Switching the Seasons: Adventures in the Southern Hemisphere: Livin' the Dream

So, you might be wondering what on earth I am doing with all this free time I have. I assure you, I am not wasting my extra-long winter break. While my wonderful friends in Salem are drowning in floods (though it seems that has mostly subsided now), I am spending my weeks in the mountains skiing. I have skied 16 days so far this season, and I have skied six out of the past seven days. Some days, we only ski for a few hours, while other days we ski all day. I am absolutely on cloud nine. I love it up here at our Cozy Condo. Breckenridge is a wonderful town, and a wonderful ski resort. Of those 16 days, 14 have at Breck, one at Keystone, and one at Beaver Creek. Last Thursday, Breckenridge opened the T-Bar for the first time, and on Friday they opened Lift 6 for the first time. We found some amazing knee-deep powder those days, since that was the first time they had been opened. We are still waiting for the opening of the Imperial Lift (hopefully it'll open some time next week!), but for now we will take what we can get!

In other news, I have a new ski coat and I absolutely love it! Also, I am 15 days out from leaving for New Zealand. I had a dream last night about packing; in this dream, I was going somewhere but no one would tell me where and I couldn't remember what I had packed, and I kept forgetting things. I woke up very confused and disgruntled-- it's probably not good to be having unsettling dreams about packing right now. Is this a subliminal message that I should start making a packing list? Probably. I only have a few more things to do to get ready for my trip. I need to figure out what I am doing for health insurance, since I have a few options, and I need to review the classes I want to take since a possible time-table has been released for the students at UC. I have a flat (with 4 other flatmates), I have a confirmed airport pick-up, my luggage is at the luggage store being repaired, but I still have a lot to do before I can leave. Mainly I just need to pack. In the meantime, I'll just ski and hang out in Breckenridge.

This week, my Uncle John (dad's brother), is visiting us from Oklahoma City. We came up to the condo on Sunday afternoon and hit the slopes with 10" of fresh powder, which was fantastic. This evening we went to the Breckenridge Distillery for a bottling event. At the distillery they make vodka, bourbon whiskey, and spiced rum. They are aging their whiskey barrels in order to make Scotch-style whiskey; in order to make scotch, it has to be from Scotland (aka impossible in the US), but in order to make scotch-style whiskey, 5-year-old aged barrels are required. So, in about a year they will be ready to make their scotch-style whiskey, and for now they make award-winning bourbon whiskey. They first released their rum about a month ago; within three days it was sold out, and never even made it to their tasting room in downtown Breckenridge, though now they have bottled more and are keeping up with the demand. Every so often when they are ready to bottle a new batch of hooch, they send out an email asking for help, and we signed up. In addition to a night of fun at the distillery, each helper receives dinner, and a complimentary bottle of anything they choose.

Tonight's bottling party was incredibly enjoyable. We were bottling the bourbon whiskey, and just about when it was time for dinner, the pump to the bottle-filler stopped working. After dinner, we stood around waiting for the bottling to resume. We talked about what ski areas had the best powder and moguls, what areas had the best parking situations, where the snow conditions were best, our epic falls, our idiot falls, etc. until we realized that there might be an actual problem. I had a great time talking to these guys-- all of them had moved to Summit County to be ski bums, which might be my current life goal. Anyways, my father, the (retired) electrical engineer, has a very hard time standing idly when there is a problem; he wants to fix everything, a noble yet often impossible goal. He did, however, help them diagnose the problem, and unfortunately it couldn't be remedied tonight, so we were all dismissed to go home even though we did not finish our tasks. We all happily went home with our complimentary bottles of rum and bourbon. All in all, a successful, amusing, and gratifying experience.