Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Well, we got only a taste of the snowstorm that the midwest is experiencing right now, but it has been frigid here for the past week. Daytime highs in the teens, nightime lows around zero. Skiing today was pretty cold, due to the -14 deg wind chill, but I needed to get in some turns on my new skis. So, I think it was worth it, but Breanne stayed home (perhaps wisely).
It was really nice to have Stan and Nancy here over Thanksgiving, and we all had a traditional turkey day at our house (including a Lions loss!)
Hopefully, we'll have some decent pics to post here from our upcoming epic powder days! Everyone do your snow dance...please.

It's dumping snow in Park City!! We're watching the MLS Cup final inside, and watching the snow fall outside. This is great for me (Craig) because I get to go skiing tomorrow. However, for Breanne, this isn't good news because she has to be at work at 6 AM tomorrow. But not only that, but Breanne was the one who shoveled the deck and carried in the firewood tonight. Here are the pictures to prove it!!
The dog poop picture is interesting...We found it at a local trailhead, and notice it says "no dog poop", not "no dogs"...that seems to be the philosophy here in PC.
We are looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with Stan and Nancy this week, and we'll do our best to get them out on the slopes before they return to Hawaii.

Finally...The snow has arrived!

The warm, sunny weather for the past 3 weeks has been nice, but really we've been waiting for the white stuff to start falling...and yesterday it began. At our house, we got a couple of inches yesterday and a few more today. That means that the ski areas got even more snow than that! But just to be sure, we'll be driving to Solitude or Brighton tomorrow to investigate. Of course, we may need to strap on the skis and make some turns if the conditions are favorable.
As for today, all we did was lounge around by the wood stove and well, that's about it.

The Ski Season Has Begun!

November 8, 2009 officially marks the beginning of the ski season for the Flatlanders. We spent today riding the 2 available runs at Solitude. OK, they were green runs and it was all man-made snow, but at least we were out there! Actually, it was a bluebird day, hardly a cloud in the sky, and this is apparent in our sunburned faces. Breanne skied better than she ever has before! Maybe it was the new boots, maybe it was her superb physical conditioning...who knows? But she was tearing up the mountain today!!

Halloween Eve Party Time

Halloween 2009 proved to be the most exciting Halloween Craig and I have yet experienced together. We went out with our new friends to a slightly posh restaurant on Main Street in Park City, "350 Main." We met up with Amy, who befriended us at the gym, her mom, Stacey (super nice and ex Miss Arizona), and Aubrey and Jeff (really cute couple). When Craig and I discovered that the restaurant probably wouldn't appreciate a decked out rugby chick complete with black eye and a cardboard-box-enclosed Craig with Excedrin, alarm clock, and bottle of water taped to its top and lampshade for a head (one night stand), we decided to make a quick costume change. I ended up as a cocktail party zombie and Craig a safari joe.

Our night ended up with a monstrous (forgive the pun), only permissible annually tab. Because, rather than deciding responsibly to end our night there, we decided to head down the street to "Harry-Os," an exclusive (insert pretentious snort) nightclub armed with its very own VIP list. We were assured by our sweet, lovable friend Amy that her gym and spa co-worker used to work here as a cleaning lady and that she had secured our spot on the VIP list, thus avoiding a steep $20/person cover charge. So, Amy put on her best "authoritative" face, pronouncing that, "Yes, so-and-so" had arrived. The doorman, after reviewing the list a short time later, revealed that we, in fact, were not on this list. He graciously told us that he could put us on the list, and sweet Amy decides that this would be the right time to explain further that "my friend used to work here, she used to be the cleaning lady here, and she said she could get us on the list." So, needless to say, the doorman explains that the club rarely lets its employees on the VIP list, "especially the cleaning lady."

We were all good sports, though, and started cracking up in semi-buzzed laughter at this ridiculously snotty comment and the hilarity of the situation. Our night proceeded, however much more expensively than the intended plan, and the following are the pictures of our bourgeois nightclub celebration.

All right, folks. As promised, here are the pictures that we've taken so far. The first set in the montage can be summed up as our introduction to our new premises.

Halloween Hiking

Hey, y'all! It's a gorgeous Halloween day here in Park City. Nothing but blue sky and sunshine. Craig and I explored the surrounding area, trying to find the trails we could see from the main road, but didn't know how to access. We took a chance and turned right onto the trailhead access road. The dogs were loving it, and met some canine compatriots on the trails.

We've known this for a long time, but in this area where the dog population is on par with the human population, it is a fact...our dogs are assholes. But, with constant exposure to dogs of all colors and sizes, hopefully these tendencies will diminish with time. So, I've uploaded some photos of our house and just a few road-trip snapshots out the car window. More to come, though!

First Week

Here we are in Park City!!!!! We ran into a bit of a hiccup when a storm threatened to close I-80 before we got through Wyoming. So, we decided to forego our stay in Cheyenne and drive, yet another, 4 hours on top of the prior 7 hours we drove that day.

Fortunately, the flatlanders’ luck had not yet run dry and we found our “sight-unseen” house intact and non-fiction. Phew!

As you can see, the images that unfolded as we dropped down into Park City Valley made the long trek immediately gratifying. This is such a fantastic place, where “Dog-Friendliest Place on Earth” should be its motto. The contrasts between the people of Utah and those of Northern Michigan have proven stark and eye-opening, too. It always struck me as odd that it took me (gregarious and friendly by nature) 6 years in Traverse City to strike up a handful of close-knit friendships; this was underscored by the fact that on my third day here, I met a girl who invited Craig and I to a Halloween party with a group of her friends. In my experience, it would have taken a good year or so to develop that kind of rapport with someone in T.C.

So, the short and skinny of my first impressions of this region include the following superlatives: dramatic & majestic (terrain); mercurial & life-changing (weather); congenial, spiritual (people) . Anecdotal interpretation: the view is incredible; driving here is scary; and we are dumbstruck by the friendliness of everyone.

I would like to expound on one of the most obvious differences in lifestyle patterns here in the Wasatch Mountains as compared to Michigan. The decision to drive is always dependent on weather conditions, and I don’t mean that in the same way as Michigan’s over-zealous, willy-nilly declarations of “the snow storm of the season.” What I am trying to convey is the fact that there are an invariable number of automotive mishaps that can kill you when traveling the roads of these mammoth hills.

First Day on the Road

Well, here we are in Grand Rapids. Our first day on the road, and Craig and I have put in a good, oh, three full hours from Traverse City to Diane's. Okay, so we're easing into the extended driving hours usually associated with cross-country travel. That's the luxury of unemployment. We'll be posting lots of pictures from the road in the upcoming week. So, until then, keep it real MI.

Lots of love,

Breanne and Craig