NOT MY VACATION

Here's a lesson learned:  Don't go on someone else's vacation.

Hub is an avid snowboarder.  Some might say an obsessive snowboarder.  I call his winter trips his "snowboard tour".  Totaling up his various trips, he's gone about 4 weeks between January and March.  This has become a bit of a point of contention with us over the years, for many reasons.  I think it's excessive.  He defends with the logic that it's a short season and he has to get a lot of slope days in within a short period of time. I stipulate that I am grateful he's in great shape and has a passion to pursue that brings him such satisfaction.  Sometimes he goes with a group of friends, many times he goes alone.  Until last year...

During one of our many talks about his snowboarding plans, he said I was welcome to come along on his solo trips.  Generally he has preferred to be with other snow enthusiasts or alone.  So, this seemed like a nice offer until I thought about where he goes and where he stays -- smaller "resorts" (basically small towns with a mountain) with nothing for me to do and he often sleeps in the camper.  Uh.  No thanks.  But we decided it would be fun for me to go along to a big resort, to stay in a luxe condo, and enjoy the ski resort apres ski festivities at the end of his snowboarding day.  

So last year we spent a week in Whistler, BC together and it was GREAT!  We both had lots of fun.  The Whistler/Blackcomb Village is large with lots to do -- shops, art galleries, restaurants, a gondola ride to the top where I met him for lunch, and just walking and walking for exercise.  There was a pool, sauna, gym.  Yes, very nice.  So we decided to make it an annual thing for me to go on one of his winter trips.  

This year we chose South Lake Tahoe with a stop in Ashland, Oregon on the way -- a town we have loved for years.  Driving can be challenging in the winter, but the two-day drive was mostly uneventful (traffic, of course, and a bit of glare ice and blowing snow at one stretch) except that I am a Nervous Nelly passenger and didn't have the confidence to drive on two-lane icy roads.  I was trapped in road anxiety much of the time.  I realize that road trips of 6-7 hours a day may be in my past.  I didn't enjoy that many hours in the car.  

Our first destination, Ashland, was fun.  He boarded Mt. Ashland and I wandered around town, full of nostalgia for our many visits there.  (It's a liberal oasis in "red" southern Oregon, home of the annual Shakespeare Festival every summer.  Touristy but not tacky, with a big lovely park in the middle of town to explore.)

At Tahoe our condo was bigger and nicer than I expected so I felt like I'd be very content there.  Hub took off for his first day on the slopes and I headed out to explore the Village.  It took about 20 minutes.  How many kitschy Tahoe emblazoned T-shirts and keychains, etc etc can one look at?  There were outdoor clothing stores for the ski/board crowd, a few alcohol-fueled over-priced restaurants, an ice skating rink (not my thing), and a Starbucks.  I went there.  Plus it was a chilly 8-degrees!

Back in the condo I did some yoga, read my books, crocheted, looked out the window, snacked.  Waited for Hub to return.  He did, late in the afternoon, with bad news.  He'd lost his phone on one of the runs.

Suffice to say, the week went downhill (haha) from there, for me anyway, and partly for him too.  Every day was the same for me.  Six hours of him on the mountain and me trying to not go stir crazy.  He'd come back after his mountain adventures, and we'd deal with the phone issue:  three trips to the Verizon store, hours on the phone with tech support, tracking the UPS delivery of his replacement phone.  We mostly ate in, watched a little TV, and repeated it all the next day.  He loved his days on the mountain, but the phone thing was a major distraction and frustration.  (The day before we left the replacement phone was finally working.)

We did spend a few quality hours together here and there over the week, but we both agreed that this is not a good idea.  Even in a nice resort, it's not MY vacation, it's his.  I don't like being cold, or doing snow sports, and over the years I've lived enough of the "lodge life" for it not to be romantic or cool anymore.  I don't know why I didn't foresee this.  

I was so ready to fly home, as we'd planned.  We drove back to Ashland for a night then I took a 1 hour and 22 minute flight from the nearby airport back home (instead of the 7 hour drive) while Hub had a 5 hour drive to his next mountain in northern Oregon where he met up with friends for another week of snowboarding.  Again, his daily calls/texts tell me he's having a great time.

Me too. I'm so glad to be home.  Lesson learned.

At least, that's the view from here...©

DATELINE: SOUTH LAKE TAHOE

DATELINE SOUTH LAKE TAHOE.  Weather Update:  The sun is out, shining down on about 3 feet of newly fallen snow in the Heavenly Ski Resort Village in the past 48 hours.

After driving 2 long days to get here, through stretches of horrifying ice and snow on I-5 from Portland to Cottage Grove, Oregon on Day 1 then through raging winds, pouring rains, and alongside threatening to overrun the highway flood stage rivers on Day 2,  we got here late Sunday afternoon to discover that "Heavenly", the mountain, was closed to snow sports due to power outages and high winds.  And remained closed until this morning.  (Worst storm in a decade!  Yay timing!)  Imagine the mood of my snowboarding-fanatic husband.  Not good.  But to his credit and newfound "mindfulness" and acceptance of the present moment, he did not rant or pout (much) and substituted snowboarding with snowshoeing yesterday and seemed relatively (very relatively) content-ish.  But this morning, he was out the door with high hopes and it looks like he might be having a great day up there in the powder.  I hope so.

As for me, my vacation week is much as I expected it to be regardless of snow conditions.  I brought my snowshoes along, but that was just an "idea" more than a plan.  He went out in a blizzard yesterday, and admitted he was happy I didn't go.  He was rather miserable on his return trek along the lakeshore as the wind blew pellets of wet snow in his face.  He came back soaked!  He knew I'd have hated it.  So, I've been hanging out in our sweet cozy condo with my computer, my books and magazines, a fridge full of food, and my coloring books.  I am sort of compulsively addicted to coloring right now.  I got two new books for Christmas and a new 100 pack of watercolor brush pens.  That's MY idea of Heavenly!  They also offer yoga here at the resort.  I'm all set.

We've explored the Village here and I was left feeling a bit disappointed at the limited number of little shops close by -- I expected more diversity.   Lots of ski gear and clothing shops, tons of restaurants, a couple of coffee places (yes, Starbucks, of course), a real estate office, a donut shop...and one cute little boutique called "What a Girl Wants" (they were right) where I bought two overpriced shirts (one for yoga and one lightweight hoodie) that are super cute!

We wandered over the state line (we are currently in California -- a block away is Nevada) to Harrah's Casino, a behemoth of a drab gray reflective building that looks a bit like a high security prison with its no window aesthetic.  Of course that's to confuse the gamblers into losing track of time passing...hours, days, weeks.  We are not casino people.  We walked in and saw all the slots (that don't even spit out money anymore!), roulette tables,  21 tables and the sad looking people staring like zombies at the games, smelled the stale cigarette odor, used the restroom, walked to the next closest exit, and left.  Casinos are soul-deadening places, in my judgement.  Vegas has a certain attraction because it's so iconic and it has a vibrancy with lots of shows and people-watching, but as a rule, the actual casino part of Vegas is also sort of awful.  Haven't been there in many years; no desire to go.  So, no, the casino wasn't a distraction choice for us while waiting for the mountain to open.

Instead we went to another Marriott sales presentation and bought some more Destination Points.  That's their thing now instead of "timeshare".  You buy points and "spend" them on various vacation options -- resorts, airfare, guided tours, hotels, luxury home rentals,  cruises, "experiences" like the Kentucky Derby, Grand Prix, etc.  Of course we had NO intention of buying anything, but we'd been talking about taking one of the European River cruises and spending some time in the British Isles.  (HaHa!!! I say this like a seasoned traveler.  We've never left the North American Continent!)  And we have an idea of doing a family vacation with our adult children and grandchildren.  We have many ideas for modest (by some standards), comfortable (by any standard) travel and this will help us realize some of them.  Hub has always wanted to travel more than I, but I'm starting to come around.  A little.  On my own terms.  Will keep you posted.

Vacations do provide one thing, regardless of unexpected snafus.  They get us out of the normal routine.  An unintended consequence of our slowed down trip due to the driving conditions over the weekend was more time in the car together to talk.  We love to either be totally silent in the car, or to talk for hours.  Sunday was talk day.  We did sort of a review of our lives together and talked about what may have happened had we made different choices along the way; what we'd have missed and what we might have gained -- or not.  It was a time of deep sharing and reflection and helped us both know ourselves and each other better.  We love that kind of thing.  Introspection, teasing out with questions to each other the next layer of thought and feeling about our perceptions, our decisions, our hopes and dreads.  We always end up feeling closer.  And for that, even a trip that is less than perfectly meeting our expectations is actually an opportunity for growth and connection that would have been lost in the routines of home.  A good thing.

At least, that's the view from here...©

EASTER MUSINGS

Stiff petticoats and white patent leather shoes.  Starched hats and tiny flower-festoons purses.  Hidden Easter baskets and hollow chocolate bunnies.  Peeps.  Ham, with jello salad.  My dad in a suit -- a rare occasion -- for the annual Easter trip to the Methodist church.  Sunday School.  Easter Lilies.  Alleluia!  Sunshine.

These images have been floating through my mind all day as I have spent the past several hours of Easter Sunday alone at home.  Oh, I'm not feeling sad or morose.  My family will be here later for an indoor egg hunt on this gloomy and rainy Easter Sunday.  We will all sit down to a salmon and asparagus dinner.  There will be plenty of chocolate.

But it's not like it was.  And that's OK.  I just feel in a nostalgic mood since this Easter couldn't be more different than those of my childhood.

Today, all the men in my family were up before dawn to get to the mountain pass ski resort by 8:00 a.m. for our 6 year-old Angel's first snowboard lesson.  It is a special "kids day" with free gear and lessons all day long and a snow-bank egg hunt to boot!  She was at first hesitant, then excited, and I just saw a video of her on Facebook looking like a pro gliding down a gentle hill of snow with ski lifts in the background making me wonder if we might have another snowboard fanatic in the making.  (Hub would be so thrilled!)

My childhood Easter was not spent on any ski slope.   In my childhood in Northern Illinois, it was a day for my family and my aunt's family to gather at one home or another (my mother, in our small city, and her sister, in a tiny country town, traded off hosting holidays), having a meal and entertaining myself while the grown ups talked.  My older brother and boy cousin were 10 years older than I and both ignored me completely.  My younger brother 4 years younger was around, but not interested in dolls or coloring or fingering the fabrics my mom and aunt and grandma seemed to delight in sharing around, with patterns they planned to sew.  I was pretty much on my own.

I was a quiet girl, content with hanging on the fringes of adult conversation, playing games, dressing dolls, creating a rich inner fantasy life of stories and songs.  I imagine Easter was a day for all of that for me.  And really, that's a bit what I've been up to today.  Quietly planning my dinner menu, preparing food, setting the table, meditating, reading, sending a few emails, reading, writing this blog post....

Just waiting for my beautiful family to come through the door with tales of adventures and two little girls eager to find baskets of gifts and eggs.  Their memories of grandma's house will be different from mine.  But I hope they will recall them as fondly.

At least, that's the view from here....©

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU, DARLIN'

Two or three times a week Hub travels a two-lane highway that leads east out of our city through a series of small towns with ever ascending altitudes, until he reaches the mountain pass ski area where he snowboards. This highway is one of the most dangerous in Washington, so designated due to the high number of serious and fatal accidents recorded somewhere along the way annually.  So, every time he walks out of  the garage door to hop in his truck for the trek, I say a little prayer and visualize a protective layer of white light surrounding him and then I chant and light incense and sacrifice a small animal… OK, not that, but you get the idea.  I try to bring all the spirit worlds and their practices into play to keep my man safe on his journey.

I don't think too much about what happens once he gets up to the Pass.  I don't do snow sports, so I can't relate to, or even visualize, much of what he describes about this sport he loves so much.  I know he would never go without a helmet; I know he doesn't do crazy jumps and I know he always stays "in bounds", not taking off into uncharted, forbidden parts of the mountain.  There is risk, but he seems to mitigate it and have fun.

So, it's the highway I fear and last Monday was no exception.  He and Son-Two were looking forward to a day of "powder", relishing the 19 inches of newly fallen snow they would find at the Pass.  And they did.  They were having a grand time, as I understand it, until Hub hit a tree.  Thwack!

He hit it hard.  Really, really hard.  Because he goes fast.  Because he loves finding powder off the groomed runs and in the less-traversed areas.  He loves maneuvering his board with speed and grace,  finding peace, beauty, challenge, thrill, and utter mindfulness of the moment as he plots his course through stands of trees and down the mountain.

But last Monday he hit a hidden clump of hard ice buried under that fresh powder, which threw him off his carefully planned trajectory and into the trunk of a tall fir tree.  Son-Two was nearby and heard the sound of his dad's chest hitting the tree, saw him fall, saw him lie motionless.   

Hub felt himself hit the tree.  Felt his ribcage collapse inward.  Felt pain shoot through his upper body.  Felt the breath whoosh out of his mouth, none coming in to replace it.

He lay still, consciously and carefully assessing the possible damage.  He caught his breath and was able to tell Son-Two he was "OK".  He considered possible broken ribs, a broken sternum.  He assessed for shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea.  He stood and tried to move around a bit.  Pain.  Stiffness.  But breath came naturally, heartbeat was fairly regular, no light-headedness.  Nothing life threatening.  He was grateful that he had no collapsed lung or a severed aorta.  Only a physician would have the presence of mind, after a dramatic accident, to start the systems review and diagnostic analysis that led him to determine he could make it down the mountain without assistance.

He descended slowly, traversing his way to the bottom, then to the parking area.  Son-Two drove the dangerous highway home.  I was in the kitchen when they arrived, and heard as they came through the door,  "Dad hit a tree…he's OK."  

He was stiff and sore for a few days, but declared he was better by mid-week, when he started packing for his 4-day Idaho trip with 3 other buddies to go skiing and boarding…again.

I would have taken to my bed for a month and stayed away from the sport for the rest of the season -- maybe forever.  I guess I'm a Drama Queen that way.  But not Hub….he's in amazing physical condition and has a "keep on with it" attitude about most things, so he was ready to go again within a week of his collision, even though he finally surmised he might actually have a cracked rib in there.

I've been watching bits of the Sochi Olympics this week and they are fine athletes all, but I have my own almost 64-year old Olympian in the family, traveling a dangerous, but exhilarating path to golden glory.   May the Force always be with him.

At least, that's the view from here… ©