First Ski

We went and got our skis and a very helpful Matt sorted them out. My set come to my chin, very short by French standards, and should be much quicker to turn. A nice sideways profile should mean good carving which is long high-speed turns when going straight down the slope, great fun once perfected. Sue’s were similarly short so it was interesting to find that they did exactly what Matt predicted, turning well and carving beautifully. The sun shone, the sky was blue and the piste was firm with a covering of about 3” of fresh snow with nobody else on the snow. You should all be really jealous by now! It was lovely and the legs soon remembered what to do.
When we returned to the Chalet the garage doors wouldn’t lift. They are on some radio-controlled gismo and the electricity was missing. On checking all around, both Chalets were out and in the garden there were 8 men standing in or around a big hole in the ground, doing things with huge power cables. Apparently the pit had filled with water and the old (1980’s) joints had given out. Some 2 ½ hours later it was switched back on and we were able to start cooking for the evening meal. What we didn’t realize was that in replacing the 4” thick, 5ft square concrete lid, they had sideswiped a telecommunications box and uprooted it and all its cables. So no TV, at all, in the street. Nice one fellows!
A telecableman came today to fix it and will be billing the Power Company. Meanwhile the Hot tub which had been serviced last week, wasn’t heating so I arranged for an engineer to come and fix it. He turned up when the power was off and reappeared today, once to diagnose a faulty relay then again to install it after returning to the store. At last – we are operational, so in theory we can sit in the hot tub with the lights on and watch the TV (on any of 69 channels).
One of the effects of the skiing was to highlight the fact that I needed a chiropractor to shuffle dem bones. There is one in Avon so off we set. He offers a walk in (and wait) service for $50 which includes a loosening-up session in a vibro-chair followed by an efficient and effective session on the traditional padded trestle. Only odd thing was that it was in full view of the waiting patients and visible through the window from outside. I suppose the theory was similar to that found in restaurants where you are always seated next to the windows to give the impression of activity to passers-by to tempt them in. Very strange, and the involuntary yelps of surprise as my vertebrae were clonked back into place must have been demoralizing or at least less than reassuring for the waiting people. A bit like sitting in on someone else’s dental session as they undergo root canal work. Still it sorted me out for which I am both grateful and $50 poorer. As he also does deep sports-type massage we negotiated a rate for any of our guests and a bonus for ourselves for multiple referrals.
The valley in which we are situated runs from Denver in the East through to California in the West. The river in this part is called the Eagle River and joins the mighty Colorado on its way westwards. We have all seen pictures of the incredible Grand Canyon and most of us realize that it was cut by the Colorado as the surrounding land rose tectonically, and the debris carried away to the coast. Not any more! I have been reliably told that the mighty Colorado river no longer runs to the coast, in fact it doesn’t even make it to within 50 miles, because quite unbelievably (for me at any rate) it is all used up in California for irrigation and the fresh water requirements of the enormous urbanization of the desert. It simply runs out and a dry river bed carries on, on its own. How sad is that?
One of the joys of being Super Maintenance Boy is getting things to work that didn’t previously. I recently fashioned a specialist tool from a wire coat hanger which enables me to retrieve things(?) from the bath plugholes. When Sue reported a sluggish exit of water from the bath, I swung into action and retrieved sufficient hair to make a modest wig or, with the addition of two small buttons, a life-size model of a guinea-pig. Yeeuch!
The first guests are a pleasant family from Scotland and have been to the Chalet many times in previous years. They are a wonderful source of information for us regarding the skiing and also are pursuing a detailed and exhaustive survey of the Californian ‘Champagnes’. We are pleased to have been included in this and we can report that the French Champagnes have serious rivals.
Unfortunately one guest had his skis taken from outside the restaurant at lunchtime. Usually a strict adherent of the ‘swap a ski because no-one wants an odd pair’ strategy, on this occasion he didn’t and they went. Strangely the American pisteurs cared and were very helpful (no Gallic shrugs here I’m pleased to report), and provided a coupon to have a temporary pair gratis for the duration of his holiday. How good is that? In fact it has been our 100% experience that everyone from the petrol pay desk clerk, through the ski pass saleman, to the Hot Tub Man and the TV Cable Man have been unfailingly cheerful, helpful, polite and have sincerely wished us a good experience for the rest of our stay.
We were exploring Edwards, which is a small town a few miles away, and taking some stuff to the thrift (Charity) shop for the Boss. If you want cheap ski gear this is the place. Boards, skis, clothing by the mile, boots, shelves of gloves, mitts and hats, it was all there and ridiculously cheap eg $100 for a really smart pair of skis with good edges and bottom rails and including bindings.
We wandered into a shop that specialized in Antique Chinese artifacts. It was a veritable cornucopia of Oriental beauty and cunning design, with some wonderful hairgrip / headdresses. A child’s seat, with an adjustable table in front of it, caught my eye as did the document cases made of very thin strips of wood about 12” wide and cut like a veneer with round wooden disks of about 3” circumference, at each end. They had a button and leather lace to secure it. They looked just like the sort of thing an ancient and very valuable piece of parchment should have been stored in.
The richness of the colours of all the wooden pieces of furniture was amazing as was the price put on a pretty non-descript Mah Jong set in a plain box with a warped front. At $2,500 my flabber was well and truly ghasted. On this reckoning, our set in it’s heavily-carved box and fluted racks must be worth something like $3,000 at least. I think I recall paying £120 for it. The lady was charming and we chatted for a while as she told us of where we can follow the original wagon trail through the area, which can be driven in a 4 x 4 if the driver has the nerve, and some of the local sites. She pointed out a restaurant that had a 50% discount offer on and this is where we are going tonight for our night off. Just as soon as we finish our G & T’s. Again our afternoon was covered with well-wishes as we departed.
The town of Avon has some of the most wonderful sculptures featuring horses but it also appears to cater of other more exotic tastes. I thought we had discovered some exclusive gentleman’s club based around a mutual interest, but it turns out that it is simply an Off-License named after the locally much-featured large-toothed mammal.