Kicking off March on the Mountain!

                     

No longer feeling like I need to be dragged tooth-and-nail onto the Pass, I was excited when I finally had a chance to get in my third excursion for the WINTER CARNIVAL.

We left on the early side and gave one of the older kids a ride up with us. He was a ski instructor up there and was gonna polish up on some boarding with us for the day. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side. It was cold, hard, fast ice on the slopes. Before we even got on the lift, I was starting to freeze inside my boots. My dilemma was brought to decision when on our second run down, our kid took a tumble at the top of the Tripple. After laying with a grimmace on his face for a few minutes, he claimed he was alright and we continued on down. But it wasn't long before he caught up to us, gliding delicately on heel-side, to say he was pretty sure his collarbone was broken. He boarded all the way down and we got him into first aid where they came to the same conclusion. Mary and I ended up driving him down to his parents to take him off to the hospital and he was a trooper the whole way.

We went back up for the rest of the day but after running into a couple of regualr slopers who confirmed the difficulty of the conditions, I didn't feel too bad when I only had it in me for five more runs. I was just getting frustrated that the conditions were too extreme for me to experiment on new skills and after a double somersault left me with a nice battle-bruise on my nose, I resigned to simple, boring glides.

owch!

The Snow Castle and it's Oz Ensemble

Still, we had a good time. The carnival is an annual festival that packs the mountain to the brim with costumed tourists and locals. This year's them was Wizard of Oz and we enjoyed the few clever lions, tin mans and Dorothys that we saw. Booths were set up to get free hats and enter drawings and a giant castle was built for sledding.

Patty dolled up as the Tin Man

After we called it quits, we still enjoyed a warm afternoon in the lodge with Ainsley and Lou and other familiar faces. In the evening, an eclectic band got us up and dancing and I got to catch most of a brilliant fireworks show before rushing back into town to prepare for Karaoke at the Spruce (see the intro here) What seemed at first like an unenthused crowd managed to carry on until close. We had a surprise kick-off by a trio of uninhibited young girls singing Spice Girls and "My tractor's sexy" while the most adorable toddler provided quite an animated dance routine and closed with an encore of "Twinkle twinkle." After they left, a reliable and talented table celebrating a birthday started to put in a non-stop lineup of songs and eventually Carl, the karaoke savior arrived from the fireworks to be the filler of all throughout the night. I sang a few songs and tollerated a few belligerent uncoordinated acts but for the most part, it was easy-going and the talented table tipped me four different times.

Sunday was mostly a day off. I ventured to the Spruce in the afternoon to wish Kelly's son JC a happy 18th and witness the family tradition of boob-cake-in-the-face. On Monday, I spiced up the day-to-day by meeting Ainsley at Cispus to help her with a mural for the Survival room.

At least it looks recognizable!

March is feeling good so far.