a major snowstorm back at home. Jeannie set up a a little web cam so we could watch our yard fill up with snow. To our surprise, our neighbor Kevin across the street came over and cleared our driveway. He has a giant snowblower and I guess he doesn’t have a chance to use it that often. He’s done a bunch other kind things for us (remember project dirt last year), and the bar happened to be selling variety packs of their beers, so we picked one up for him as a thank-you.