When the temperature outside is cold enough to induce frost bite in minutes, what does one do?
In Stowe, to our surprise, they still ski. We were informed by our desk clerk that if we were going to ski, we needed to have zero exposed skin. I couldn’t imagine who would willingly choose to ski in such conditions and soon learned that a die-hard skier will ski in any kind of cold.
I also discovered just how many elements go into the ensemble of a skier before being ready for a frosty day on the slopes.
Before seeking out the local shopping, because that is of course what we planned on doing despite the cold, we drove around the area soaking in the views.
There is something fascinating about the backdrop of every which way you turn being set with snow capped mountains. Their magnificence simply glows, touching everything around with the delight of their presence.
At least, that’s how I felt.
We decided to see what Stowe Mountain Resort had to offer. I think Lance really wanted to torture himself. Having not skied in over ten years, he wanted to go and soak it all in.
The result was us coming home vowing to make plans to ski next year. Between my cowardice and his knee, which he has yet to make any attempt to ski with, we’ve chickened out for far too long.
After all, how can a skier at heart take all this in and not feel the tug to ski?
Realizing just how far we would have to walk to be able to go inside and enjoy Stowe Mountain Resort, we decided against it. At this point, it was so cold that whenever I had to walk from point A to point B, I covered my head with hat, jacket hood, and coat hood, pulling the material in so that it covered my face and I had to rely on faith, hope, and trust to get me back indoors to warmth.
In our aimless driving, we decided to head for Burlington, VT which was only about a half hour drive away. During this drive, we saw some interesting sights mixed in with our mountain range backdrop.
Whenever I see signs like this, I find myself wondering just how often rocks are falling to bring about the need for such a warning. Then I wonder from where exactly the rocks are falling from…
It usually takes me a minute or two to find the big rock in the center of the road.
At that point I cringe and start to worry about those falling rocks.
While driving, I played a few games. The first was: Watch the Temp. Between watching the temperature reading my car was ever fluctuating between and checking the real feel on my weather app, I was constantly oohing and ahhing can-you-believe-how-cold-it-is again and again.
But really, can you believe how cold it was?
The second game I played was: Find the Bear Sign.
As you know from this post, I swore up and down to Hubby that I saw a bear crossing sign when we first arrived in Vermont.*
*I know some of you might be thinking, ‘What is the big deal?’, but, you see, in Jersey we only have deer crossing signs. Possibly a duck crossing sign here or there, but primarily deer. Bears are an animal I only see in the zoo.
Though I did not have the good fortune of proving myself right about the bear sign, we soon began seeing several signs like this:
At first glance, Hubby didn’t want to believe me. But once it was smack dab in front of his face over and over again, he had to admit defeat.
Despite my gasps of excitement every time we saw a moose warning, not once on this trip did I have the pleasure of meeting a moose.
I suppose even the moose were hiding from the cold.
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