| The slopes are lookin' awwwwesome! |
I have only skied once in Alabama (about 10 years ago) and I don't think that really counts as skiing because the slope was maybe 100 yards long. I had some loaner gear from my coworkers and watched a few training videos on youtube, so I had a faint idea of what to expect and my memory from the one and only Alabama slope to go on.
I got two full days in, Thursday and Friday. I took lessons both days with morning and afternoon sessions. I wanted to make the most out of my time on the slope and went pretty much non-stop between sessions just eating a snack while riding the lift. The slopes weren't busy which was good and the afternoon classes turned out to be awesome because I was the only returning skier the first day and ahead of my classmates on the second day so I got private lessons each afternoon. Skiing was even more fun than I thought it would be. I had a really good run late on Thursday where everything clicked for a segment of the hill, the experience was euphoric. (I didn't know how to describe it but the instructor gave me the word when we got to the bottom and that left me wondering and feeling awesome.) The second day was similar and equally as fun. So after thinking about it some more and replaying my two days of skiing in my head many times I had to google around for information and to see how other people feel while skiing. I think this book will be interesting to read and shed some more light on what happened Spiritual Adventures in the Snow.
Mary was finished Saturday morning so Saturday afternoon, we walked all over Santa Fe. We checked out the railyard area, which was really cool and hit up the local flea market where Mary got some pretty turquoise to make jewelery with. We walked to Canyon Road and browsed the galleries, and stopped for a snack at a great little coffee shop, Travel Bug, where Mary fell in love with the london fog latte and I got to peruse some maps and great travel books. We also tried the asiago and green chile bagel, which was really, REALLY good. Afterward we rested up at the hotel and then had dinner at this great little place called The Shed, which was excellent.
On Sunday we drove to Los Alamos to Bandelier National Monument. It had snowed overnight, so we were greeted with a winter wonderland. The video above is from White Rock over looking the Rio Grande. While at Bandelier we saw petroglyphs, dwellings carved into soft rock cliffs, and ruins from the early Pueblo people. The cliff dwellings were really cool, because the only way in/out was by climbing ladders up into the dwellings. They had a few set up where you could crawl around and see what it was like. After checking out the cliffs, we hiked along the creek through the snow and just took in the beautiful landscape. It's dramatically different than anything we have in the southeast. It was a really cool experience to be in the middle of a true southwestern canyon.
You can see pics from our trip here.
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