Germania Diary, Page One

I'm typing this offline and when I'm done I'm gonna hit my dial-up ISP with
my WorldCom cheap-ass 3.9 cents a minute calling card, post to RSA, and log
off. I'm not even touching the 500 emails I must have after being gone for
three days.

===========

Well, I got into SLC about 2 am local time this morning after some SICK weather
through north Texas and eastern New Mexico. Texas was just wet most of the
way and I took the "fast lane" (haR) I-40 over to I-25. I shoulda gone 35
through Kansas instead.

I at least got to Las Vegas (via the 84 cutoff) and bought some tire chains
from two different Allsop's all-night grocery stores, then found a cheap
motel and crashed. I had to go to two different places because the Ramcharger
has these over-height mudgrip tires on butt-ugly Texas-style oversize rims
-- your standard Texas yuppie Lexus chains only go about halfway around.

It turns out I didn't NEED chains, but by the time I stopped it was really
questionable. I left a 5 am wakeup call but I was out the door yesterday
morning before then and onto 25 going north. As it turns out I missed all
the fun, because big sections of 40 and 25 closed during the day and LV got
almost 2 feet during the day, I heard.

It was mostly just slop mixed with puking show showers until I got down in
the flats. Normally I take the shortest road -- it would probably have been
550 from north of ABQ if the weather was nice, or 64 if I'd made it to my
usual pit stop just north of Arroyo Seco, but the impending doom shifted
me off to all-interstate, all day.

Well, mostly.

Know what? Texans in CO on 70 really DO drive like ****, personal company
excluded. But I missed the Denver rush-hour traffic and made up a little
time once I got past the tunnel. And the puke-fest stayed south, so I pressed
my luck and picked up US 6 in Utah.

As I remembered from last march, there STILL ain't jack **** in most of Utah.
But I found a cheap motel in the drizzle in SLC about midnight.

With the scent of skiing fresh in my nostrils, I met a couple of the local
Utards(who shall remain nameless, for reasons soon to become apparent) at
Gold Miners Daughter about 8 and stuffed down some of the usually revolting
base-area chow while we plotted our day's nefarious activities. Naturally,
the locals had already figured out some rotten tricks to play on the visiting
Texan victim. I, on the other hand, had left the neon ski jacket at home
so their evil plots were mostly ruined -- it's boring to see somebody in
a gray jacket crash. No neon means no glaring yard-sale sign.

Not that neon would have made a difference, as it was almost spring-like
this morning.

We went up on the west side and clumped around Wildcat a little for warmups,
then hit Germania. It was good -- as good as the Heave, if smaller -- and
hella cheaper -- but not something that would ever totally blow me away.
Then we worked over to the Sugarloaf chair for a couple laps. Getting better,
and a little less crowded. Following the sun, too. My nascent but returning
skills kept me away from the mogul-fest under the chair ... I'm Texan, but
I'm not stupid. Well at least not THAT stupid.

A little before "lunch" we worked over to Supreme chair. Now, if you've
ever skiied with me you know I don't stop for lunch. Usually I steal a bagel
or something off the buffet at breakfast, and I've even been known to steal
a bagel and then eat it three days later and a thousand miles from where
I stole it. Today's "lunch" was a piece of toast with a scrambled egg inside
it.

Now, also if you've ever skiied with me you know I prefer a soft food for
"lunch" because after skiing for a few hours I've crashed enough times that
whatever brittle food I'm carrying has been smashed to bits. My scrambled
egg sandwich taco was fine. My granola bars, however, had long since become
granola bar history, and it was a lot like eating dried oatmeal.

Luckily, I had about a sixpack of Shiner Bock in cans in my pack, and the
oatmeal krispies washed down nicely. Which was fitting, as these were the
granola bars I took to California in fall 2002 and they had about 6000 miles
on them. They deserved a toast.

No, not the toast from the scrambled egg taco sandwich.

So we're on the Supreme lift on the first trip up and I am alternating between
stuffing food down my neck and changing Shiner cans in the pass-around koozie
and it occurs to me -- either I have to drink less, or share less, or my
beer won't last all day.

I make a passing mention of that fact, and when we unload, head off to the
left side of the lift, and go around the corner, one of the Nefarious Natives
whips out a pint flask.

"Drink," he croaks into the pathetically thin stuff that passes for air at
10,500 feet.

Hesitantly I take a swig. Try to imagine -- peat-flavored kerosene with
an oatmeal-krispy aftertaste and a finish like scrambled eggs. With no air
to breathe afterwards.

I knew then and there that running out of beer was not the worst of my problems.
But -- if I did, I'd have to ski on single-malt the rest of the day. Br'er
Joseph Smith and Br'er Brigham Young were DEFINITELY intent on throwing Br'er
Texas Rabbit deep, deep into de briar patch today.

So we did laps on Supreme for most of the afternoon, and they played the
"hey, follow ME" trick on me (ask me how I got a second cousin to ski over
a cornice with 20 feet of air) and I played the "hey, let's check out what's
over here" trick on them (ask me how I skiied over The Wall at Kirkwood,
somehow missing all the "People have DIED here" signs ...) . Finally about
3 we got too far left in Catherine's and had to slog out to a bunny trail
called -- you guessed it, "(Br'er) Rabbit." We got up Sugarloaf one more
time and made it over to the top of Germania to a catwalk over to Rustler.
By then we could see off th the west that we were gonna get hammered pretty
soon, and NOT from drinking and skiing.

This would be your usual " ... and it was that last run of the day" run where
people generally die, but I still had one beer for the bottom and we still
had most of the pint, too, so we got in the trees above North Rustler.

It was sick.

It was SO sick.

We found the secret stashes. Yeah. And while we were down in 10 minutes,
that definitely ranked as one of the most memorable runs of my life. And
naturally we stopped just inside the last line of trees to toast the remains
of the day.

All in all it was Pretty Damn Good, although some of my ski acquaintances
tell me I need to get out of Texas a little more. And -- in a perfect world
I'd have a ski babe who'd carry the pack full of beer AND there wouldn't
be a damn traffic jam on the road off the hill.

Am I asking too much? Probably. Right now I am only asking that I don't
have to chain up in the morning. The weathermen are ALL confused about this
storm that's blown in, and nobody has plans for tomorrow yet. Predictions
range from three inches to three feet of fresh.

All I want is enough new to fill in my holes from today so I can land in
them again ... or to go around the hill to Pork City and crash my buttocks
on some completely different slopes. Hmm. There's a Tex-Mex restaurant
in Pork City that some folks say I should check out.

For now, from the Oooootaw mini-vasion, I bid you adieu and ....

"You know where I can get a six-pack?"