Skiblog

I went skiing with my sister and her kids today. It was pretty much fun, in a group activity kind of way. Group decision-making dynamics can be tedious and difficult, revolving around such things as when are we going to leave, when and where are we going to eat, who's going to sit with whom, and how long are we going to continue whatever it is we're doing. Even though I'm always sure I know exactly what's right for everyone, nobody seems to want to listen and everyone has their own opinion.

My sisters kids are younger than mine (she's almost 10 years younger than me), which is okay. She does have two boys, one of whom doesn't talk too much but is generally mischievous, and another who seems to talk pretty much continuously. I asked his younger sister if he ever stopped talking and she said, "When he's sleeping."

It was odd driving out of Philadelphia and as soon as you got 25 miles north of the city there was a fraction of the snow that we had at home. As much as I like snow, every time I went outside at home all I could think was, "Man, that's a lot of $%&!@ing snow." You just don't see snow like that very often. Even when we had the blizzard a few years ago it wasn't this much.  It felt weird to just leave our cars buried.

Yes, we leave the cars at home and rent an SUV for this trip. I already wrote about the rental experience. Let me just say for the record that this particular SUV (a Dodge Journey for those keeping score at home) is awful. I don't think it's 4-wheel drive. Why would you make an SUV without 4-wheel drive? Isn't that just a big station wagon then? Who would seek out and buy such a thing? Maybe it's nobody, and that's why the rental car company has it. And it's not like it makes up for it by being nimble. It is one of the worst handling things I've ever driven. At least I've managed to make it so dirty as to be unrecognizable.

Of course I didn't make the journey here any easier by bungling attaching the ski bags to the roof rack. This led to a brief interlude on the Blue Route when one of the bags was hanging by bungee cords over the passenger side of the car, bouncing away. I re-secured them once to no noticeable effect, so I had to take them off entirely and start from scratch. I had no feeling in my fingers for quite while after that. But it was no problem thereafter.