And so another week slips by. We are into March now, with the classic March melt-off underway. The kids on the morning bus all have goggle tans, streams of snowmelt are freezing into slick puddles overnight and there is a general low-grade excitement that accompanies the tilt of the earth and the extra sunlight every day.
But don't get used to it!!! Because next Monday we will be plunged back into morning darkness when we claw our way forward in time with Dumb Daylight Savings.
Let me go back in time and tell you how helpful the yoga class feedback was for my instructions in Thursday's class. I focused on just one aspect and tried to get comfortable with a new technique and it seemed to pay off. I had my usual small class of regulars, and we moved slow and deep with some nice results. Thank you too all my dedicated students who keep showing up and letting me practice teaching with them!
Work is busy but some weekly tasks are tapering off, as the end of the season is looming. A tw0-part storm brought us some nice powder on Thursday and Friday, so ski breaks were exciting and exhilerating at the end of last week.
Friday was the 3-year mark of the first time I couraged myself up to ask JC out, so we kind of had an anniversary weekend (no kids), taking a little trip to Montrose on Friday evening to load up on groceries, just car time, chit-chatting and driving through the half-moon glow of the snowy mesas and mountains.
Saturday we skinned and skied in Ophir in the morning, better this time, my second touring day, 3 hours round trip, hot tea and snacks at the top, fluffy turns down to the bottom. It felt like we were in Apocolypse Now, with Telski bombing the ski area to our north and Helitrax bombinb Waterfall and Swamp Canyons to our east, the echoes reminding us of summer thunderstorms.
There was a light dusting of snow on the trail, enough to see the toes of snowshoe hare tracks as they paused in the woods, then we followed the meanderings of The Lynx that patrols that area, where it (he? she?) marked the snow-covered fallen log beside the trail, before a second, smaller set of tracks joined in (youngster? female?). A coyote or fox track made an appearance and then we were into the middle section of the climb, dappled sun warming us from the -8 degrees from whence we started.
We ran into a couple of friends back at the car, everyone loving the sunny morning. An afternoon of tooling around the ski area rounded out our day, as it seemed I grossly underestimated the amount of food I needed to sustain myself and we scurried home to start pigging out on pasta and hot teas.
The 19th Annual Telluride AIDS Benefit Fashion Show was beckoning us sooner than we were prepared, a hasty shower and blow-dry (I know, my once-a-year hair grooming event) before we were out the door and meeting Garber at the gondola to waltz around the VIP pre-party at the Peaks, sipping pink champagne and snatching finger foods from trays as they floated past us. The beef Wellington in tiny puff pastries was the BEST. A slow fade sunset was the backdrop, and we even saw a pinkish aplenglow of the blowing snow in the bowl behind Wilson Peak to cap it off.
We snuck out pretty quickly after the show, as it turns out it really isn't that much fun to hang out with people who are drinking when you aren't, and we did not want to sacrifice a minute of our Sunday to the after-effects of alcohol.
From the minute we woke up on Sunday we both felt like we didn't want to be apart for a second of the day and after some mental back-and-forth, I called off yoga with Ally and we suited up for another glorious touring day in Ophir, a different longer route this time with lots of trees and chickadees and stunning sunny views. We have such a nice hiking routine in the summer, it is nice to feel us slipping into the same dynamic with skinning. We had a nice conversation about biology and physics on the way up, how the more you learn about the mechanics of life, the more magical it all seems.
Our porch is awash in late day sun, and we lounged with a smallish stack of clementines, sesame sticks and Good Earth tea but dinner still couldn't come fast enough, slivered baked red potatoes, Yukon golds and butternut squash, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs, with a huge pile of steamed kale beside it.
And then, heavenly bed time.
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