My brother and I at Mirror Lake.There were so many lessons I learned this weekend. Like, just because you think you're in pretty good shape, you shouldn't try to cross country ski on and off for 5 hours, for the first time in 10 years. Ooops. The other side of that lesson is that I'm 45 years old, and apparently, I keep forgetting that too.
This weekend was as wonderful as I imagined it would be. My brother had called me around Christmas to see if we could meet up. That didn't work out, but I mentioned that the guy and I were going up for a ski weekend. He told me to stop by his place, on the way up and he would wax our skis for us. Nice. We got there a little before 8. We had a VERY quick visit and meal. My brother is a HUGE bike geek, so he had to show the guy his 5,000 bicycles and luckily, the guy is a bike geek too, so he could appreciate them all.
The guy and I on my favorite trail.Saturday we had a great day of skiing at Mirror Lake. The guy was really helpful about instructing me on technique. We skiied a few trails. I love the actual skiing, but I do have problems maneuvering down hills.
My brother joined us around 3 and the guy reminded me to ask him the most important question of the day: How do you fall down without hurting yourself? Luckily, my brother is a cross country ski instructor, so he gave me all kinds of instruction and tips. I skiied sooo much better after that.
Once it started getting dark, we followed my brother to a brew pub in The Dells and had pretty good food and great beer. My brother is a horrible beer snob,and thinks there should only be 4 ingredients in beer (one of those is water). I ordered a raspberry ale and actually made my brother try it...I think he was just really tired or weak or suddenly crazy or something. Of course, he told me he didn't need to drink anything like it again.
The red heart shaped jacuzzi in the hotel. Classss-yyyyy.The guy and I headed back to our room and had a few cocktails and a wonderful talk. We were going to try and watch the movie, Breaking Away, because we've been talking about it a lot lately, but never got around to it.
On Sunday morning, I discovered the error of my ways. I was ridiculously sore and tired. I still tried to ski and managed a 3 mile trail, but realized that I was going to get injured, so I bowed out and let the guy ski a few trails on his own while I started reading Water for Elephants in the car and then dozing off. The guy went on some difficult trails he wouldn't have been able to ski with me and so we were both pretty happy.
I hope you all had a lovely weekend as well.
9 comments:
I love those kinds of weekends where you're outside and working out and bone weary at the end.
Also? Water for Elephants--love. That's the last book I read and it was just so sweet. You'll have to let me know how you enjoy it!
Sounds like an amazing weekend! I'm jealous of the heart-shaped jacuzzi! :)
What a great weekend! Your brother sounds cool...must run in the family.
I have heard a lot about Water for Elephants, but haven't read it. I look forward to hearing how you enjoy it.
I'm surprised you haven't read that yet! You must be loving it.
Glad you had a great skiing weekend. Wake up those sleeping muscles!
What a wonderful adventure! I got a kick out of that tub. I hope you two put it to good use.
Aye! (That wasn't vicarious 'aye'ing - that was memory.) I'd rather ski downhill than cross country, but ... not much opportunity in Iowa. I should've taken lessons with your brother. I just had a bunch of bossy (but wonderful) friends. :)
We went snow-shoeing when we were back (oh, but you saw the pictures). Jeeeeeeezus, that's a workout! I don't even know if it was fun or not. Just hard.
That sounds like a fun weekend. I imagine cross country skiing has to be about the most vigorous activity imaginable so kudos to you!
Churlita,
A perfect winter weekend!
We have a Mirror Lake here, up in Lake Placid (winter olympics) and try to get up there in Feb.
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Peter Yates, the director of "Breaking Away" just died; I knew that he'd directed one of my favorite movies, "Bullitt," but didn't remember that he'd directed "Breaking Away." I do remember how much I loved "Breaking Away" when I went with my high school best friend and saw it in the theater.
Sounds like a delightful weekend. When I was 18, I started cross-country skiiing enough that I ended up buying a set of skis. I was a pretty serious runner and bicyclist at the time, and yes, it absolutely used a different set of muscles than those two activities did.
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