Barb

Rocky Mountain National Park. Spent the day on the motorcycle, went into the park from the west side and rode the Trail Ridge Rd loop. Beautiful day for a ride!

South Boulder Peak.

Great day at Winter Park. Completely empty. I didn't share a chairlift with one person in 3 hours.

^lots of slides lately...be careful. Enjoy the cookies at Beaver Creek.

Thanks guys!

Gss is right (did I just say that), I know that is part of the problem. And johnnylaw I don't know what it means to tail gun. Explain.

Saturday the lift lines were insane because a lot of lifts were closed due to high winds. By my 4th run the line took 30 min. Sunday was much better crowd wise since most of the lifts were open again. But lines started to get long about 10:30ish. I have a question that I am sure some of you can answer. I am sure my skiing form leaves a lot to be desired but my upper quads are getting sore way way too quickly. I wanted to stay out longer yesterdy but the legs were just fried. Any suggestions? Am I not leaning forward enough in my boots.

I guess but your pictures always look beautiful. Keep them coming

Always love the vastness of your pictures

Went snowshoeing with a friend at Brainard Lake Sat. Sunny when we left Boulder, by the time we hit Ward it was snowing hard. Went off trail a few times but we were postholing up to thighs. Had Indian food after and since we were so cold and tired it was the best I ever tasted.

Tough break for your girl. I'm sure she will be back in 2018

Went to Mexico in the fall and they had this setup, it wasn't as bad as you think.

Conditions fantastic! I was really getting the hang of skiing today. Even though I was solo I had a lot of fun. Not ready for blue runs today, maybe next day out. I left about 11 when it was just getting super busy. Every lot was full and people still pouring in. I got a 4 pack to Eldora so I can go up and practice during the week.

This weekend my husband has off, which is very rare. Told the boys I wanted to go up to WP for once just the four of us, no friends. Older son backed out because apparantly every high school kid in Boulder going to see Jurassic 5 at Red Rocks Fri night. Picked up kid number 2 at school car loaded. He looked like crap, coughing pretty sick. He didn't want to drive up, just crawl into bed. A quick call to my x-in laws and we were on our way to drop him off there for the weekend. So now just me and my husband which sounded great to me. Get on I-70 and traffic moving along faster than usual on a Fri evening. Then 5 miles from our exit we stop to a crawl. Check cdot on my phone and they are diverting everyone at our exit because of "police activity". It took us 2hrs and 45 min to go the last 5 miles to our exit. After a while guys were jumping out of their cars to pee. My husband wS trying to convince me to do the same, his argument being "who gives a shit if someone posts your bear ass on their facebook page." That section of road had no cover at all. He took the last sip of his coffee, handed me the cup and told me to go in the backseat and take care of it. After I did I saw lots of ladies dumping mysterious liquid out the window from cups and one ziplock bag. Took us 5.5 hours total to get here but the silver lining is there is tons of snow! Catching the 8:07 shuttle to be at the lift when they open.

Winter Park got 2 feet in 2 days, going up after school lets out!

I started snowboarding when my then 7 yr old son wanted to learn how to ride, but only if I would learn too. I had a lot of fun snowboarding in PA. After 8 years on a board I am still not very good at all. Out here, all my friends ski. I am giving skiing a try this season. I like the idea of being able to just go right off the lift, not having to strap in. Winter Park has a lot of flat sections so if you get stuck on one, which I usually do rounding up kids, you are screwed. To ski/ride from the winter park side to mary jane is almost uphill in some spots. I only did it on my board once and it was miserable, after that I took the bus over. Plus I seem to be getting all these right side injuries (back, hip, knee) and I feel like at least on skis you are more balanced, both sides working equally. My 13 yr old gave me a ski lesson last weekend and I feel like I did better under his instruction than the private lesson I had last season. I have to credit the race coaches at JFBB because he was making me do the drills I used to watch him do. We were having a blast until his friend got hurt and we had to cut our day short. The one thing I have to say so far I dislike about skiing is the boots. Snowboard boots feel like slippers in comparison. Overall I feel like we have less days on the snow here than back east. If we missed a weekend in the Poconos it was pretty boring at the beach in winter. But here there is always something fun to do, so you don't feel bad when you don't ski all the time.

It's an incredible accomplishment just to make the team at that age. I can't imagine the level of commitment by her and her family. I will be rooting for her.

Tree wells scare the hell out of me. I am always warning my kids to never lose sight of their buddy especially in the trees. They "yeah yeah" me but hopefully some of it sinks in. Thankfully the older son is starting to prefer the bumps on Mary Jane to trees.

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252 {\fonttbl\f0\fnil\fcharset0 HelveticaNeue;} {\colortbl;\red255\green255\blue255;\red153\green153\blue153;\red255\green255\blue255;} \deftab720 \pard\pardeftab720\sl360\partightenfactor0 \f0\fs26 \cf2 \cb3 \expnd0\expndtw0\kerning0 \outl0\strokewidth0 \strokec2 \ Not the best picture but this park is a 5 minute walk from my house. I always see people xc skiing here and today I finally got my ass out there. Really fun. I went xc skiing once 7 yrs ago at Pocono Outdoor Education Center and took a lesson for $12. I bought a pair on sLe at the end of that season and for some reason never used them. When i got them out this morning the tag was still on the boots. Lots of grassy patches so probably no good tomorrow, have to wait for the next storm. But definitely a fun change up from my usual morning workouts. }

Yes, the planet is acting strange. Before the break I sat through a talk at my son's school since I was there to volunteer anyway. Talk about Debbie Downer, this guy was all bad news. Basically said the planet is absolutely doomed in the next 40 years and there is not a thing we can do about it. As in, all life on earth will cease to exist in 40 years. Then he opened it up to questions and every question and idea these kids had the guy just shut them down. In my opinion it was a little over the top for a middle school speaker. It actually took me until the next morning to shake it off, he was that depressing.

Had a great first day of my season today! Drove up last night solo. Didn't bother with the shuttle this morning since I had no kids to worry about and drove straight to Mary Jane. Website said 8" of fresh overnight and conditions were fantastic. Powder was about shin deep. Didn't stay out too long because I am getting over my back seizing up last week. It was empty this morning, first 3 runs t2b powder. Then I took a trail on the other side and it was more scraped off, but still very good. A few pics. 10 degrees and light snow, only my toes were cold.

After your kid gets the basics down this season, consider joining a junior race program next season. My son just snowplowed down everything, then he joined Jf race team and within a few short weeks he was carving and looking great. He still talks about the medals he won during the Sunday fun races, it was a real confidence booster. The instructors are great, they genuinely care about the kids.

That is great about your pressure washing business. You know I am half kidding with you. Vermont is beautiful! We always enjoyed going there. Pa is beautiful too. I just never understood why people are so nuts over the shore. Yes, its nice for a vacation, but after years it just gets so old.

OC IS boring. Going to the Poconos is the only thing that made Avalon tolerable in the winter for us. You need to make an exit plan to move out west. Can't live in the fishbowl that is Cape May County forever. I think they even have teaching jobs out here . You would not regret it.

I so feel your pain! I rememner those horrible long Friday night drives. Long stretch in between bathrooms too, especially when they closed the one rest stop. Only 1 hr 40 min for me to Winter Park now, its great. Hopefully all my kid drama will settle down soo and I will actually be able to go.