letter Jan 23 2012

Dear everyone,

I started this letter at work because I didn’t want to forget the details of the recent trip I took with Jasper and Lucas to Park City, Utah. We left last Thursday (Jan 19). Lucas had Thursday afternoon and Friday off because he had finished the last of his first semester finals that morning; Jasper just played parent-sanctioned hookie. We flew Southwest with a transfer in Denver. I bought ‘early bird’ tickets (which pre-registers you for a seat assignment and pretty much guarantees early seating) which was very useful since we only took carry-on luggage. I was worried that we might miss our Salt Lake City connection in Denver, as it left only 30 minutes after our arrival, but we had no problems, and the flight left 30 minutes late anyway.

Alison Brown picked us up at the airport. She had gotten to Park City Tuesday evening, and so had already skied for two days. We had an uneventful 45 minute drive to our condo, which was about a 5 minute drive from the ski base. The condo was huge. It could have easily slept eight people, and probably 11-12 in a pinch. There was a room with four bunk beds, and two bedrooms with a queen or king sized bed. Each room had its own bathroom. There were also several couches that could have been used as beds. Too bad Jim Tuchler couldn’t get time off for his his kids to come out with us; there was plenty of space.

Alison had already picked up our lift tickets for us. They use RFID technology now, so all you had to do was put the ticket in an outer pocket away from a cell phone, and forget it after that. All we had to do Friday morning was get our equipment. We used Ski Butlers, who delivered our boots, skis and poles to the door at 7 AM Friday morning. All we had to do was load the gear in the car and drive to the resort. We bought a private lesson for Alison, Lucas and me, and an adult group lesson for Jasper, both in the afternoon. Friday morning we skied on our own, first on a very easy green run, and then some blue and double blue runs. Most of the runs at Park City are short with varying degrees of steepness. Because there has been a shortfall in snowfall this winter, the slopes did not have many moguls. Everybody got warmed up, and we had lunch on the mountain at the Silver lode lift.

In the afternoon we took our lessons, although I had to rent Jasper a helmet for his. The rest of us had a lesson with a German named Mickey. Although we had specifically requested a lesson on mogul skiing, I think Mickey looked at our skills and decided we needed more work on basics. It was pretty helpful to learn that I need to put more weight on my downhill big toe, but all-in-all sort of a disappointment. Especially when we found out Jasper had been skiing black runs for his lesson - - so he spent less on the lesson and got more!

That evening we drove a bit out of town, and in keeping with our two-year old tradition, had dinner at Shabu Shabu, a Japanese Shabu Shabu restaurant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu-shabu). Jasper enlivened his broth with five drops of Dave’s Insanity Sauce. I only went as high as three (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave).

Saturday it snowed all day. We all got pretty wet. However, Alison was the most miserable of all of us, as her 30-year old jumpsuit had lost its waterproofing (if it ever had any), so along with snow, wind, and poor visibility, she was also soaked. We started skiing along the King Con area, but that was pretty windy. We went to the Silver lode and Mother lode lifts, but eventually moved up the mountain to the Thane lift. This last was relatively protected from 3o-40 MPH wind gusts at the summit. Unfortunately, the blue runs in this area are kind of dull, so we ended up on some of the black runs instead. The boys did pretty well on these. Jasper has pretty good technique and good stamina, but not as much strength as Lucas. When we got home we ordered some delivery Mexican food, and spent the evening drying our outerwear in front of the gas fireplace.

Sunday was gorgeous. The sun finally came out, and we learned that 24 inches of snow had been dumped over the last day. The slopes were thick with ungroomed snow that we cut up with our skis. The steep slopes had no true moguls and the skiing was great. Too bad we had to leave when the day was ½ over.

We packed everything up and drove to the airport (after a small glitch in getting to our room as the electronic lock had been altered). We left on time and arrived in Chicago 30 minutes early. Unfortunately, Alison was delayed getting home to San Francisco. Also, both the Ravens and the 49ers lost their playoff games, and so the Super Bowl is going to be between two teams that we didn’t want to root for.

I don’t have much other news, other than the sad death of Joe Dosa. Joe was a Yalie from class of 1970 or thereabout, who was married to one of my college housemates, Nienke Prins (she is a pediatrician at Syracuse University). Joe cut short his career about 15 years ago because he developed a cardiac myopathy that required a heart transplant. He actually was doing quite well until the last year or so, when he developed a post-transplant lymphoma, and a variety of other transplant related illnesses.

Love, H.