To 27.Jan 2010

Our drought of guests is over and we had four young men arrive on Thursday evening. We had been preparing for them, checking the rooms were straight and the bathrooms were clean and all was in order. They were in two rooms with twin beds in the one and a double in the other. The rooms were assigned by the Boss when they made the booking, so we just followed orders and set those rooms up. There was a bit of a moment as Sue and I realized that two of them were going to be sharing the double and we had therefore to politely figure out which two were the ‘couple’. We were kept guessing for about a minute then it became clear that there had been a hiccup and they were, in fact, all just good friends. Fortunately the double is actually two single beds zipped together so it was the work of a minute to separate them and fetch two single duvets, and note that a potentially embarrassing moment had passed.
At last the hot tub is hot but not boiling! I had been checking the temperature of the water during the time it was turned off, and it had formed a skin of ice, so when I turned it on with four days to warm up before the guests arrived, I anticipated it going up to 113 degrees F as before. Next day the ice was till there so I called out the engineer who arrived and put in a heater and a pump to circulate the water and bring it up to temp. I checked it the next day and found that there was no water in it at all but a lot of ice around it! The engineer arrived and diagnosed a broken fitting, returned with a replacement and re-filled the tub from the garden tap. He said that the heater control was broken but that he could manually set the temperature limit to 104 which he did and finally, we can use it. It is really rather relaxing, especially as I haven’t put the Bromine / Chorine tablets in. These aren’t really necessary so long as people shower before getting in and don’t add to the water level while they are in it!
The guests like it and are featured in our rogues gallery photo book posing in it with steam and snow all around. All we want now are the 19 minerals and we have a rival for the Yampah Spring at Glenwood.
While out skiing today we came across the string of piste bashing machines just about to form up and go down one of the runs. This time I took a photo and you can see how orderly they look. The run was immaculate of course and we really enjoyed it. Sue has now managed two skiing sessions without being knocked over or falling over by herself and the confidence is slowly returning so we may yet have a go at the World Championship 1995 downhill course which runs from the top of the mountain at Beaver Creek to the bottom of the valley. From the ascending chair lift it looks so inviting as it is without any moguls and it’s easy to get to from the lift end. It is called the Birds of Prey and it certainly swoops down the hill. It is one of those hills that are convex-shaped. As you reach the edge it drops away so sharply that you can’t see down it. The appropriate Birds of Prey type screeches are provided by the participants who find out just how steep it is and realize that there is no way off to the side so the only way is - down. The top section was pretty icy when I tried it but after this recent snow I think it will be more forgiving but it is still incredible to me that anyone would just point their skis down the face and go flat out. I adopted defensive (sliding sideways) skiing tactics for a good way down and probably took over 10 -15 minutes as opposed to the 1 ½ minutes the racers take.
The other photo is of a stubby garden I saw in Edwards. Clearly it has been planted out for some time and with some care, and the little shoots of the new stubbies can be seen pushing their way up through the sand. A delight to behold!
A nice story now about gratitude. Each year, a man from Minneapolis returns to Vail and meets and greets the First-Aider Ski Crew. It turns out that ten years ago he had a heart attack on the mountainside and was cared for first by the First-Aid Crew, then by the helicopter crew who whisked him away to Hospital. So for each of the last ten years he has come back and thanked the guys that saved his life and bought them a drink and lunch at the restaurant on the top of the mountain at Vail. They have now met his grandchildren who both he and they would otherwise never have seen. How nice is that?
There was a nice line on a TV programme the other night, an old guy (rather like an American Victor Meldrew) was in a restaurant where he was intending to buy a meal for a girl-friend. When asked by the snooty waiter if he wanted ‘water - Mineral or Tap?’, he replies ‘Tap – I have a chlorine deficiency’. I really must remember that and try it myself.
It is a fact that the tap water here is heavily chlorinated, in fact I fill three carafes with water in the morning and let them stand until the evening meal to let the chlorine subside a little, otherwise they are really quite undrinkable.
Tea can be a disappointment as well, better to stick to the Gin I say! We are giving New Amsterdam Gin a thorough testing at the moment. I’m sure that the clever ones will already know that New Amsterdam was the original name for New York unlike New Holland which was the name of Australia for a while.
When the snow falls, it is a bit of a double – edged sword. It looks lovely and is just what is needed on the slopes BUT – I have to clear the drive. So when a nice man turns up driving a four-wheel drive Rambo-wagon with a snow plough on the front and says he’s Super-Drive-Clearing-Boy, I am well-pleased. It turns out he could probably peel a onion with this plough and in less than five minutes the drive is cleared with the snow piled up at the edges in 4 foot banks. Great!
One of the interesting items regarding the four boys is the prodigious amounts of beer they managed to consume in addition to the unlimited wine they get at mealtimes. We run an honesty bar wherein the guests can buy beer at $2, Water at 50c, Tonic large $2 or small $1 and Coke / Sprite at $1. The first few nights went well but there was a hiatus when we ran out of beer and before I could get to the liquor store, they went themselves and bought bulk beer, so bang went our bar for the rest of the week! Rats! Still, as the photo shows, they got through the beer but also water and coke so the honesty bar still made a bit.
When I set the table in the evening, I put out a carafe each of red and white wine. One of the guests drinks a lot of apple juice at breakfast, so I had put a carafe of apple juice into the fridge for use next day. So of course we were all set for the evening when I topped up the carafes with red and white wine as appropriate and stuck them on the table. You guessed it – it was Sue that mentioned it when she said ‘is the carafe of apple juice still in the fridge?’ err – no it isn’t. Rats! Still, I can take it, but I can tell you that the jibes about white wine apple- juice mixers grow thin after a while. ‘A while’ may well last for quite a while ie well into next week.
Good news is that we are going to be visited by Hannah and Guy in March, we are really looking forward to that, especially as we will be suffering from PSF (Post Solid-Feb Syndrome) and it is both Sue’s and mine (that sounds odd, I wonder if some clever student of English language can tell me if that is correct), birthday while they are out here. I’m looking forward to showing them around the pistes.

Up to 20.1.10

Unfortunately I will be starting with a sad tale. It concerns a lad called Jasper 'Jaz' McGrath, aged 19, who came to Vail in the hope of getting a job waiting on tables as last year to fund his first love, snowboarding. He stayed with his 21 year old brother and slept on the sofa and, because he didn’t find a job, couldn’t afford a ski pass so had to hike up the mountain on foot each day to get above the lifts where there are piste staff checking passes. Once there he could move freely around the mountains and loved to go off-piste among the trees and in the powder snow fields. He waved goodbye to his brother (who was working that day), on Wednesday and set off for the hills. On Sunday his brother reported him missing and on the following Thursday he was found, a mile off-piste, at the bottom of an avalanche he had probably set off himself. Apparently Colorado is famous for hollow snowfields which can’t take the weight of either added snow or a person, and so is prone to avalanching. Jasper managed to break just about every rule of skiing or boarding and paid the price. No-one knew where he was going or when he was due back, he was way off-piste in ‘wild snow’. He had no avalanche equipment, no radio transponder, no helmet and he was on his own. Sad to say, but an accident waiting to happen. His brother said that ’at least he died doing what he loved’. I would say that I doubt it, I’m sure he died choking, scared and frustrated at the final realization that he was going to die, and I doubt he loved it.
In an unrelated incident and showing that accidents can happen to even the more experienced skier, an instructor met her death in a tree well. A tree well is created where the overhanging branches of a pine tree stop the snow building up against the trunk while the snow continues to fall around the tree. A hollow well forms that can be 5 or 6 ft deep with walls of solid snow, and a roof of the lower branches that may be covered in snow. The hollow may be full of branch bits, twigs and needles. In trials by Colorado University, 90% of volunteers dropped into one failed to get themselves out and this lady Instructor was no different.
Two sad tales to bear in mind when out and about.
We have come across what must be Channel Dave (or more likely Channel Bud) and it features wall to wall fast cars, World Rally Series, 1001 ways to die (bizarre accidents retold in graphic detail using actors and a Doctor explaining exactly how the dismemberment or disemboweling or whatever happened), cage fighting, and just about anything requiring large doses of testosterone to participate in or to watch. There is little difference to the UK program, apart from the size of the participants. I’m hoping that the lateral distortion is a trick of the large screen rather than the actual shape of the people but I’m not sure.
Sue has recovered to a certain extent from her injuries and went out skiing and was taken out by a boarder who started off from the centre of the piste without looking, right into Sue’s path. No real harm done but shaken not stirred. When we got down, we had a turkey sausage sandwich at a bakery which had a bad effect on Sue causing her to vomit and feel nauseous for 4 days. When eventually she went to the Doctor, he thought it was a reaction to the Ibuprofen she had been taking for the damaged shoulder, and gave her some anti-nauseous pills which then made her so drowsy she felt wiped out all day. A real downward spiral but happily all is well now and she is fully recovered from the fall and the drugs that fixed it, and from the drugs that fixed that.
As Sue has been not skiing, I have been going out solo and suffered my first major fall on a day when it was snowing heavily. Unfortunately the visibility was poor and as I joined a black run from the side, I crossed too far and went onto a mogul field on the far side, and at some speed. I just had time to realize what was happening, tried to turn to come back out of the bumps, when I took to the air. When I opened my eyes several seconds and 30 yards later and looked back up the slope, my one ski was sticking up vertically in the snow and the other was several yards to one side. Two kind Samaritans retrieved my skis and brought them down to me and waited while I recovered myself and got my breath back. The gent said that that was a real ‘18 year old crashout’. I asked what he meant and he explained it was the sort of crash you don’t want to have if you’re over 18! Being old and brittle I understood exactly what was meant. Apart from a bang to the head (thanks helmet ), I wrenched my shoulder and am having difficulty in raising my arm. Ah well, Ibuprofen and Arnica here I come.
The hot tub isn’t and I am getting frustrated with the wretched thing. The hot tub man came out again and is due back soon after putting in a pump and heater to remove the ice forming in it.
We have been writing up all the recipes we use so that in theory, I could take over from Sue if she was incapacitated and she could take over from me doing the bits that I do in the way of cakes. I am now the official bread-maker and take great pleasure in producing seed bread or rolls.
The recipes are not available at a good bookshop near you yet - but who knows?
Sue managed the spot of the month with a sighting of two Weasels bouncing over the surface of the snow in front of her, just after she had put the camera away – ain’t that a pity!
Our guestless sojourn is nearly over and on Thursday we have 4 in followed in short order by several other groups and throughout February we go up to 11 and 13 so a bit of a turnaround and we will be earning our crust. During this time we have been writing letters (how quaint, you say), to the relatives who are not teched up blogwise. The Post Office provided the stamps – eventually, after the good lady behind the desk grilled me on where I was living, did I like the food, weather, the snow, people etc and finally relinquished the stamps at a speed that makes sloths look as if they are on speed. Still, the queue that formed behind me seemed good-natured enough, so all was well.
As I mentioned before it has started to snow. Hallelujah brothers and sisters! The locals have been shaking their collective heads and predicting a snow disaster but as there was 8 foot (that’s right, 8 foot!) in Eastern California over the last two days, we are looking forward to the storm coming this way. We have had about 6 inches so far and it makes such a difference to the skiing. Instead of scraping down skinned, or icy slopes, everything goes quiet apart from a swisshhing sound, the trees slip on snowy overcoats and the piste-bashers spring forth and start grooming real snow instead of the artificial powder of recent times. On one run, as I approached the edge of the slope to spec out what was what, I looked down and saw a string of eleven grooming machines in a staggered line across the piste, growling their way downwards in perfect symmetry, with lights flashing and sirens whooping. It looked rather like a picture I have seen of multiple (17 if memory serves) combine harvesters working a huge open area of corn. Same technological approach, different product, same result (ie gold in coffers). These machines are quite extraordinary with a snowplough on the front and a dibbler on the back that acts just like a cultivator with the resultant snow crumble being smoothed, compacted and ridged. After waiting for the machines to track out the bottom of the run and starting off up the other side of the valley (they will go up a 45 degree slope), we were presented with the most perfect run on the mountain. It just doesn’t get any more freshly groomed than this and I zoomed down it twice to take advantage of it.
We went to the cinema in Edwards to see The Lovely Bones by Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame. It is an atmospheric movie with a stunning performance by the young lead Saoirse Ronan after her debut in Atonement. But while the photographic qualities are outstanding as Jackson explores the mid-world of semi-heaven where the heroine is stuck, and the tension-building skills as the murderer is closed in on were well in evidence, I felt it just lacked sufficient cohesion to bridge the two worlds of before and after death. With one or two plot slips / hiccups, it is probably the case that this is one of those films that should have stayed as a book.
We have finally been adopted as a staging post by the local magpie population. The choice of birds is pretty limited with Eagles, Ravens, Magpies and a small Tit being the only ones we've seen apart from one mystery bird that we saw but were unable to identify. It looked pretty imperious, like a hawk, but the camera was down-stairs so I missed photoing it.
Finally, I love the directness of some of the signs we see. On the piste we get 'Whoa there Cowboy' and 'Haul on them Brakes' at piste junctions and this one I saw in a parking space in Eagle. Perhaps the enforcers just can't spell 'a good kicking'!

Up to 12.1.10

Where there are drips from the midday melt, there are icicles in the afternoon freeze and I have been keeping an eye on the development of a series of icicles that have formed from a roof just to the side of our bedroom window. The resultant series of photographs give some idea of the extent and speed of growth. These piccies were taken on 16th Dec, 24th Dec and 5th Jan.
With no guests in for a couple of weeks, we are able to look at going further afield and went to Glenwood Springs, about 50 miles away to the west. The Interstate follows the Eagle River valley and the Colorado River joins it as Dotsero just past the town of Gypsum (no prizes for the main product quarried here). Almost immediately the Interstate, the old road, the river and the Railway (Union Pacific) are squeezed into a smaller and smaller valley until it becomes a full-blown canyon with overlapping lanes of Interstate, the disappearance of the old road, the railway going more and more through tunnels in the sides of the valley, and the river looking mean and narrow (and running pretty fast). It is doing here what it has done on an even bigger scale further down in The Grand Canyon, and is cutting into the sedimentary rock as it is slowly raised on its tectonic plate. The depth of the canyon is about 1000ft at the moment and the layers of rock lie mostly horizontal but with occasional bits where the layers are vertical (heaven only knows what drama that caused at the time) and have a wide variety of colours on display depending on the amount of various minerals deposited. The sandstones have a lot of iron oxide which give it the characteristic red colour while the manganese gives it a purplish hue. Finally the squeeze is such that the Interstate goes into a tunnel as does the Railway leaving just the river racing down the valley in solitary natural splendour.
The sides are very sharp and cliff-like and the sun doesn’t shine into the bottom. This narrow valley weaves it way for 13 miles towards Glenwood Springs where it releases us and the horizons widen again. Glenwood Springs has been famous for ever for its mineral springs which issue forth from the Yampah (‘good medicine’) Springs at a rate of 3.5m galls per day at a temperature of 104 F. The Ute Indians recognized its healing properties without recognizing and naming the 18 different minerals found there and, until they were chased off, revered the gods that provided the healthy water. There is now a spa set up with two open-air pools of varying depth, where you can lounge all day in your swim-suit and walk in the snow to the Café between the pools. An ethereal look is cast over the waters by the steam which swirls around the sun-glassed bodies of the bathers.
The great and the good came to sample the spa waters and many miraculous cures were claimed. It also attracted the not so good and one John Henry (Doc) Holliday (1852 – 1887) turned up and practiced dentistry here for 4 years in an effort (unfortunately unsuccessful) to cure his tuberculosis. His tombstone is in the local cemetery and is a much-visited tourist attraction.
We determined to come back and sample the waters via a soak after visiting Aspen which is a little way down the road.
At the top of the Vail Mountain is a Yurt which is sponsored by the Gore Range Natural History Society. It has samples of the natural history found on the mountains hereabouts and a helpful young lady to answer questions. She also leads a snow-shoed tour lasting about an hour which we joined.
We learned that the top banana is the Lynx which eats, almost exclusively, mountain hares. Both these creatures have relatively enormous paws to cope with running on deep snow. A single adaptation with opposite intentions – that of survival and successful hunting. Lower down the mountain are Mountain Lions but they are unable to cope with deep snow, having smaller paws. Porcupines are abundant and exist by eating the bark from the trees for which there is plenty of evidence when you get your eye in. The next creature of importance is the familiar weasel, which is reckoned to be pound for pound the most ferocious creature on the mountain. It too lives on mountain hares, which can be anything up to 5 times the weasel’s own size, and need to eat half their bodyweight per day to maintain their high metabolic rate (this is a function of being small and not having fat deposits like the larger creatures). The guide suggested that we consider eating 350 Macdonald’s Burgers per day. A wave of nausea swept over the group but it did put the poor weasel’s plight into perspective. They live in the warmer (surprisingly perhaps) layer between the snow and the ground although their tracks can be seen as they bound over the surface of the snow after the hares. The weasel, hare and the ptarmigan (a quail-sized ground dwelling bird) all change colour to white for the winter to help with camouflage and so minimize the risk from Eagles and Ravens which are all about.
There are a lot of dead pines which are the victims of the dreaded Lodge-pole beetle which invades the tree in the summer to lay eggs which then turn into larva that eats the xylem and phloem which carry the tree’s nutrients. As they dig around they allow in a blue fungus which further damages the tree and basically, the tree is doomed. The swift spread is partly due to the forestry dept. preventing fires because of the infiltration of housing through the forested areas, which allows trees to grow old and vulnerable. Young trees are able to withstand the onslaught much better but the outlook is bleak. Perhaps spruce and larch will replace the pines but whatever happens, the current sight of acres of browned or bare trees looks very sad indeed.
We had gone up the mountain in a gondola which was going slow because of a broken gearbox and consequently took nearly 25 minutes to get up to the top. Our companions engaged in a stimulating conversation once we asked them to explain what the problems are with the Obama medical bill. ‘Light the blue touch paper and retire’ comes to mind. There was a feeling that the President was floundering and upsetting the middle classes while trying to control the enormous Health Sector which provides such a lot of jobs and GDP. Still, we were able to explain some of Britain’s little Political quirks (nobody wants to be a new Labour Leader immediately before they get pounded at an election), and the Tory view(s) on Europe. All very interesting and time-passing.
Sue’s shoulder and side have responded to Ibuprofen and we were back on the slopes today, a bit tentative but definitely a step in the right direction.
We made our way around the slopes and found Beano’s Cabin which is a wooden lodge set high up on the mountain on a little loop away from the main piste. It offers exclusive five course meals and the novelty is that the price includes the evening Snowcat ride up to the Cabin from Beaver Creek Village. We cruised in and asked if they served drinks without a reservation and the answers was no – sir. During the day it is for the exclusive use of its members while we might make a reservation for the evening if we wished. The sample menu in our ‘Eating Locally Guide’ looks really good but with no prices in evidence anywhere, I suspect it’s a case of ‘if you have to ask, you can’t afford it’. Ah well - here’s hoping for a good tip sometime and we will try it then.
With no direct connection, we have started to explore different Gins. There seems to be loads of different gins, and one particular one that caught my eye was made from grapes so ‘didn’t taste of pine needles and spruce tips’. I thought that the taste of pine needles was intrinsic to gin, so how can a grape-based infusion be gin, shouldn’t it be brandy or something? Still we have tried two so far and will explore further.
The good folk of Eagle had their vote on whether to allow a huge development of shops, restaurants and domestic dwelling and came down on the side of NO. This must be good news for ‘The Nearly Everything Shop’ and so the Eagleites will continue to be able to buy bubblegum, postcards, Barbie dolls and machine gun bullets on the same credit card transaction. How convenient is that?
I’ve mentioned the frequency of adverts on TV before and I have noticed that they fall into three main categories, Convenience Foods, Medicines and Cars. The convenience food ones stress just how healthy they are while the main medicine ones seem to be dealing with weight-loss products for diabetics. Interestingly, with all the medicine ads there is the main message ‘buy our product’ followed by a whole list of maladies and side effects (headaches, mood swings, thoughts of suicide, housemaid’s knee etc) that might be expected to occur if you take this medicine. All the while the characters continues to smile and look in the pink having taken the dose, then the anti-litigation list comes to an end, and the ‘buy our product’ message is repeated in the closing scenes. There are also ads asking if you have suffered from any ill-effects while taking XXX as a class action is in progress and compensation may be due. Obviously some side-effect hadn’t been specified clearly enough in an earlier ad.
The car ads all stress the high mileage you can expect from them and knocking copy ads are frequent eg our car (a Chrysler) is better than theirs (a Honda) because ours does 32 mpg and theirs only does 30 mpg so Nyeh Nyeh Ne Nyeh Ne. This is not usually seen in UK and is never so explicit.
The ads range from naive in the extreme (an un-photogenic garage owner trying to hold onto his teeth while shouting into the camera that he gives a better deal than anyone else), to my current favorite that shows a guy coming home, tripping through the front door, falling over the cat, dropping his briefcase on a vase of flowers on a table and falling at the feet of his wife while telling her that he had the interview and he’s got the job at the quarry and will be dealing with the dynamite and fuse caps. Pan back to the wife who is suddenly typing in ‘Life Insurance’ into a Yellow Pages search box. Lovely.

Into the New Year

The meal was a success with good food and good company. We took the free bus to Vail and resisted telling the numerous young ladies, who were done up to the nines and wearing short skirts, open toed shoes etc., that they would be wise to take a coat as it was very cold. Getting old – us?
The fairy-light salesman had been doing his stuff and Vail was alight with lights everywhere which made it look very festive, and the crowds and Police (both real and Community) were out in force and in good spirits. A curfew for people under 17 and not with their parents was in force, and those over 21 had to carry ID in order to buy drinks, which is a bit big brotherish but the effect was that there was no vomiting in waste bins or worse. This would have been quite untenable as Vail is obviously an extremely monied place. In one shop we gawped at three full-length fur coats, a White Mink, a Black Persian Lamb and a Sable. One was a snip at $14,000. What fur embargo we asked ourselves while admitting that they were exquisitely beautiful. The other clue as to the level of income of the residents, or at least those who can afford to buy or build Chalets in ski-in ski-out locations, is that they are able to pay the cost of between $3m - $7m.
We had the meal and waited in a bar with some huge Cointreaus until 12.00 came around, then watched a pretty desultory firework display (or maybe we only caught the last of it), then got the bus back to Avon. Our guests experienced a refreshing burst of adolescent mischief and insisted on climbing onto the stampeding stallion statues in the middle of one of the roundabouts and having photos taken for their face-book. How childish, but what fun. So 2010 starts, it seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating the Millennium. Ah well – tempus fidget.
Sue finally went to the Doc’s and has been diagnosed with torn shoulder ligaments and badly bruised deltoids (I think those are the ones that run to the shoulder blade and operate UP on the arm). Still painful but with regular anti-inflammatories and regular exercises the prognosis is good.
We have had another example of the problems of America’s Tipiquette. Our guests have been trying different resorts and went to Aspen where they stopped on the outskirts for a coffee and a bun (cookie probably). Anyway when they paid and left, they left a fairly standard 15% tip. The owner thanked them and added very politely that he would like to save them embarrassment by telling them that in Aspen the expected tip is 80%! I asked the guests if they would have been embarrassed and was assured that that was NOT a possibility. I know there is a legal minimum wage and also that in the service industry it’s less than in other industries because they are assumed to get tips, but this really does seem crazy when the bill is expected to nearly double from that shown / advertised.
With Sue hors de combat I have been skiing solo and set off just after Christmas. I had trouble finding a carparking space and had to drive around to three different car parks before finding a space. Then a 100m walk / stump in my ski boots to the bus which took me to Beaver Creek and the bottom of the slopes. After tacking up (tightening boots, putting on balaclava and helmet, doing up inner and outer jacket, removing and stashing glasses, putting on skis, gloves and snow goggles) I was set and moved up to the ski lift anticipating a good day’s skiing. Not so young (?) man – ‘your pass is invalid’.
We have a season pass which allows access to all the slopes in the valley so I was less than pleased. However after a radio call to the ticket office, it was confirmed – the passes we have are not valid for Dec 27 – Jan 2 and Feb 13 – 14 (President’s weekend). After a certain amount of teeth grinding I then un-tacked (see above) and stumped back for the bus and thence the car park and so home. Rats! I attacked the ice in the drive instead.
While we have been here Hannah has been living in our Flat. Unfortunately this has coincided with the Aga dying and the coldest snap in recent memory. Poor girl has been freezing and to cap it all, she had been organizing a meal for the children and several friends for New Year’s Eve. A potential disaster but I’m proud to say that they overcame the problems by hiving out the leg of lamb to be cooked by one neighbour and the vegetables with another etc etc, and eventually had a super meal. Thanks neighbours and well done kids.
We have gone techno and installed Skype which is wonderful as we can now chat with the kids for hours so long as we get the time difference (+7 hours) right. It is pretty uncanny speaking and seeing them in real-time but bittersweet at the same time as it is after all only an electronic contact.
We are bemused by the TV programmes. Adverts every 10 mins and such an array of rubbish spread over 69 channels! There are channels for every taste and some tastes are pretty strange. There is a ‘Mock the Week’ equivalent and the penny dropped that all the presenters and celebrity guests are real people pretending to be cartoon characters. They seem to take a characteristic and extrapolate it to the extreme in order to stand out from the others who are also desperately trying to be noticeable. Wild or huge hair, loud makeup and voices, it’s quite exhausting watching. It would seem that nearly every woman over 40 has been under the knife and Sue has coined a phrase for them as we play ‘spot the Frankinette’. They seem a world away from the kind, genuine people who have been unfailingly polite and courteous we meet every day in shops or on the slopes. I think there are two populations living here, separated by a thin layer of glass.
One thing that I approve of is the local radio station. Apart from local weather and local news, the music seems to feature wall to wall medium heavy rock and in particular Bob Segar who, as those who are familiar with him will know, is a relatively local boy hailing from Denver.
We went to see the film Invictus and were very impressed. Morgan Freeman should win an Oscar for his portrayal of Nelson Mandela while Matt Damon was an excellent Francois Pienaar who captained the South African Rugby team to its World Cup Success in 1995. As it was at a time of rebirth for the Nation, it took on, with President Mandela’s intervention, a highly significant Political element as it united the different factions in a way that nothing else could have done. Very good support acting, good rugby scenes and Damon managing to show Pienaar’s realization of the significance of what was happening on the field and its effects off it, in a very convincing way. My only reservation was a wandering cut t hat Damon sustained during the final which moved from his right to his left cheek. But a very good and illuminating film nevertheless.
We took a trip to Eagle to have a nose around and found a twin town within a town. There was a genuinely old (est, 1904) Main Street with shops and houses with filmic-looking fronts, all made of wood, and a new-build housing complex of condominiums(ae?) built within the last ten years and looking brand new, clean and still with sharp edges. Fortunately there was a separation zone of about ½ mile between the two but it highlighted the two halves. There has been a further potential split with a proposal to build a mega shopping Mall with extra houses, Hotels and Restaurants in the area between the two and a vigorous debate has be promulgated through the media. Voting was on Jan 5th and I think I am relieved that the idea was bombed out.
In the old town we stopped at 'The Nearly Everything Shop'. In a small town (pop.1200) there is a niche for the everything shop and this was it. Snacks, souvenirs, children’s toys and games, books and magazines, maps and tourist guides, 9mm handguns and ammunition, and a stuffed mountain lion. All human life is here although not quite as we know it -Jim.
We went out of town cruising the highway and turned up what was an inviting side-road covered in snow. We drove for about an hour at a gingerly pace of about 20mph and wound our way up what we discovered later was called Hardscrabble Mountain. Magnificent views and thickening snow were our rewards. I wonder if this was one of the westward routes through / over the mountains hereabouts, because it was tricky enough with four-wheel drive, and it must have been even worse with four-hoof drive - hence the name.
The local builder was in measuring up for a new kitchen and various other jobs and I mentioned the animal tracks in the garden wondering what there was in the was of local wildlife. He said that I may be interested to know that one of the piles of debris currently frozen and buried by snow in the garden is a pile of bear poo!. Apparently this bear (or Bayah) broke into a shed down the road, lifted a 56 lb bag of feed, carried it down the road to our garden and proceeded to eat it – all! He understandably felt full and left a deposit which is still there. I await the spring with interest.
Sue is still careful about eating cheese and I thought it might be nice to show how to go about making joint meals, in this case a Pizza.