Schussssssssss

We headed up to New Hampshire last weekend to ski the now tripod-free White Mountains. It was a pretty drive and took just over two hours to reach northern N.H. Our neighbors said "Wow, you guys are going way up there" when we told them where we were going. I think Minnesotans and east coasters have different ideas about what constitutes a long distance due to the large disparity in state sizes. We stayed in Lincoln which was about a 10 minute drive from Cannon Mountain where we skied.

We got up there too late to ski on Friday so we explored the area a bit. We were right by "The Old Man of the Mountain" which used to look like this:

but now looks like this:

Stupid erosion.

We found it funny that the image on N.H. license plates and highway signs is of something that no longer exists. We decided that their license plate slogan "Live Free or Die" is only slightly less negative than D.C.'s "Taxation Without Representation." We also saw an indian head:

and hiked to a "basin" over packed and melting snow trails in our street shoes. It was slippery. The basin turned out to be similar to a pothole, cool rounded shapes that get eroded out of rock by the long term swirling of smaller rocks.

That night we ate dinner at a local brew pub. The beer was decent but not awesome, same for the food. We sat at the bar which was pretty busy by the time we left. There had been two cougar-aged women hovering behind us for ~the last half hour we were there. I hadn't really noticed them but Liz said one of them was standing so close to her that she could feel her cougary booze and antelope meat scented breath on her neck. When we stood up to leave one of them said something like "You two go have fun by yourselves back in your hotel room." I said "You two have fun sitting on these bar stools." Only later did Liz explain to me that she was implying that we sat too long on said stools and/or they had more of a right to them than we did. So, philosophical question: if you are trying to be a smart ass but you are so bad at it that your target doesn't even realize you were trying to be, are you still an A-hole? Only a tree falling in an earless woods knows for sure.

I didn't take it too hard since if there's one thing I learned from Blue Crush, Dances With Wolves, Hostel, Doc Hollywood, and the Karate Kid Part 2, it's that locals don't like outsiders--especially city slicker outsiders--and if you want to gain their respect and get the town hottie to fall for you you must do so through:

1. Sports feats, possibly in head to head competition against the mean town champion who's skill level closely matches your own and is also vying for the affections of the aforementioned town hottie (chances are good, however, that he/she is actually a nice person and was only lashing out because he/she felt threatened by you. Alternately, their change of heart might be a ploy to get you to let your guard down so they can stick some sort of Oriental fan knife in your guts)

2. Killing buffaloes.

3. Walking pigs.

Also, if you don't somehow gain their respect they'll torture you to death. Also, sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind and fall in love with NFL quarterback Jerry O'Connell.

Wait, where was I? Oh yes, skiing. I've been out west a handful of times, gone to the Porcupines in MI, and done most of the places in MN, but I didn't know what to expect from the east coast. Basically, I was impressed. It wasn't Whistler in size or height but it was better than MI and of course better than any place in MN. It had runs I was afraid to go down. Liz, skiing for her first time in 20 years (and she only went down the bunny hill once on that trip), did pretty well after an initial slow motion crash into a snow fence. By the end of the day she was turning quite well and doing hockey-style stops. More importantly, she had fun so we'll hopefully have a new winter activity to enjoy as a family. Here's video proof that she actually did it. We posted the video in 3/4 speed so you can actually see her technique.