Day One

Well the time has finally come... After talking and thinking about it for months we packed up both cars and started our experiment with living int he north country. There was surprisingly few trips up the stairs to our third floor condo. Just enough to remind me that I really needed to get serious about getting in shape for ski season.

I got most of the technology working in short order. Both the

internet and the cable box all pretty much worked

the first time (thanks Time Warner). I work at Oracle and my office is moving to a new building while I am away so I packed up everything from my work space and put it in boxes before I left. I brought the docking station, monitor, keyboard and have a space that approximates my work real work space if not a bit more cramped. The view is decidedly diffe

rent...

We had an early start on Saturday. The sky was dark and foreboding with a light mist when as I drove Sara down to the Gould Competition Center. She was so damned independent when I dropped her. It is so bittersweet seeing your childr

en grow and mature. The group of J3 girls this year at Gould looks to be a pretty seriously fast bunch. This is going to be a great opportunity for her to grow as a skier and as a person.

There was a bit of confusion about Caroline's boots but it all worked out and she was on the mountain on time with her group as well. She seemed to have a blast despite the poor conditions. She missed skiing with some of her pals from last season that are a bit older and moved up. Fortunately, she did get so spend some time with them anyways. She also seemed to be off to a quick start making so

me new ones.

We drove around and looked at a few places around Newry and Bethel on the chance that we might end up coming up here. Susan and I thought pretty highly of the lots on the top of Paradise Road. They offer a nice views, a healthy neighborhood and a reasonable walk into town. Might be a decent compromise moving away from the city.

We went early to pick up Caroline and hung out

around Barker Lodge. It had a spring skiing mode without all of the snow. There was logs of mud around for sure. Susan and I had decided not to ski and save our skis from damage. Rock skis were the order of the day as this guy was demonstrating. I saw one snowboard girl take a nasty face plant. Sara clued us in that she hit one nasty rock.. Fortunately, they were both still on last years skis and most of the damage could be repaired. One of the benefits of being y

oung and growing out of your skis every year.

When we got back I took Maggie the dog for a nice hike up and over North Peak. I started up Dream Maker and turned off over the access road up. There are a couple of mountain bike trails that cross the road and I have long wanted to explore them. This time I gave it a shot and it

ended up at the top of Sensation. I hike from there up over North Peak and then down the normal end of the day run to the bottom ending up on Escapade. It turned out to be just the write amount of work to get the heart pumping. Maggie put me to shame running up and down the mountain like her wolf ancestors would.