The art of catching cold and going broke while rapidly heading nowhere at great personal risk
Oh gosh I fell off the face of Dreamwidth for like 10 days. I think I have commented/caught up on everything on my friends page; if I missed something you wanted me to see, do let me know, as it wasn't my intent.
I have been having a lovely weekend. So, as I may have mentioned once before, my Christmas present from paladin was a ski weekend in Wisconsin. I have not been skiing since I busted up my knee in 2012, so I was excited but also somewhat trepidatious. Paladin had this past Friday off, and I had Monday (owing to it being Lincoln's birthday and this being Illinois), so Friday morning we got up moderately early and petted the cats and cleaned up the house, and then we got on the road to Devil's Head, which is up Madison way.
It's about a 2.5 hour drive, almost all freeway, and once we got out of Milwaukee, there was nothing. Land forever. Occasional farmhouses, but mostly: empty land. (Well, "empty" in the sense of "no humans," but there were crops, and some incidental cows and horses.) I commented on it and paladin joked that "there's nothing to do out here but raise crops and cows." It was pretty enough, I guess, and I could see the appeal of being in an empty place like that for a short while, but not permanently. I am a suburban girl. I want to live next to the city so that the conveniences accrue (delivery food options, shopping, walking distance to stuff) but I don't actually like being in the city itself. The one time I tried to look for apartments in Chicago, I felt like everything was closing in and staring down upon me judgingly, and I was in freaking Lakeview, not even downtown. ANYWAY.
We got somewhat distracted along the way by the presence of wineries; southwestern Wisconsin is the hilly bit, once you get out of "God's ironing board" aka Illinois, and thus it's good land for grape-growing. We ended up at Wollersheim Winery and Distillery, just to the end of the day. We skipped the tour, because honestly after you've been on 3 or 4 winery tours there's just not much new to see, and went straight to the tasting because of course we did. I really liked their wines; they have a complimentary flight (maybe 1 oz pours?) that gives you a range of things to try, and then they had a dry tasting flight and a sweet tasting flight for purchase; of course we got one of each, and shared. (Wineries are better with someone you are OK swapping glasses with!) I really liked that most of their wines are sipping wines; you don't have to pair them. The guy running our tasting said that that's intentional; they want their wines to be flexible and good on their own. One of the dry reds was assertive enough that it really wouldn't go well on its own, but the sweet flight that I had was all stuff I would drink. We bought half a case of assorted wines, because of course we did.
Across the way from the winery, there is a distillery, so we went over there and poked our noses in. They primarily make brandy, which was interesting - we had a pear brandy, and two apple brandies, and a gin and absinthe, and something else I don't recall. I wasn't as excited about the distillery tasting, mostly because I'm just not that into hard liquor unless it's mixed with sweet tasty things, but it was an interesting experience.
Having fulfilled our habit of always going somewhere to taste and purchase alcohol when we are on vacation together, we continued on to Devil's Head. It's a cute little resort at the bottom of...well, I guess by Midwestern standards it's a mountain, but by my (Colorado-trained) standards it's a hill. With no cell service, and debatable wi-fi (when it works, it's fine, but there are a lot of spots in the resort itself where it doesn't.) We had dinner at the "fancy" on-resort restaurant since we were quite hungry, and then flopped in the room with books and games.
Saturday morning we got up bright and early to start our skiing adventure. We got our rental skis and then headed out. It was fairly warm this weekend - 40 degrees - which makes for nice skiing weather, and there was enough snow to make a solid base (resort report said 55".) I made paladin tolerate me starting out on the greens, since I'm rather a nervous skier to start and more so after I wrecked my knee last time. I learned to ski in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, which--it's a pretty damn hardcore mountain, okay. It's where US Olympians train. It's steep enough that the only way to build greens is to have you ski down the CAT tracks; the mountain is just too sheer for anything else. Wisconsin is...gentler. A blue in Wisconsin would be a green in Colorado, mostly, so every run is solidly one category down. Still, busted knee and fussy Meglet, so the greens it was. I got settled on those pretty quickly and moved on to blues, which is how I spent most of Saturday morning. Toward the end of the morning I let paladin talk me into the black diamonds, which were definitely doable for me, but steeper. By the time we stopped for lunch around noon, my knee was sending signals of "okay so you know how last time this fucked me up??" Accordingly, I sent paladin off to fling himself down double-diamonds at his preferred speed as opposed to toning himself down for me (he was giving me a head start of a full minute on the blues and still beating me to the bottom) and I went back to the room to stretch and read for a bit, and then took myself off to the bar to spend the afternoon with Shirley Temples and Bravely Second (Yes, I'm the chick who goes to the bar and drinks a kiddie drink, fight me, it's fucking delicious.)
Paladin eventually joined me, and we had drinks and then went back to the room for snuggles before we went off to dinner at the bar and grille, which had a very limited menu but a tasty one.
Sunday morning we got up and went out to ski again; we did a couple hours on the blues, and then came in for an early lunch, since the wind had picked up and paladin wanted a warmer jacket. We went back out after lunch; paladin went for (I thought) his afternoon adventures, and I did a few blues and a couple of blacks. We met up at the lift about an hour later and it turned out he'd been planning to ski with me, but I'd been adventuring all around the middle set of slopes (blues and blacks), and he hadn't quite been able to figure out where I was. We did one diamond together and then three blues, and by then my thighs were quite tired and my knee and ankles were sending mild alarm signals, so I turned him loose to be ridiculous and went in. I'm pretty proud of how I did; I was skiing pretty fast (by my standards) at the end.
I took myself back to the bar, having cleared the FF4 Ultimate Plus level in FFRK, to play Bravely Second and watch skiers fly down the slopes. Last night we went go back to the fancy restaurant for early Valentine's Day, and then got up early today to head home, with a stop along the way for brunch at Cracker Barrel.
A good vacation. :)
Once home, we assured the cats that they had not been forgotten, and took apart one of the couches to replace the mattress that Ganon had destroyed and sand off the resultant rust and apply Rustoleum, and then we spent the rest of the day playing video games. I did a decent job of tanking some extreme primals in FF14, including one run where I was apparently The Experienced One, so that was terrifying and also heartening in that we only wiped twice and two newbies (including the other tank) got their clears. I also made a giant batch of chili, and we did the grocery shopping, and most things are in readiness for the arrival of
seventhe in LESS THAN TWO DAYS OMG I'M SO HYPED.
Yep. That is the state of the Rina.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1172514.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.
I have been having a lovely weekend. So, as I may have mentioned once before, my Christmas present from paladin was a ski weekend in Wisconsin. I have not been skiing since I busted up my knee in 2012, so I was excited but also somewhat trepidatious. Paladin had this past Friday off, and I had Monday (owing to it being Lincoln's birthday and this being Illinois), so Friday morning we got up moderately early and petted the cats and cleaned up the house, and then we got on the road to Devil's Head, which is up Madison way.
It's about a 2.5 hour drive, almost all freeway, and once we got out of Milwaukee, there was nothing. Land forever. Occasional farmhouses, but mostly: empty land. (Well, "empty" in the sense of "no humans," but there were crops, and some incidental cows and horses.) I commented on it and paladin joked that "there's nothing to do out here but raise crops and cows." It was pretty enough, I guess, and I could see the appeal of being in an empty place like that for a short while, but not permanently. I am a suburban girl. I want to live next to the city so that the conveniences accrue (delivery food options, shopping, walking distance to stuff) but I don't actually like being in the city itself. The one time I tried to look for apartments in Chicago, I felt like everything was closing in and staring down upon me judgingly, and I was in freaking Lakeview, not even downtown. ANYWAY.
We got somewhat distracted along the way by the presence of wineries; southwestern Wisconsin is the hilly bit, once you get out of "God's ironing board" aka Illinois, and thus it's good land for grape-growing. We ended up at Wollersheim Winery and Distillery, just to the end of the day. We skipped the tour, because honestly after you've been on 3 or 4 winery tours there's just not much new to see, and went straight to the tasting because of course we did. I really liked their wines; they have a complimentary flight (maybe 1 oz pours?) that gives you a range of things to try, and then they had a dry tasting flight and a sweet tasting flight for purchase; of course we got one of each, and shared. (Wineries are better with someone you are OK swapping glasses with!) I really liked that most of their wines are sipping wines; you don't have to pair them. The guy running our tasting said that that's intentional; they want their wines to be flexible and good on their own. One of the dry reds was assertive enough that it really wouldn't go well on its own, but the sweet flight that I had was all stuff I would drink. We bought half a case of assorted wines, because of course we did.
Across the way from the winery, there is a distillery, so we went over there and poked our noses in. They primarily make brandy, which was interesting - we had a pear brandy, and two apple brandies, and a gin and absinthe, and something else I don't recall. I wasn't as excited about the distillery tasting, mostly because I'm just not that into hard liquor unless it's mixed with sweet tasty things, but it was an interesting experience.
Having fulfilled our habit of always going somewhere to taste and purchase alcohol when we are on vacation together, we continued on to Devil's Head. It's a cute little resort at the bottom of...well, I guess by Midwestern standards it's a mountain, but by my (Colorado-trained) standards it's a hill. With no cell service, and debatable wi-fi (when it works, it's fine, but there are a lot of spots in the resort itself where it doesn't.) We had dinner at the "fancy" on-resort restaurant since we were quite hungry, and then flopped in the room with books and games.
Saturday morning we got up bright and early to start our skiing adventure. We got our rental skis and then headed out. It was fairly warm this weekend - 40 degrees - which makes for nice skiing weather, and there was enough snow to make a solid base (resort report said 55".) I made paladin tolerate me starting out on the greens, since I'm rather a nervous skier to start and more so after I wrecked my knee last time. I learned to ski in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, which--it's a pretty damn hardcore mountain, okay. It's where US Olympians train. It's steep enough that the only way to build greens is to have you ski down the CAT tracks; the mountain is just too sheer for anything else. Wisconsin is...gentler. A blue in Wisconsin would be a green in Colorado, mostly, so every run is solidly one category down. Still, busted knee and fussy Meglet, so the greens it was. I got settled on those pretty quickly and moved on to blues, which is how I spent most of Saturday morning. Toward the end of the morning I let paladin talk me into the black diamonds, which were definitely doable for me, but steeper. By the time we stopped for lunch around noon, my knee was sending signals of "okay so you know how last time this fucked me up??" Accordingly, I sent paladin off to fling himself down double-diamonds at his preferred speed as opposed to toning himself down for me (he was giving me a head start of a full minute on the blues and still beating me to the bottom) and I went back to the room to stretch and read for a bit, and then took myself off to the bar to spend the afternoon with Shirley Temples and Bravely Second (Yes, I'm the chick who goes to the bar and drinks a kiddie drink, fight me, it's fucking delicious.)
Paladin eventually joined me, and we had drinks and then went back to the room for snuggles before we went off to dinner at the bar and grille, which had a very limited menu but a tasty one.
Sunday morning we got up and went out to ski again; we did a couple hours on the blues, and then came in for an early lunch, since the wind had picked up and paladin wanted a warmer jacket. We went back out after lunch; paladin went for (I thought) his afternoon adventures, and I did a few blues and a couple of blacks. We met up at the lift about an hour later and it turned out he'd been planning to ski with me, but I'd been adventuring all around the middle set of slopes (blues and blacks), and he hadn't quite been able to figure out where I was. We did one diamond together and then three blues, and by then my thighs were quite tired and my knee and ankles were sending mild alarm signals, so I turned him loose to be ridiculous and went in. I'm pretty proud of how I did; I was skiing pretty fast (by my standards) at the end.
I took myself back to the bar, having cleared the FF4 Ultimate Plus level in FFRK, to play Bravely Second and watch skiers fly down the slopes. Last night we went go back to the fancy restaurant for early Valentine's Day, and then got up early today to head home, with a stop along the way for brunch at Cracker Barrel.
A good vacation. :)
Once home, we assured the cats that they had not been forgotten, and took apart one of the couches to replace the mattress that Ganon had destroyed and sand off the resultant rust and apply Rustoleum, and then we spent the rest of the day playing video games. I did a decent job of tanking some extreme primals in FF14, including one run where I was apparently The Experienced One, so that was terrifying and also heartening in that we only wiped twice and two newbies (including the other tank) got their clears. I also made a giant batch of chili, and we did the grocery shopping, and most things are in readiness for the arrival of
seventhe in LESS THAN TWO DAYS OMG I'M SO HYPED.
Yep. That is the state of the Rina.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1172514.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.