More Sunday Family Skiing Style. . .

Surprisingly good skiing today given a temperature hovering around the freezing point, high winds, and trails in need of regrooming. Nevertheless, we had a blast, enjoying good kick, pleasing glide, and some challenging small hills along the trail.

The Grand Duchess, in particular, navigated an impressively steep pair of S-turns in the woods at speed that The Young Master and I were a bit more cautious in handling. Besides being a cross-country enthusiast (classic diagonal stride and skate skiing), she is an experienced downhill skier, a skill she acquired in Nevada and The Pacific Northwest as an adolescent and teenager, which gives her a decided advantage. Still, great fun was had by all with just one minor spill for The Young Master.

We even managed to prolong the day's ski adventure once we returned home mid-afternoon. Following the obligatory large mugs of hot chocolate x 3 and lunch for The Young Master, The Grand Duchess and I attended to some brushing down and rewaxing of skis in the garage. She also rapidly assembled a new dual-ski waxing bench, given to us for Christmas by my step-father and checked out her new waxing iron, one of several ski-related items given to her for Christmas by yours truly.

A fantastic Sunday afternoon all the way around.

Next Friday, the three of us head two+ hours north for a long weekend of skiing in the upper part of "The Mitten" as they refer to lower Michigan here. We've got a delightful looking rental all lined up nearby the ski area where we will be for three days and nights.

The Grand Duchess and I have not had a skiing weekend since January 2009. Before The Young Master was born. Coincidentally also in Michigan, but in The Upper Peninsula outside Ironwood at ABR Trails, which has always been the benchmark for cross-country skiing in the U.S. for me.

But I digress! This time, there will be three of us. Absolutely. Cannot. Wait!

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Comments

Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

Search This Blog