Two great days of winter sports!

Part of my "stay-cation" involved actually getting out and doing something fun. One of the great things about living in Utah is how close I am to great things I can do in the outdoors. On Friday, I went skiing up at Solitude with my friend, Boyd Lythgoe, and his dad and brother. But before I left, I looked outside and saw this:

Gorgeous sunrise from my front porch.

Once skiing, the snow was great and we had a good time. I took one good spill, one in which I kind of spun around out of control, lost both skis, and banged my head on the snowy slope. I sat there for a minute afterward, making sure I knew what day it was. I thought at first that the only injury I got from that was a pulled muscle in my upper thigh, but later on, when I got back from snowshoeing on Saturday, my neck muscles on both sides of my windpipe, and my lower abdominal muscles were in a great deal of pain. I didn't do anything snowshoeing to hurt them, so it had to have been from the crash skiing the day before.
Sometimes the effects of injuries don't show up right away.
I was skiing on some used skis that I picked up at the thrift store last year, along with boots and poles. I was into the entire set for less than twenty bucks. I'd tried to get a ski shop to adjust the bindings properly for me, but the said that they were too old and there were liability issues on older bindings so they wouldn't do it. I found a video on youtube that showed me the basics. Apparently, I adjusted them properly because the skis came off when they needed to and didn't come off when they didn't have to. I had also tested them prior to hitting the slopes a couple of weeks ago (I never took a bad enough tumble that week for them to be tested).
Anyway, we did over twenty runs (I actually lost count at about five), and I didn't have any falls until the afternoon, which were products of tiring legs and waning light.
Two of the original four of us stayed until the lifts closed. Here are a few more pics:

My friend, Boyd Lythgoe (far right) and his dad and brother who went with us.

That's me coming down the slope.

On Saturday, I went snowshoeing up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We started at the Mill D Trailhead. It was fairly well packed down and we could've hiked it in our boots. We went in about 1.7 miles to where the trail forks. One side goes to Dog Lake, which is another .6 miles, and the other fork goes to Lake Desolation, another 1.9 miles. We decided to go off trail at this point to get some actual snowshoeing in, so we headed over to a powdery patch and ate lunch, then snowshoed through the powder for maybe 100 yards, and joined the packed trail headed back down. After a while we took off the snowshoes and just hiked. It was a great day to be out having a mountain adventure. Of course, it's rare that it's a bad day to be having such an adventure. It beats staying in doors nearly any time.

Yours truly cutting back to the trail.

From L to R: Boyd Lythgoe, Steve Nye, Darren Nye

The nearby peaks were beautiful

Boyd and the others checking out the view across the canyon

Stay-cation time

I'm on vacation, which isn't really all that exciting because we can't afford to go anywhere. On the other hand, I spending a lot more time sitting around in these than I normally do:

Now, I really should be getting a lot of stuff done that has been accumulating for me to do. Then again, I kind of feel like I deserve to take some time off and actually relax for a few days. I plan on working, and in fact, I worked a bit today. I got the one end of our carport cleaned out that was driving me crazy. We have this immense maple tree that straddles the property line in our parking strip--actually 2/3 of the base of the trunk is in the neighbor's yard, and the thing was planted well before we ever set foot in our current locale. This tree has been our bane ever since we moved in, because, unlike most trees, its leaves don't all come down at once and they tend to blow around corners and through our gate and into our backyard even. So, for several months after they begin falling, it's a keep up game as they swirl in and around everything we have stored in our carport, or rather, that our daughter and family who live with us have stored in our carport.

Anyway, I got that done today, until the next time the tree decides to bless us with it's bounteous goodness.

I think for the rest of my vacation I'll do some cleaning of the kitchen, bathrooms, and computer room, and then maybe by the end of the week, when I go skiing and snowshoeing, I'll feel good about the whole deal. Of course, I'd probably like the skiing and snowshoeing even if I got nothing else done at all.

Stay-cations aren't all that bad as long as you don't spend all your free time working. Plus, part of my time off, I'm planning future vacations when we will actually be able to do something besides work. And that's a big plus.

Snowshoeing and life

There are times when I feel guilty just for being healthy. This morning, I left my wife, Ann, to go snowshoeing. For the past few days she's been having a terrible time with her RA flareups and extremely dry eyes, both at the same time. “I can deal with one,” she said, “but not both at the same time.”

I offered to stay home with her. “No,” she said. “There's no reason you should stay home and be miserable, just because I am.”

The thing is, she's right—and she's wrong. While there's really nothing I can do to help her—for me, I hate feeling helpless to help--there's something to be said for staying home for the sake of sympathy.

I was gone for five hours. I traveled through some beautiful scenic countryside, up the road to Guardsman's Pass in Big Cottonwood Canyon. I got a lot of good exercise and breathed in a lot of clean air. My blood was pumping and my sweat glands were working proficiently. My legs began to burn as I pushed on toward the pass, but I finally made it. I stood there taking in the view for a few minutes, talked to a couple of snowmobilers who had made their way up to join me, then headed back down.

The rest of the afternoon I've been there for Ann. I'm still trying to figure out how to help the eye situation—I did call her eye doctor and arranged an appointment for next week—and I massaged the area in her neck that's been giving her fits through this flareup. She needed help with her shower and lotion put on afterward. I was happy to do it. Sometimes the strong can only do so much to help the weak and suffering, and the rest must be left up to God and time.

It can be a frustrating experience being unable to help someone you love through their trials. There's something I need to learn from this, and maybe it's just that I can't make everything all better. And maybe it's that even though I can't make things better, I can be a support and a help through the trials. When it comes right down to it, the help we give or don't give in the times of need is what makes us good people or indifferent people. I hope I'm never indifferent to the suffering of my loved ones. That would be a tragedy indeed.