Full day at Pisgah

We headed over to Mt. Pisgah this morning at 10am, and skied until 3:30pm...I stopped counting how many runs we did in the mid 20s...Ben did a great job: on the mountain, making turns, stopping, riding the T-bar, falling and getting up, waiting in line, etc.



We started off skiing by turns, I'd go about 20 yards, then he'd ski down to me, then I would ski down a little further...


After a while, we switched things up a bit, and would take turns chasing each other down the hill in big sweeping turns...


He had a great time, and told me whenever we needed to take a break...


We skied all over the bottom half of the mountain, riding up to the 3rd pylon on the T-bar before letting go...


He fell down a bunch of times, and kept getting up in good spirits...


We had fun talking to the lift-guys, some students from Lake Placid who knew me, and random friendlies who thought Ben was a cutie...


The T-bar was a blast, and it was gorgeous day for these little breaks between our runs...it was 20-something degrees, clear blue sky, and not a bit of wind...in other words, perfect...we'd watch and talk about the people skiing and snowboarding down the hill around us while leaning back into the T-bar...


Daddy got some stares for his tiny snow-blades, but they're lots of fun, light as air, and fit easily in the back of my car...


Here you can see Ben turning to bleed off some excess speed at the bottom of a fast run...sometimes he didn't practice his turns just so that he could go fast...


This great shot was taken by Gail, and you can see the snow still flying from his hi-speed impact with the ground...he was fine, and the next 3 pictures show him climbing to his feet by himself...something he did a number of times during the day...






A little snowy, but none the worse for wear...


I love this last shot as it shows him leaning into a hi-speed turn at the bottom of the hill as he finished up near Mommy...special thanks to Mommy, who came with us despite having a metric ton of work to do (for her doctoral program)...she helped us get going, set up a satellite-office in the lodge, and kept shuttling out to cheer us on!!!

Presidents' Day with Ben and Monsters

Ben and I celebrated Presidents' Day in the traditional way...we hid from the cold morning (-18), went to a new McDonald's for lunch, and then enjoyed Disney on Ice, Monster's Inc. style...


The new McDonald's in Lake Placid is a dream in tile and stainless steel...there were about 25 people milling around in the kitchen in starched uniforms, seemingly busy, yet our food took 4 seconds short of forever...


From lunch we went to ORDA, and into the 1980 Arena for the skate-tastic monster-palooza...Ben perused the various gifts and foodstuffs available, and settled on the hardhat and cotton candy combo-pack...probably the best choice...


Before the show started we snuck up to the cheap seats in the Upper Deck...benches in hard and cracky yellow plastic...we preferred our ice-side seats, but the view from above was nice...


The show started off with some familiar Disney characters refreshing the kids' memories about Monsters Inc. and the power of screams...there were 2 howler monkeys dressed like 4 year old girls sitting behind us who could bend light and shatter stone with the power of their voices alone...we were glad when the noise-inducing introduction was finished...


The show itself progressed nicely once it got going, based loosely on the movie, with some added song and ice-dance numbers thrown in to match the venue...


At intermission, we got up to stretch and walk about a bit, and Ben and I split a pretzel and some lemonade...while we were eating, he liked sitting down in a randomly placed folding chair and watching the frenzied mom's and tinies waiting in line with growing antsiness (you can see some of them reflected in the art-house quality image below)...strangely (sadly...), the line to the mens' room was short and fast and essentially kid free...


The second half of the show was as fun as the first...Ben has no stage whisper...he leans over and loudly asks stuff like, "Are those monsters real Daddy, they look real...", and, "Those girls hurt my ears Daddy!", and, "Can we stop for Subs on the way home Daddy?"...He was fascinated by the special effects, especially by the snow-makers in the banishment scene...the hula dancers (you didn't miss that part of the movie, it was added for the ice-show) were engaging enough that he got off of my lap briefly to try and hula in front of our seats (we were in row "A", so had nobody directly in front of us.)...


We both loved the door effects at the climax of the show, with doors spinning every which way on the ice, whirling through the air, and dancers cartwheeling all over the place...



The CDA (Child Detection Agency) scene was expanded as compared to the movie, but was lots of fun...all in all, we had a great time...


We laughed, we cried...it was better than CATS!!!

29 degrees below zero!!!

It was 29 below this morning, cold by any standards...we had planned to go back for more ski lessons today with Ben, but I wasn't sure that it would be warm enough...it got up to a bit above zero, so when I picked Ben up from school, we headed to the mountain...the bad news is that the lessons had been cancelled, the good news was that we had a great ski all by ourselves...


The mountain-cat had just finished grooming the hill and it was much more packed than during our last outing...this meant that Ben got going much faster on his run...he had a great time anyway (or because of it...), and would have skied until dark if a combination of him developing impressive snot-sicles and my legs/back getting tired being the human T-bar...as it was, we did about 20 runs...he is having so much fun skiing...I'm planning on going up on the lift this weekend...more pictures to come...

Pisgah, round 2

We all went to Mt. Pisgah this afternoon so that Ben could try his hand at skiing again. ...we all had a great time, and Ben did a wonderful job!


We warmed up by walking around in his skis for a bit...then we did some hill climbing with his skis perpendicular to the slope...then we got to the fun part of the afternoon...using daddy as a T-bar and then skiing!!!


Ben did a great job holding his body in the right position, leaning forward the right way, making a pizza-slice with his skis, and even doing some turns...he fell a couple of times, but always got right back up again...


Here he is after a high-speed run giving us a "ski-dude" thumbs up...


In this shot, you can really see his snowplow in action...he really understood how making turns helps you to slow down, and he was able to turn in both directions in his runs...


In exchange for the daddy T-bar, we would make him practice his shuffling/skating after his runs to work on the less fun (but still important) aspects of beginning skiing...


After a bunch of early runs, we took a break for snacks in the lodge...who knew that Snickers bars are the perfect ski-fuel for 4.5 year-olds...


It was a gorgeous afternoon for skiing and watching little boys ski...we all had a great time!


This is Ben's, "I'm tired, but skiing is awesome...one more run daddy...please..." We, of course, did about 6 "one more" runs...

On the drive home we came across a bunch of turkeys enjoying the lack of snow on the road for a bit...the woods must be a workout for them with deep snow and sub-zero temperatures...Ben took one look, and said, "There are six of them Daddy."...what a nice afternoon...

Winter Carnival

This week Saranac Lake is hosting/celebrating the 110th annual Winter Carnival, and we attended and had a great time...

One of the main features of the carnival is the ice castle, made out of huge blocks of ice cut from Lake Flower and assembled by volunteers. Visitors can wander around and inside the castle and grounds and greet the carnival King and Queen and characters (local people dress up in costumes and greet/hug children while wandering around the castle)...


Inside the castle, Ben, along with lots of other kids, climbed all over the throne...making all of the parents nervous (with visions on slipping and falling and bonking dancing in our heads)...


We found our way outside of the castle, and tracked down Tigger for a hello and a hug...we were a little disappointed not to find Spiderman, but figured that maybe he out was rescuing people somewhere...


This year's castle had a maze built behind it...with walls about 6 feet high...wandering through the maze after Ben, I could see lots of Eurasian Milfoil frozen into the blocks...the milfoil is an invasive species that is a plague on the waterways and native species of the Adirondacks...you can see some of it in the block about 18 inches above Ben's head and a bit to the left...


Ben was excited to meet and greet Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, a character making his first appearance at the Winter Carnival this year...


We wandered out onto Lake Flower in the place where they cut the blocks of ice for the castle...the sign is both for comic relief, and to warn off potatoheads who may be tempted by the open water (when blocks have recently been harvested) to do their impressions of a polar bear...


After playing at the castle for about an hour, we went home to warm up and refuel before returning for the parade. Upon returning to the parade route's optimum viewing spot, we ran into the Buerketts and also some geocaching friends, Geolobo and Bluegirl...Ben loves the parade...he points and laughs and waves and talks and has a great time...yes, he was on the far side of the police line...


A new attraction in this year's parade was a gaggle (pod, herd, jumbunk???) of Oompa-Loompas...they were wonderful, including a Loompa-tastic dance number right in front of us...on the drive home I passed one of them hanging out in the doorway of the local VFW hall with a long-neck bud in one hand and a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his orange mouth...


There were a couple of great bands, large and small...this brass band was fun...I didn't include any pictures of the bagpipe troupe, for fear of a costume malfunction...


The shriner's made their annual appearance, which always makes me feel conflicted...I love what they do for children in need of medical attention, but am compelled to mock them due to the fezzes...I particularly enjoyed the uber-fez...


Although there were a couple of firetrucks still to come after they had gone by, the Winter Carnival Parade is for all intents and purposes done once the Lawn-Chair Ladies have done their thing..every year they present well rehearsed and choreographed dance and percussion routines making use of their aluminum lawn-chairs...


They were, as always, spectacular...the precision and verve which they throw into their performance is breath-taking, awe-inspiring, and makes me jealous of that level of commitment and free-time...


Thanks Saranac Lake...for being such a cool place to live...

Not jesus on a tortilla, but...

You may or may not be aware of the miraculous appearance of Jesus on a tortilla in Mexico in 1978 (although you can find out more than you need about it at http://www.jesustortilla.com/)...but I noticed a similarly miraculous image in my bathroom yesterday, and had to share it with the world...

In a corner of my bathroom, near the ceiling, there is some wallpaper of questionable taste showing a bucolic cottage...we got the wallpaper along with the house, we didn't dislike the wallpaper as much as we liked the house...


The miracle is that the spider living in the corner near the ceiling, likely Achaearanea Tepidariorum, made a nest or built a spider landfill in the perfect spot and configuration to approximate smoke coming out of the chimney of the tacky-wallpaper cottage...

I've alerted the media, but they have not, as yet, arrived to report on the miracle of Lake Clear.

Ski Lessons!

Ben and I headed over to Mt. Pisgah, Saranac Lake's own ski hill, this afternoon for Ben's first ski lesson...


He was very excited to finally use his new gear on a ski hill with other kids...and also quite proud of his lift-ticket/season-pass...


His teacher, Linda gave him a hand while he was getting used to the feel of the skis...


Ben ended up skiing for about an hour, including a couple of short runs down a very gentle hill with Linda helping him work on his form and confidence...we went in for some hot cocoa and a snack before heading home...we'll be back next week for a couple more lessons each week until the snow is gone...