Merry Christmas!

I hope the joy of the day lasts longer for you than Santa's gift to Angus.

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Merry Christmas!

Beard Baubles Aren't Just For Men

“Boys,” we said, “let’s go skiing.”  

We aren’t as close to cross country skiing here in Sheridan as we were in Casper.  Instead of a 20 minute drive from our house to the trails it’s now about a 45 minute drive — for most people.  For us, when Dean spots a rock or what he thinks looks like a rock, he reflexively lets up on the gas.  And if he actually talks about that supposed rock he might have just seen … well, let’s just say, if driving slower saves gas, we get up that mountain for next to nothing.  It was foggy on the drive up to the ski trails which pretty much prevented Dean's rock gawking, but the low visibility and discussions of the shrouded trees made him drive even slower so I had plenty of time to take some pictures as we crept up the mountain.  

We didn't know exactly where the trails were.  All we knew was that when we’d checked out the spot last winter (stupidly leaving our skis behind) there’d been cars parked alongside the highway where the trails began.  So when we saw a trail sign a short distance off the highway we figured that was the place.   The boys were in dog heaven but we were a bit taken aback by the lack of a groomed trail.  

We strapped on our skis and broke trail for a short distance.  As we trudged along Dean kept mumbling about how he didn’t think we were at the right place but I pointed at the sign on the fence saying, “but there’s a sign on the fence.” He refused to be convinced.  He decided we should get back in the car, and drive further up the highway.  He’s all for exercise but he has his limits. 

Turned out he was right and about three minutes up the highway were the real trails, which had been groomed …. before it had recently snowed.  So we still had to break trail a bit but at least the trails were wide and easy to follow.  And we only fell once.  Which is pretty good considering we had to cross a small creek and we had two 90-pound snow-crazed dogs running near us.

We’re planning to head back up that way this afternoon because we really need to hear something crunching other than peanut brittle between our teeth and feel the glide of something other than frosted cookies going down our throats.  

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Beard Baubles Aren't Just For Men