My friends and I headed up to Alpine Valley Ski Resort for a lovely snow day. No surprise the place was packed. They have all kinds of winter activities available (cross country skiing, downhill skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, tubing, etc.). Our plan was to make a game time decision as to which activity we were going to do when we got there.
In preparation, I dusted off the old snowboard setup and threw it in my friends truck. It has been a while since I have actually been to the snow, so I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to find all of my snow gear.
We left at 11:15 or so in the morning. The drive was pretty scary. We were driving through a snow storm!. It ended up dropping 14 inches of fresh snow. So that was cool. We did of course stop at Denny's for donuts for the traditional morning snack. I had my favorite maple donuts and we made a quick stop at Starbucks for some morning caffeine.
Once in the park we made some of the signature Tanya stops. She sure can't hold her coffee -- that girl must have a pee sized bladder. While we were stopped at the public restroom we checked the park literature to see if anything interesting was happening. We discovered that there was a ranger led snowshoe walk that started at noon. We high-tailed it up to the resort so that we could be a part of that walk.
We made it just in time. I strapped on a pair of snow shoes for the first time (and helped out a couple of other people strap theirs on as well) and the group headed off on a 1.5 mile walk. I never knew how much work snowshoeing was. I like it though and I will go again. I burned off 1100 calories according to my Garmin GPS trainer. The bad thing is I managed to irritate my right knee. This meant that my snow activities were pretty much done for the day. Tee wanted to go snowboarding so she tried on my snowboarding boots to see if they fit so she wouldn't have to rent some and they fit! She borrowed my board and did a few runs so that she could get the feeling of snowboarding again. She hadn't been boarding in quite a while either so she was just trying to get back in to it without getting hurt. While she was having fun with that I hung around and people watched. I did make a small snow man while I was hanging out. I named him Bob.
After we were done up at Alpine Valley, we drove back down to Milwaukee. We had thought we might go ice skating but the temps were dropping very fast. We stopped for some food and warm beverages followed by the long drive home.
It was a great day and I had a blast. :-)
9 comments on Snow day with friends
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Glad you had a great day--I'll stick to me sun days, water skiing, swimming, looking at all the eye candy in Speedos, etc.
PS If you are going to start living on your own stop with the Starbucks and drink the Denny's coffee!!!
That's cool you like to water ski. Have you ever tried to surf? That's #4 on my to-do list before I die. Speedo man, huh?
I usually drink Denny's hot cocoa when I'm there...it's amazing! I'll have to try their coffee sometime.
Wow! It sounds like it was such a wonderful day! I am glad that you and your friends had a great time.
I have never done the skiing thing. It could probably get scary, considering my clumsiness.
AJ
I think boarding takes a lot more balance ability than skiing -- I'm sure you'd do just fine! Give it a shot. The worst that can happen is you fall a lot and look silly. But we all do that!
Wow Mat, sounds really great. Here we dont have hills and (most years) we dont have snow either. So for skiing I went to Austria about 6 times with school. I love alpine-skiing but the next time i go to the alps I am gonna take some snowboarding lessons. Should be fun (hope i can make that with my age btw lol)
Snowboarding takes some getting used to -- lessons are a must! You will love it once you get the hang of it. Don't get too frustrated with yourself if you keep falling...that's part of the fun of it!
Good for you.A great day there.They do a lot of this here in NH.
Snowboarding is the big thing now.
They have competetion all the time.
You will do fine.
Great post and good writing.
Thanks! It does seem like snowboarding is big again. My older brother who is twenty-six remembers being a kid in grade school and how all the kids were doing it. He's glad to see it back. He's the one who taught me to board.
We had a sun day and hiked Diamond Head. It was hot, beautiful and and great hike!!