Morning Ski

A couple years ago after of one of Rog's garage-cleaning sweeps we donated our X-C skiis to the thrift store. We hadn't had enough good snow to be able to use them more than a couple times in the dozen years since we moved to Rochester. And they were quite old-- I had purchased my red Epokes in 1975 with money from my after-school job. They were first generation fiberglass skiis and had absolutely no camber left.

Of course now that we live in a place where we can just step out the door and ski off into the woods, AND we have gorgeous snow, we wished we still had them. So yesterday, Rog suggested I keep my eyes open for some skiis when I next was at a thrift store. I took this as a directive and went straight to Salvation Army, where I had great success: I found 5 pairs of skiis (for everyone in the family, plus a spare in case one pair was crummy ($5/pair) and poles ($2/set). We had to go to Play It Again Sports for boots where we found decent used ones for Rog but I had to get comfortable, cozy, stylish new boots. (Too bad!)

As soon as we had swigged our morning coffee we took off on an early morning ski. It was predicted to get warm and melty this afternoon and we didn't want to miss our window of opportunity.

We skiied the perimeter of the pastures, then bushwhacked off into the woods. It conjured up memories of many good times skiing through the woods at Rog's parents' house on Stocking Lake when we were first married. Except that today it wasn't 20 below zero, and we were mostly skiing through tangly sumac and undergrowth rather than a nicely groomed trail cleared by Rog's father.

Next we skiied along the road and through the village of Douglas to the Douglas trail, a wonderful State bike/ski trail. We took it a mile or so before heading home. There was a strong, warm southerly wind and already the snow was becoming very sticky.

We probably lost about half of our snow cover today. Let it Snow!