Gateway to Big Sky Country

Yesterday I went for my very first snowmobile ride. Imagine writing that after living in SK for over 30 years?? I find the whole process of moving the machine to the road, unloading, etc., etc. a bit too time consuming - I'd rather put the skins on the skis and start hiking. The smell was a bit offensive, although it gets better once the ride begins. My rookie driver (Dave) had a bit of difficulty on a couple of the turns - just way too much snow, even for Bombardier. We jumped off twice to avoid turning it over on ourselves and had to dig it out of the snow once. However, it did get me up 8 km on the Blue Ridge FS Road and we snowshoed another 3 km. The sun actually came out and we had fabulous views. Starting at the bottom, I wouldn't have made it up that far.

The ride down was good. I'm enjoying the new "shoes" but like all modern inventions, they don't work as well in deep snow as the old beavertails. They are great for climbing over all the snowpiles banked up along the roads as I "shoe" into and out of town.

Happy Christmas, Happy Solstice

For the very first time we celebrated Solstice as "christmas" and today has been a quiet, unassuming holiday. On the 21st of December, we opened presents with Mum, Dad, Andrea and Demitri, had a ski/walk, cooked a wonderful Ferraro's Foods (in Rossland) fresh turkey and ate ourselves silly. Today, December 25th, we got up at our usual time, had a light breakfast followed by a good walk. After a very "Christmasy" lunch of cheese, crackers and seafood, we've been sleeping, reading and enjoying the fire. There will be cold turkey with all the trimmings (TX beans about to be put into the oven) and perhaps a couple of games of crib to round out the day. Happy return to longer days to all!

Yes, Hell Really Is Freezing Over!

This is our latest purchase - last Thursday we went to Sears in Nelson and bought our very first dishwasher!! The sales were good and last night we actually tried it out. It's very quiet and seems to work. There's still dishes to do, of course, and I feel a bit guilty about all the water we'll use. These newer models are supposed to use a minimal amount of water. It does make the kitchen look much more finished and we only have to add a couple of rows of tile to complete the floor. Now if you don't believe hell is freezing over, read on to the next post about Dave's recent purchase.

Toys for Boys

If you can't tell what's going on in this photo, it's a picture of Dave making adjustments to his recently purchased second-hand ski-doo!! Even though I totally disapprove of skidoos I can't complain too heartily because Dave has purchased very few toys for boys over the 36 years of our marriage. Some people here have told me I'm going to love it because we can get above the "lid" of the mountains and get up into the sunshine. I'll reserve judgement for a wee bit yet.