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A Note for the Granddaughters
Couldn't Be Happier
I don't watch television any more as a rule. Sports is an exception, occasionally. Tonight I'm watching the Minnesota Vikings
Just out of curiosity I googled a military contemporary who happens to still be on active duty. Seeing what he is still doing makes me all the happier that I am well beyond that stage.
My daughter phoned me tonight: the ski trip is going well. The two older granddaughters took ski lessons the first two days of the long weekend of skiing. But today the family skied together as a family -- the nine-year-old was able to keep up with the 12-year-old and both kept up with their parents. Apparently the 12-year-old got "trapped" at the top of the mountain -- whatever that meant. It sounded like she did not want to discuss it further so we switched topics, thanking each other for Christmas gifts.
Our daughter and her family are skiing in the Rockies, staying in Avon.
The phone call brought back some bittersweet memories. Thirty years ago we were doing the same thing, but in our case, we were skiing the German / Swiss Alps. We also got trapped in a ferocious storm at the top of the mountain one year. I stuck it out drinking gluhwein in a mountaintop chalet. Our 12-year-old daughter (now the mom who is skiing with her family in Colorado) was trapped on an open chairlift for about two hours -- of course, we did not know that at the time. (My wife was not out there that day.)
The storm did knock a gondola off its track, resulting in several deaths. The mountain was shut down; clean up and rescue efforts were begun. I found our 12-year-old daughter, and asked if she was okay. I was going to stay up on the mountain to help find injured skiers. There were only a limited number of tracked vehicles to take folks off the mountain. I asked the 12-year-old if she could get to the bottom of the mountain on her own. It would be about a 30-minute run down the mountain -- and she would have to take multiple runs to get to the bottom. She said she could.
And she did. Several hours later, I was back at the parking lot and somehow the two of us caught up with each other.
And the Vikings are now ahead 49- 17 with still too much time to play. I think it's going to be an exciting play-off season. Tom Brady, Cam Newton, the Cardinals, the Vikings, the Jets.
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Room Service
After the family (see story above) got back from skiing, they picked up the youngest member of the family, 17-month-old Sophia. I've talked about her before.
She finally did it. She ordered room service.
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