Vacation Is Nice...
...but the half-life is much too short.
I took off last Friday to go up to northwest North Carolina for the weekend for some skiing with some friends. I hadn't been skiing in about a decade, so I definitely had a certain degree of apprehension about the whole thing, but another part of me was looking forward to the experience. I was anticipating it enough that I briefly considered getting a new ski jacket, but intelligently finally decided that the waterproof winter jackets I had should be fine. I did rent pants, though--my former bibs are back at my parents' house, and I'm not sure I could fit into even Dad's bibs these days.
In a nutshell, I had a blast. The chalet turned out to be great (something that gave me some small stress, since I was responsible for reserving it); the people, both old and new, were wonderful to be around; and the skiing was exhilarating. I wasn't up to the level that I was before I'd stopped, but I quickly got back up to a decent intermediate level, at least. I think a bit more practice and slightly shorter skis, and I'd be back up to former levels in no time flat.
I didn't ski every run on the mountain, though. I missed two. Ah, well ... maybe next time. I stopped a bit earlier on Saturday night than I originally expected, because I wrenched my knee slightly when I hit a sudden patch of powder and went tumbling. Not really wanting to injure it worse, I finished the run and decided to hang it up for the evening. Oh, and the boots were too tight on Friday--tight enough that I ended up with blisters and welts on my lower shins. That was fixed early on Saturday, though, and by some miracle the blisters never broke.
Still, it was great. Definitely something that will need to be repeated at some point less than a decade from now.
However, the first two days of this week were the end of the month, which meant that I was highly stressed from the moment I got back. Additionally, I remembered why I hate leaving on vacation--I have to clean up from what happened while I was gone. Ah well. It was still worth the trip.
I took off last Friday to go up to northwest North Carolina for the weekend for some skiing with some friends. I hadn't been skiing in about a decade, so I definitely had a certain degree of apprehension about the whole thing, but another part of me was looking forward to the experience. I was anticipating it enough that I briefly considered getting a new ski jacket, but intelligently finally decided that the waterproof winter jackets I had should be fine. I did rent pants, though--my former bibs are back at my parents' house, and I'm not sure I could fit into even Dad's bibs these days.
In a nutshell, I had a blast. The chalet turned out to be great (something that gave me some small stress, since I was responsible for reserving it); the people, both old and new, were wonderful to be around; and the skiing was exhilarating. I wasn't up to the level that I was before I'd stopped, but I quickly got back up to a decent intermediate level, at least. I think a bit more practice and slightly shorter skis, and I'd be back up to former levels in no time flat.
I didn't ski every run on the mountain, though. I missed two. Ah, well ... maybe next time. I stopped a bit earlier on Saturday night than I originally expected, because I wrenched my knee slightly when I hit a sudden patch of powder and went tumbling. Not really wanting to injure it worse, I finished the run and decided to hang it up for the evening. Oh, and the boots were too tight on Friday--tight enough that I ended up with blisters and welts on my lower shins. That was fixed early on Saturday, though, and by some miracle the blisters never broke.
Still, it was great. Definitely something that will need to be repeated at some point less than a decade from now.
However, the first two days of this week were the end of the month, which meant that I was highly stressed from the moment I got back. Additionally, I remembered why I hate leaving on vacation--I have to clean up from what happened while I was gone. Ah well. It was still worth the trip.