woosh

On Friday mommy and Megan day was all about cleaning the house and getting things ready for the extremely kind people who were about to spend the weekend. I wrote some long notes and got some essential groceries and packed a bag and some skis.

Megan and I ran to Silver Spring to grab the Scearce's and then back home with them in time to pick up Kiernan from his early school dismissal.

Once everyone was settled David and I set off to the sunset.

Here is the sunset on the bridge between Delaware and New Jersey.

Here is the Giant piece of pie from a diner in New York.

We spent the night in Bennington VT.

It is always strange to travel without the kids. This was Davids big birthday present. We went skiing for the weekend to the far off lands of Killington VT.

 I made no hotel reservations because I want sure how far we would get but we landed on a good one with a big Jacuzzi tub and an odd obelisk just behind.

Behold the odd obelisk. It is a war memorial from the  revolutionary war.

We had a nice free breakfast with lots of chatty joking Mennonite folk.

Then we drove (in the light this time) through the mountains toward Killington.

I have never been to Vermont before and find it to be beautiful.

It reminds me of West Virginia (probably my favorite place).

We drove for around an hour and a half passing moose signs and frozen lakes.

I rented some skis at a local ski shop and we drove to Killington.

I have read about Killington for  nearly as long as I have skied (26 years now God help us). It is the biggest ski area on the east coast. It is a place where Olympians train and Warren Miller movies are filmed. It is always on the top ten for east coast best places to ski lists.

It is a step up from our local ski place (Liberty) in terms of trail length snow quality and infrastructure. My  goals were just to see it and try it and find out how much better it could be. I wanted to ride a gondola lift because I have seen them in movies.

I wanted David to feel like he was having a really special birthday trip...like a James Bond adventure. 

Here is the view over my shoulder on our first ride up the gondola. The mountains all around looked stunning. 

Mr. Kuehnert here had to put up with my extreme trepidation but seemed happy enough. 

The experience I had last summer in Cocoa Beach when trying to surf shook me. I spent nearly all the time in the water thinking about sharks. I couldn't relax. I couldn't enjoy the water. I became afraid of the waves. It was really disheartening. I felt like my anxiety had taken something I love from me. 

Last winter when I skied briefly with Judy and Kathryn my knee hurt and even the short amount of skiing we did made me feel tired and out of control and I thought that I had lost too. . . to age to anxiety to old equipment and lack of practice.

To battle the most controllable of those I rented this time. My skis are now almost 30 years old and cracked and the boots don't reliably stay bound. So I got new equipment and crossed my fingers.

I had head that the intermediate slopes in our region were equivalent to the beginner slopes at 'good' ski places so I assumed that everything would be hard...maybe too hard.

BUT

I wanted to actually give it a go. So we went to the very top of the mountain in the oh so cool gondola and headed for a long trail.

It was by far the longest trail I have ever been down. It felt like 20 minutes straight of skiing. It was beautiful and uncrowded and the snow was fresh and soft and not icy. My knees didn't hurt and after a while I began to trust that it wasn't going to become impossibly hard at any point.

We skiied for a few hours then stopped for lunch.

I had Italian food and hot chocolate and hung out with my husband and was really happy.

We skied for a few hours more and then made our sore creaky way back to the car.

We returned the skis and started towards home. 

We stayed somewhere in New York overnight and I felt sick and miserable and the walls were too thin. There were noisy frisky neighbors and a train and not much good food. The next morning after a hot shower and some bland soothing oatmeal I felt better and off we went.

We saw the NYC skyline. We saw lots and lots of tolls (yay ezpass but oh man is it expensive to drive north instead of south.

We had to stop for gas in New Jersey and poor David was appalled by the full service requirements. He ranted about it for several minutes afterward and had me in stitches.

We got some sweet pics of the kids at home. We reunited with them by 11:30 and ate lunch with them and took them to the park.

I missed them but am so happy to have done the trip. 

I hope to try the surfing again too.

In a big way it was a trip of recovery. David and I recovered time together. I recovered the ability to ski and enjoy it. We both recovered the feeling of possibility that a trip instill.

Happy birthday again to David and happy adventure to boot.