Back to the Grind & Stats From The Road

We've been home for just about 2 weeks now and while we are all happy to have a lot more space, sleep in our own beds, see are all our friends and family and get back into our usual routines, I am still feeling a bit of a loss for our traveling days. Yes, I know I am very spoiled, we had a wonderful year trip and now it is time to get back to regular life, we can't live on the road forever. Or can we? 

Could we live like this for longer? Maybe if every spot was this beautiful. 

While it might be tough with our girls as they are growing up and want to be doing the normal things kids do, we will likely stay put for awhile, but we can incorporate some of our traveling ways into our at home days. Since we have been home we unpacked our storage unit and we all got our rooms sorted, pretty quickly - taking a tip from traveling in our tiny camper, I am trying to remind myself and the family that every thing needs to have a spot to call home. It's easy to leave shoes, toys, dishes, etc all around a big house, likely people won't step on them or have to move them to sit down, like it would be in the camper, but in either home, its a good habit to continue. 

Of course we were very happy to see our friends again! 

My main goal as we re-enter into the no-mobile world is to take it slow. This is something that was just natural in the camper, we drove slow, we explored, we were curious and were appreciative of all the new things we encountered. I need to remember this as we are adjusting into our new/old life again. We will take each day slowly and act deliberately and try to bring in as much curiosity into our familiar world as we did in the new settings we found on the road. 

Now as our adventure is coming to a close, I have a few things that I have been working on and want to work on in the future. While we were traveling, at the end of the trip we got a lot of questions about "How Many" or "What was your favorite", so we decided to put together a list of some of the statistics from the trip (both trackable and untrackable).

Our goal for this trip was not to visit every state or see every national park, our goal for this trip was to explore this amazing country of ours, we wanted our daughters to see all the opportunities that are available to them in our country. We wanted them to learn about all the types of jobs they can have, the places they can go to school and the vast amount of variety that is in the US, from the different types of landscapes and the many different people that live in our country. We also wanted to see as many as family and friends as possible. With these goals in mind, I think we achieved them. There are definitely more places in the country that we would like to go back to and visit, but we feel pretty good about the surface we scratched. 

One of our last hikes at Latourell Falls in Oregon with Uncle Dan & Eva & Rodin

Here is a breakdown of some of the statistics we gathered over our 9 months on the road: (Please let us know if there is a stat you are curious about, we are happy to share, this was just our initial list, more details of where stayed can be found here.) 

Miles driven: 25,164.6

States slept in: 29 

States driven through: 33 

Provinces visited & slept in:4

Trips to Ford Dealers: 7 (Terrace, BC; Port Huron, MI, Bangor, ME, Virginia Beach, VA, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Salt Lake City, UT, Ventura, CA - 5 oil changes, 3 dealing with check engine light, 1 set of new tires) 

Oil Changes: 5

Tire changes: 1 - Salt Lake City  

Tire issues: 1 - Caught a screw outside of Bozeman, patched and repaired in less than 20 min

National Parks & Monuments visited: 

Canadian: 3 --  Jasper, Banff, Watertown 

US: 27  Yellowstone, Windcaves, Badlands, Minute Man, Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, Sleeping Bear Dunes NP, Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Mammoth Caves,  Provincetown Monument, Dry Tortuga NP, Everglades, Big Cypress National Preserve, Zion, Grand Canyon, Alcatraz,  Glen Canyon, Colorado National Monument, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Newberry National Volcanic Monument, Gettysburg National Military Park & Cemetery, Death Valley NP, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Presidio of San Fran, Redwood National Park,  

State parks visited: 10
KOAs: 28
Harvest Hosts: 7 (Coastal Black Winery in British Columbia, Younity Winery, in Maine, Bishop’s Orchards in Connecticut, 16 Mile Brewing Company in Delaware, White Barrel Winery in Virginia, Mockingbird Hill Farm in Georgia and Agua Dulce Winery in California) 

Hotels stayed in: 11 (South Dakota, Great Wolf Lodge Niagara Falls, Bangor, Maine, Disney Cruise, Gettysburg, PA, Telluride, CO, Durango, CO, Snowbird, Timberline, OR, Zion, UT, McMenamins, OR) 

Countries visited: 6 (US, Canada, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Mexico, Bahamas) 

Driveways slept in: 6 (Danny's, Waters', Heig's, Rutledge's, Quinliven's, Zimmerman's) 

Houses slept in: 8 (Thompson's, Sophia & Yuki, Hayden & Steph, New Mexico Cabin, Janell & Glen, Nonni & Nonno, Sanya & Phil, Doris & Don)

Longest stay - Thompson's in Virginia (16 days!) 

BIG THANKS to all those that hosted us! These were some of our best times and best memories! We always appreciated a clean shower and a home cooked meal!

We were also so happy when we were able to meet up with family and friends on the road, such a treat to be able spend the holidays with loved ones!

Visit with Houser cousins in Key West, FL

Super fun Disney Cruise with Gorohoff Family

Christmas morning with the whole Micheli crew in Orlando, FL 

Ending our trip with an awesome visit with The Bauer cousins in Oregon

Flu shots/Dr's visits: 1 stop at the pharmacy for flu shots for the family, but otherwise we stayed out of hospitals and urgent cares (Thank God!). We all got a little sick, colds and a bit of an ear infection (for Siena) - but no one puked! Woo hoo! 

Speeding tickets: 0 -- Also, patting our backs for this one, while we didn't really ever drive over the speed limit, I did get it get the truck up to 80 at one point, and then Andrew got mad and that's why I didn't drive that much.  

Rear endings: Just one, by a guy in Las Vegas, again, one of the few times I was driving and getting on the freeway to head to Zion. His car was way more damaged than ours, so we called it good. 

Ski days: 27
Ski areas: 14 (Taos, Santa Fe, Angle Fire, Wolf Creek, Purgatory, Telluride, Powderhorn, Steamboat, Alta, Solitude, Snowbird, Squaw Valley, Mt. Bachelor, Timberline) 

States we skied in: 5 (New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, California & Oregon) 

Boat/ ferry trips: 6 (ferry in Vancouver, ferry to AK, Disney, Houser boat trip, Dry Tortoguas, Alcatraz)

Times stuck in the snow: 2 (Both times at the cabin - that driveway was a bear to get out of)

RV repair projects: 3 (new hoses for our toilet in Gettysburg, Andrew & Hayden fixing my light and other issues in FL, Andrew & Phil fixing the drawer in AZ - these last two were just really excuses for the boys to use tools and go to HomeDepot) 

Fun times skiing this winter! 

Boxes sent home: 4 

Number of states we left gear: 4 (Montana, Virginia, New Mexico, Oregon) 

Times the camper pipes froze: Just once, but that was enough! 

Times we wished we had air conditioning: 2 (One humid night in Orlando and our last night in Death Valley) 

Museums, Zoos & Aquariums visited: 15   

Movies seen in theater: 5/6 -- Star Wars: Force Awakens (Siena & Andrew saw it twice, once in Orlando with the Micheli's and on the cruise in 3D with the Gorohoff's), The Martian (girls saw Charlie Brown), Deadpool (girls saw Zootopia), we all saw Civil War twice. 

Dutch oven meals: 10 apx (we only had 3 dishes we cooked but made them over and over: Chicken & Rice, Lazy Peach Cobbler and Apple Crisp) 

Times crossing the Golden Gate Bridge: 3 

Universities Visited: 4 (MSU, ASU, Stanford, MIT) 

Yoga classes across the country: 7 (Jasper, Bozeman, St. Augustine, Ft.Lauderdale, Telluride x2, Squaw Valley)

Running Races: 2 (Prostate Cancer Race in VA, Pat Tillman Race in AZ)  

Untrackable: 

Money spent - all of it 

Gallons of diesel (Cheapest diesel at Buc-ee's outside of Dallas, $1.50/gallon) 

Souvenirs picked up - too many 

Meals eaten out 

New people met

Family campfires
Fires in the rain 

Quarters spent in laundromats

Walmart visits

Starbucks visits 

Times girls asked how much longer (of the entire trip or on a specific drive)

One of our many campfires in the rain - I think this was in Michigan

Favorites: 
Kathy: I think Maine was my favorite. I love Acadia National Park, even though I didn't participate in the big hike there. I loved the rocky coast line and the small coastal villages, Bar Harbor was a fun place to visit and the country side is beautiful there. I also really, really enjoyed all of our skiing adventures, staying at the cabin in the snow and being active and outside with my family, even in the cold of winter, was a highlight of the trip. Oh and of course Yosemite! Loved that place to death, the cliffs and hikes and the greenery of the whole place. I can't pick just one favorite!
Andrew: Key West, the weather was nice, it was warm enough to sit outside to drink our coffee in the morning and the sunrises were beautiful. But if we stayed too long we may have never left there.
Siena: I liked Texas the best, I liked the food and seeing our family. I really loved the ranch and the dogs.
Nadia: I really liked Florida because it was warm and I got to see all my family, we got to go to DisneyWorld and go on a Disney Cruise.

It's been a great ride!  Thanks to all for following along on our crazy adventure! 

Oregon Days and An End To Skiing (for now)

At the very tippy top of Mount Bachelor with Tom and Lisa

We finished up our skiing for this season with a beautiful bluebird spring skiing day at Mount Bachelor with our friends Tom and Lisa. Prior to that we spent 4 days skiing at Timberline, 2 days with our friends from Seattle Jen, Chris and Jaden and Lisa, Chris, and Zoe, and 2 of those days staying with just our family staying at Timberline Lodge. 

Skiing Timberline with Chris, Jen, Jaden, T-Bone, Lisa, and Zoe

It was great to see so many friends and difficult to spend so much time so close to home only to know we were going to turn around and head south again. However, it was several days of wet weather while staying west of Mount Hood that reminded me that summer most certainly had not come to the Pacific Northwest yet (not even sure that Spring had come yet). 

Frozen up at Timberline

While I did enjoy spending time camping with friends, it had been a very long time since we last found ourselves sitting around a campfire in the rain with umbrellas (which we did quite a few times at the start of this trip). It was that experience that got me to look through weather forecast maps of the western United States to try and find where the closest place was where I could find the warmest, driest weather after we left Oregon. What the long term forecasts were telling me was to head to California.

So as I write this Kathy is driving us to California. The plan is to make it south of San Francisco by Monday afternoon, and meet up with our friend April who we haven’t seen in quite a few years. After that we have a little over a week to get our gypsy wagon to Zion to meet up with more friends.

The skiing adventures this season have been incredible, and as much as I did miss my beloved Alpental, it will be difficult for our family to get used to Pacific Northwest skiing next season. Although we didn’t start skiing until February, we got 27 days of skiing in, we skied in 4 states, 11 ski areas, and we had very few overcast days or even snowy days. Our friends Brandon and Sabrina flew to New Mexico to spend a weekend skiing with us there. In Utah, my brother Alex skied with us at Snowbird, and we were joined by my brothers good friend Bob. And finally in Oregon we skied with all the friends I previously mentioned. Most of the skiing for us this season were beautiful bluebird days, and even several fresh powder bluebird days (as a Pacific Northwest skier this is something I had previously only heard of in legends). Despite the amazing 2 months of skiing, Kathy and I were sick of dealing with a family of 4 and all of our skis and ski gear piled into a tiny box on the back of a pickup truck. Every time we stopped for the night somewhere, all the ski gear had to be moved from the the piles covering our beds in the camper to filling up almost every inch of the cab of the truck. Luckily, our friends Tom and Lisa graciously agreed to store all of our ski gear for the last two months of our trip.

Now as I finish this post and we are just a few miles from the California border, I am starting to get excited by the realization that this adventure is going to transition back to the same type of adventures that we started this trip with: hiking and exploring the wild places of the west coast! With that said, next stop, San Francisco!

One final unrelated note, according to my trucks computer we’re currently averaging 11.9 miles per gallon, just thought I’d mention, because I get asked that a lot.

Mixed Feelings - Two more months on the road ...

We have been spending the last few months traveling around the Rockies (Colorado), Wasatch (Utah) and Sierra (California) mountains to get our skiing in. We had a horrible ski season last year and this year has certainly made up for it. As I post this, we are camping in the Mt. Bachelor Ski Area parking lot, in order to get on the mountain first thing tomorrow morning and to take advantage of some cheap lodging. This morning we left LaPine State Park outside of Bend, OR.  Being in Oregon, the weather has definitely given us a good taste of home, we drove into Oregon through the pouring rain most of the day and woke up to a dusting of snow on the campground this morning, which was a fun treat as we are nestled among the tall evergreen trees.

Little dusting of snow at LaPine State Park

Over the next few days, we will make our way North to ski with good friends that will camp and ski with us at Mt. Hood Meadows and Timberline, then we will head back to Bend to ski with more friends at Mt. Bachelor again and eventually leave our ski and winter gear with them so we can head South again for some fun in the sun until we finally head home at the end of May. 

We are due back at the end of May and have confirmed our tenants will be there until then, so there is no coming back early at this point. A friend recently asked me if I had mixed feelings about coming home, and as I think about it more I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. Strangely, I feel like I have stayed connected pretty well, when we have internet service I can see what friends are doing on Facebook and Instagram, I am keeping up (for the most part) with the (crazy) political campaigns, half of our family is spread out all over the country right now, so calling, texting and FaceTime is the normal way of communicating, and we are teaching our kids about sending actual letters and reaching out that way. But of course, social media and letters can’t replace face to face dinners, talks and hugs. So we do look forward to seeing our loved ones in person.

Selfie at Squaw Valley 

Part of me does long for the normal routine, I can’t wait to have a bedroom of my own with a bed that I can walk around and a door (two upgrades we must have if when we ever get a new camper/trailer) and as I have mentioned in past blogs, I look forward to my normal running routes and running friends, going to yoga  in my neighborhood and having more than 2 pairs of pants to choose from. 

As mixed feelings go, I am also fearful of getting back into the normal routine. I love our carefree days, not always knowing where we are heading the next day. I love sleeping in on a Monday morning. I love exploring new places and living simply. I love watching my kids become each other’s best friends. Playing pretend and really getting into it, they have such vibrant imaginations, it is so fun to watch and listen to. I hope this doesn’t go away when we get home and back into the mix with friends and school and regular life.

Girls exploring the beach of Lake Tahoe

I do look forward to having more variety when grocery shopping and eating at home and having friends over for dinner again. I look forward to visiting our favorite spots in Ballard, but after so long on the road eating out is no longer a treat for us, it becomes a necessity when you are driving long distances and your camper is packed with gear you can’t get to the fridge.

I also look forward to having a dishwasher again. Although, doing dishes is relaxing and meditative for me, I love a clean kitchen, and in the camper the space is so small it is easier to achieve. I will also be happy to be doing laundry at home again. The only upside to doing laundry on the road is that when you are doing laundry in a laundromat you have to get it all done at one time. You can’t leave piles of clean clothes in a basket, you must fold and put everything away after its done. School work is also something I am looking forward to handing pack to the professionals. I am so grateful that we have had this time to learn how our kids learn and take in concepts and understand their challenges and strengths. This will help me help them down the road for sure, but they are certainly ready to get back to a classroom with peers and remember that the teacher is in charge – not them (that’s the challenge for us these days). 

Our whole family can also agree, we are all looking forward to our clean, private bathroom and shower at home. One thing I will NOT miss from this trip is walking to the bathroom to shower (and other business not allowed in the camper), I long for the day I can take a hot bath in my own bathroom. I look forward to showering in my shower without wearing flip flops and hauling all my clothes and shower essentials into the tiny shower stall. I also look forward to showering alone, and not alongside my two daughters who either bicker from their stalls for the shampoo and soap they share or just talk nonsense while showering (although the latter is sometimes amusing). Although, we have had some nice showers and the occasional bath in hotels here and there, we look forward to the comfort, familiarity and cleanliness of our bathroom at home. 

We have a little over 2 more months until we get back and we have more friends and family to visit in some sunny spots down South, so we don’t have to jump back into the normal routine just yet. Once we get home, the goal will be to try and bring some of our simple living habits into our big house and do our best to live in the moment and not get swept up into the busy, whirlwind that often comes with city living. One thing I know for sure, we will appreciate all our comforts of home. The girls will certainly love the fact they don’t have to make/transform their beds every morning and evening, Andrew and I will appreciate our privacy and we will all enjoy a little more indoor space to spread out in. And we will all appreciate our bathroom. 

Skiing Safari

I did a post of all the places we've stayed in the camper here which I try to keep updated as we travel, so I thought I would do a similar one for skiing. I'll try and add some comments about what we've learned about skiing at these ski areas, especially as it applies to staying in a RV.

• Feb 2 Taos Ski Valley, NM  
• This was our first day skiing and the day after a big snow dump at in the Southwest. Taos is one of the few ski areas I've been to that welcomes overnight RV camping for FREE. We naively thought it would be fun to stay the night. However, after a full day of skiing we were disappointed to find our batteries almost dead, our pipes frozen, and the weather too cold to run our generator. It was one VERY cold night.

  

  Our first day of skiing in 2016, and our first day at elevation

• Feb 3 Taos Ski Valley, NM
• After the previous night, we HAD to ski!

  

  Frozen up at Taos Ski Valley

• Feb 6 Ski Santa Fe, NM
•  We headed south with the hopes of slightly warmer weather (night time lows of -17 are a bit too cold). We stayed at an awesome RV park that was about a hour drive from the ski area.

  

  Beautiful views at Ski Santa Fe

• Feb 7 Ski Santa Fe, NM

• Feb 11 Angle Fire, NM
• After Santa Fe we headed up to the family cabin which was about 30 minutes from Angle Fire. Angle Fire is very much beginner to intermediate ski area, but a fun little resort. So Kathy and I explored the ski area while the girls took a full day snowboard lesson, something they had been begging to do for some time.

  

  The girls learning to snowboard at Angle Fire

• Feb 13 Angel Fire, NM
• This was our first day skiing with our friends Brandon and Sabrina who flew in from Seattle over President's Weekend to ski with us. 

  

  Skiing with friends Brandon and Sabrina

• Feb 14 Taos Ski Valley, NM
• For the second day of skiing with Brandon and Sabrina we went to the much more challenging resort, Taos Ski Valley.

• Feb 18 Wolf Creek Ski Area, CO
• It took us a couple days to close up the and re-winterize the cabin, but it was time to head North for some Colorado skiing. Our first ski resort was Wolf Creek. They are one of the very few Colorado ski resorts that allow overnight camping in an RV. The catch to staying at Wolf Creek overnight is that if it snows, and they have to plow the lots, they will wake you up in the middle of the night and ask you to move your vehicle. With this in mind we decided not to stay the night, and instead headed a couple hours to Durango where we stayed in a Holiday Inn. 

  

  This is clearly where our camper belongs

• Feb 19 Purgatory, CO
• Purgatory was our first true Colorado Ski resort. It definitely didn't disappoint, and it was a short drive from Durango.

  

  Enjoying Purgatory Ski Resort

• Feb 22,  23, 24 Telluride Ski Resort, CO 
• Telluride is a place that more or less shuns people in RVs. RVs are only allowed to park in the town park, and there is no where that you are allowed to stay in your RV near the ski resort, so we decided to stay in a ski in ski out resort. The excellent resort we stayed in was The Peaks Resort and Spa, and they were more than happy to find safe parking for our camper.

  

  Loving Telluride

• Feb 29 Powder Horn, Colorado
• Powder Horn was a fun area just outside of Grand Junction, Colorado. It only has two main lifts, but also has nearly as much acreage as Purgatory.

  

  Quite the view from Powderhorn.

• Mar 2, 3 Steamboat Springs, Colorado
• Steamboat Springs was our first busy Colorado ski resort. Unlike Telluride, Steamboat Springs is relatively close to Denver at a little over a 3 hour drive. So even though we skied it on a Wednesday and Thursday it was pretty busy. The nice thing about the town of Steamboat is that there is free bus service throughout the town, so we were able to take the bus from the KOA we were staying at to the the ski resort every morning.

  

  Getting the Colorado big resort experience.

• Mar 7 Alta, Utah
• Our first real powder day! The night before our visit to Alta it snowed nearly a foot. This made for great skiing conditions, but it also caused nearly everyone in Salt Lake City to call in sick for the day. From the moment we got on the road that leads up Little Cottonwood Canyon we were in a line of slow moving cars heading up to the ski area.

  

  Kathy seeking out the fresh snow at Alta

• Mar 9 Solitude, Utah
• Solitude got 7" of new snow on March 6, then another 3" or snow on March 8, so we there were some great conditions, and Solitude lived up to it's name. Despite the great ski conditions the area was largely empty with no lines at any of the chairs.

  

  loving all the untouched fresh snow at Solitude!

• Mar 11, 12 Snowbird, Utah
• Our first day at Snowbird the snow was a bit heavy, but we followed my brother's good friend Bob (who grew up skiing at Snowbird) around the mountain to all the best snow. The next day it was just our group and Alex, but it was quite a bit warmer and so the snow softened up all over the mountain making for great spring corn snow everywhere.

  

  skiing with my brother Alex and his friend Bob at Snowbird

• Mar 16, 17 Squaw Valley Ski Resort, California
• With the hopes of more snow we headed west to the Sierra Nevada's. We chose Squaw Valley because they allowed overnight camping in your RV (unlike most other ski resorts we visited). We enjoyed two amazing days of warm sun and incredible Spring corn snow. On both days, the mountain warmed up enough by 1pm that you couldn't find any ice anywhere.

  

  finding the steeps on KT-22 at Squaw Valley

  
  

• Mar 25, 26, 28 and 29 Timberline Lodge, Oregon

• Apri 1 Mount Bachelor, Oregon

Thanks to Sabrina and Jarred for introducing me to this piece of truly great music...

My Daughters are Awesome

The title of this blog was what I was thinking yesterday as I was skiing at Purgatory Ski Resort near Durango, Colorado. Before I get to why I was thinking "My Daughters are Awesome" at that particular moment, I need to talk a little bit about skiing. Anyone who knows me, knows that skiing is a big part of who I am. It could probably be safely argued that skiing is the only sport I've always loved. I would guess that in my 45 years of life, I've probably skied at least one day a year (if not many many more) in 40 of my 45 years. It was my father who introduced me and my brothers to skiing at a very young age (back when skiing was affordable and my father didn't realize what kind of debt this addiction would place on his children). Today my brothers and I are still into skiing (in varying degrees), and although I might not be the best skier in the family (yes, I'm giving that one to you Alex), I would argue that I was always a fan of the sport (unlike Alex when he was little).

When my daughters were old enough (I arbitrarily decided that was 4 years old), I introduced them to skiing. For both of my daughters it wasn't always their favorite activity. The west snow of the Pacific Northwest is not necessarily the best conditions to introduce a four year old to skiing, let alone anyone. Having taught skiing on and off over a period of 13 years, I knew that it was possible, with enough patience and perseverance, to take a four year old child with some degree of coordination, and have them confidently skiing down a beginner run in a single season. I also knew that the parent isn't always the best person to be the ski instructor (I'm also learning that the parent isn't always the best person to be the school teacher, but that's a story for another blog post).

Alex helping teach Siena learn to ski

A younger Nadia and Siena enjoying après-ski with uncle Nick

After a few weeks of skiing, first in New Mexico and now in Colorado, it really struck me how much of a family activity skiing has become for me. Both my daughters are now able to ski most any named ski run at any ski resort, and my oldest daughter can probably ski any run at any resort (I'm just afraid to take her on runs with 'no fall zones'). However, Purgatory was a different kind of resort than what we had previously skied. It had these super long, super steep, completely groomed runs. In some cases they were runs that I thought were too steep to be groomed (I would have loved to watch the cat try and groom a couple of these runs). These are the type of runs just beg to be flown down taking your skis to their limits. Skiing with my family, I have generally taken runs in sections, where I'd ski a ways, then wait for everyone to catch back up. By mid afternoon, I just needed to really open it up, so on a particular fun, long, steep, run I opened it up. I was enjoying myself so much that it took me a while to realize I need to stop and figure out if I still had a family somewhere on the mountain. I  quickly slowed to a stop, and not more than 10 seconds behind me was Siena, and not more than another 20 seconds behind her was Nadia. The two of them had been tearing down the mountain just on my heels, laughing and loving the run they had just finished. The only reason they hadn't passed me was because they weigh less, they have far shorter skies, and I asked them to follow me. This is when the thought popped in my head "My Daughters are Awesome". Sure it is always true that they are awesome (although sometimes I'm not necessarily thinking it), but at that moment, that was the one thing that popped in my head, and I made sure to tell them that.

Nadia at Ski Santa Fe

Brandon, Siena and I are about to explore the steeps at Taos Ski Valley

The girls ripping it up at Purgatory

Kathy is awesome too, but that is something else that will get it's own blog post.

Finally Skiing!

One thing that our whole family has been looking forward to on this trip was that part of the trip that we get to ski. Of course Nadia was most excited about our time at Disney and spending time in the sun and at the beach, but we also love our seasons and the season we all truly love is winter which means ski season. I have to admit, it was tough for me to watch all my friends during November and December enjoying their ski vacations while we were enjoying the sun and beach of Flordia, as I have mentioned before we can't have it all, but now we are finally in our ski season and I have to say I truly enjoy this part of the trip so very much. Although it is definetly a haul getting our gear on and squeezing into tight, uncomfortable boots, despite the uncomfortable wardrobe hassles, I love being in nature, I love being active and I love that we are getting closer to home. 

            Ski Day at Wolf Creek, CO

Our last blog post we shared how we were frozen solid in Taos, but even though we were totally frozen we still had an awesome ski day. After Taos, we headed to lower elevation and spent some time in Santa Fe and enjoyed a super fun ski area for a couple days there and then we made our way to the family cabin in the mountains of New Mexico, in Eagle Nest. Although our first day or two was bit rough at the cabin - specifically thawing out the cabin and managing without power for a few hours, we got into the swing of things. We were able to spread out, hike in the snowy woods, read by the fireplace, bake cookies, cook dinners in an oven and just be a family in a house, which is something we haven't done in a long time. And for the long President's Day Weekend we got to have our great friends Brandon & Sabrina come to visit and stay at the cabin with us. 

Nadia wrote a little blog post about our weekend, here it is: 

We are at the cabin in New Mexico. We have been skiing with our friends Bebe (aka Sabrina) and Bando (aka Brandon). We had so much fun, Siena and I made dinner on Saturday. We went to a really good restaurant (on Sunday) and we made Rainbow Loom bracelets. We skied black diamonds. Siena, Bando and Daddy went on a 2 Black Diamond while Bebe, Me and Mommy went on a Blue. Before that I fell on Kachina Peak and I got a bloody nose, so I went to the lodge with Bando. 

                                       Ski Day at Taos with Bando & SaBebe 

Over the weekend, we skied at Angel Fire the first day and at Taos the next. Our girls even made dinner for the grown ups on Saturday night. Overall, it was a super fun weekend with blue bird ski days and fun dinners with our friends. 

                                     Girls making and serving dinner at the cabin 

After Bando & SaBebe left we started getting ready for our departure, packing up our gear which we had spread out around the cabin and then another full day of closing the cabin for the winter. After leaving the cabin we made our way to Pagosa Springs, a good spot to camp out before heading to the Wolf Creek Ski Area. Unfortunately, the one place we could find to stay for the night was The Last Resort Campground. Although the woman who helped us was super friendly and very helpful, we nearly got stuck in the mud in our parking spot and the girls and I agreed that bath house was a little weird. Needless to say, we only stayed there one night. Now, after skiing a fun day at Wolf Creek we made our way to Durango. We decided to splurge for a hotel since we were being lazy and didn't research a campground near Purgatory, CO. Tomorrow we will ski at Purgatory and then see where the road takes us, likely we will do our homework and find a campground and then next week we will be skiing in Telluride. We are all so happy to be skiing again, although, like Andrew said tonight, it does make us miss home a little bit more. Although we do a lot of skiing and camping at home, the difference is that we always have our home to come back to and spread out after a day of skiing, these days we just have our small little box on the back for our truck to come home to. But we definetly are making the best of it and giving ourselves a little leeway here and there.