Sun Valley

First things first. Preparing for the upcoming adventure. If you look close you'll be able to figure out why my skis slide faster than most. It is the one secret ingredient that makes all the difference. But then again with the mess of a bench that I have who can really tell what all is in the vicinity of my reach. One thing for certain is you need a small amount of red wine to fully get in the zone for total ski tuning. Thought about trying the soybean wax I found somewhere last season, but I don't remember if I used it or not. One thing I did remember is if you drop enough wax on the concrete floor it gets very slick. Looks good too.

The great adventure for this past weekend was a trip to you guessed it... Sun Valley. First stop on Friday was made in another part of Boise to pick up a couple of friends. Who happened to have a couple of visitors hanging out in their back yard.



Next stop Fairfield so Steve (me) could plow out the driveway, with Eric's help. Eric wields a mean shovel. Best guess is we have over a foot of snow on the ground. Come on winter I'd like another foot this week.

The main agenda for the weekend was skiing Baldy and hanging out at the sun valley lodge pool, eating in Ketchum and just generally having a good time.

Who is that skier? beats me , just someone in the shot. Which raises the question. Can you tell it's a movie star when they are all dressed up in ski clothing? I doubt I'd recognize one even if he or she sat next to me on the chair lift. I have it on good authority that most of them are shorter than one might think. Even shorter than me. They really aren't ten feet tall, that's only in the movies.

The snow is a tad thin around Ketchum, but enough on the hill to ski and besides that the views are usually worthwile. Even without tons of snow, one saving factor is the 3200 feet of vertical that really can put the burn on early season legs. Pre season conditioning has been virtually null and void, so it's ski those legs into shape, again.

So now after we fried our legs all day, it's time to slow boil them in the hot pool at the lodge. The sun or something must of been really bright where Steve is.

It's a paper coffee cup, but I don't think it's coffee.

Another random stray mountainous view.

Hanging with the bear out front of river run lodge. Eric loaned him the hat and goggles for that festive look.

Eric and Patty. Nice of them to come along so we had someone else to torture for the weekend.
She might be a movie star, about the right height, but if we told you we'd have to do bad things to you so you'd forget. :)

great way to start holiday festivities!

december 12 & 13

we finally made it back to fairfield- drove up saturday between storms. not a lot of snow on the ground, looking pretty gray......

steve did get the driveway cleared- good to stay ahead of it. about 6 inches of light fluffy stuff. it came down steadily while we were there, but very light.

dinner at home instead of going out, which was nice.

the project this trip was to start the photo selection on the stairway, which we did-

so far (and maybe forever after) the theme is snow. imagine that! we have a few more to print out, but it's a good start.

steve got a call saturday evening that his mom had had a stroke. rather than drive down in the dark through the snow, we stayed and left sunday. she's still in the icu and it's wait & see. she did ask steve how the snow was in fairfield, i'll take that as a good sign-

Daytrip adventure

About a week and a half ago we had a nice bit of weather come throuh. Thought that it might be worth a drive up to Idaho City and above for some touring. As you can see it looks pretty good. Took the dogs up with me thinking we'd put some miles on our legs. The parking area had over a foot in it. Hmmm, go fast and stop on the downhill that way we won't have to chain up and shovel :) I hope. Didn't have to, we backed out. This first photo is on the highway headed up to Moores creek summit. Interesting driving with one hand looking at the camera, getting it turned on, watching for traffic and finally taking a shot. Yep, you don't want to meet me coming the other way.

A mile or so up the trail (road). Halle with the noble mountain dog pose. She is a Greater Swiss Mountain dog after all. Loves the cold, the mountains and the snow. Good dog.

And the bunny man Echo. He also likes the cold, the mountains and the snow. Although the snow sticks to all that furry long hair. The burr magnet and snow magnet. Good dog.

Nice of those silly snowshoers to break trail for us all the way up. They make a nice wide packed track. The dogs seemed to appreciate it. I couldn't help but think that it must really suck to walk all that way up and then have to walk all that way back. Geez if those shoes would slide like my skis they would be back in less than half the time. And it's fun! Good thing we don't all like to ski. More lines for us that do.

The snow was deep enough almost. Did manage to find the bottom a few times. Could feel it on the skis. Don't know if it was a rock or just brush. Didn't feel like looking at the bottom of my skis. They are the rock skis after all, so anything goes for snow depth. Halle is about 28 to 29 inches tall at the shoulder just for an idea of how deep the snow is.

No work in Fairfield for a while other than putting up some more interior doors. Still waiting for more snow. We need a lot more snow. Gonna have to do the snow ceremony again I guess. We did find a nice big piece of quartz to use for the next one. Maybe that'll help with massive amounts of snow! So stay tuned and see what is up for the next adventure. sp

wow- almost a month!

hard to believe the last post was october 18! it's been a while since we've been to fairfield for a weekend. nice not to HAVE to go up and work, and it was nice to be able to go up this weekend & spend some time exploring & enjoying.

we drove up friday night- grateful that we are only 1 1/2 hrs away so that's an easy thing to do. another beautiful sunset, dinner & the end of the boise state game at the imi.

saturday morning steve wanted to get some doors up- bought 4- one for each bedroom & for 2 bathrooms. a moment of concern as to whether the guy at home depot sent the right ones, but they all worked, except the one that's 2 inches too big. reading the internet directions- which helped quite a bit. the downstairs bathroom now has a door!

as does the master bedroom. the other 2 will go up next weekend.

then we all piled into the jeep & went exploring. this is the back side of the mountain we hiked up in september.

we saw wolf tracks on the road. no mistaking them- they are absolutely huge- as big as steve's hand, as you can see-

just a few inches of snow when we got higher up, but it was beautiful

this is the remains of an old mining town- carrietown- that steve wanted to find. i loved the animal tracks all headed for the building.

on the way back out, we stopped at some hot springs. there are several pools set up for soaking, there was a couple headed for one of them when we got here. the pools we checked out weren't especially warm, but can probably be adjusted with judicious rock movement.

beautiful blue sky day, as you can see.

and another lovely sunset. cooked at home, then down to the imi for a little socializing. the joint was jumping, which is good to see.

and back to town this morning, as i had some work work to do. playing with my new smartphone- lots of fun & funky photo apps making the drive look more interesting than it sometimes is....

steve is headed back up next weekend, so more then.

october 17 & 18

the obligatory happy romping dog photo- haven't had one of these for a while....
while the dogs (and marianne) were getting some exercise it was work work work for steve...... getting the shed and the rest of the trim on the house painted while it's still warm enough..

steve also got the shelf & rod up in the master bedroom closet- more opportunity to get organized...

there's less snow than there was last weekend- it was in the 60s and sunny- beautiful weather for working outside.

color coming on

we headed over to the imi for dinner before sunset- steve was hungry after working so hard, and it didn't look like the sunset was going to be anything special. boy was i wrong! it was beautiful, bright pinks and reds..... luckily i had the little camera & caught some of it.

we had a good dinner (as always) and there was live music! woo hoo. pretty good band called sound county from twin falls.

got up sunday & headed up to the ski area for a hike with the dogs.

this is the second lift- you ski into the building to catch the chair-

looks like a fun little area, and we're looking forward to checking it out when there's white stuff on the ground. the new lodge is coming along nicely. lots to do still inside, but it will likely go quicker than our house :)

heading back to the house, we got behind these folks moving their cattle down.

and that's it for this week.

work, work, work

Big work weekend for Steve this weekend, while Marianne plays on the Oregon coast with her girly friends. Just to show how the mountain looked as I stand on the back step, we'll start with a photo from Saturday a.m.



It was cool and calm until about 3 then that notorious Fairfield breeze started up. I was fortunate in that I only had to wrestle one sheet of siding in place while the wind blew. Managed to get the shed sided and the doors on by about 5:30 and even took the animals out for 2 walks.

Now I need to get the shed trimmed and painted.

One of the more painful things for me to do was to cut out a section of the deck for the snow grate. Of course after I placed it in about 5 different spots I decided this is where it will work best due to blowing and drifting snow. I want to build a smaller one and place it on the steps for the gravel to drop through, but that is going to wait until next year.

Busy boy this weekend, the old wood skis are hung, these aren't so different from the first pair I used. Felt really bad drilling some holes in them to put screws in so that I could attach some cable for hanging them. They really are in good enough shape to ski. Of course if someone is in need that bad, they can fill in the screw holes and let em rip.

So let's see, I managed to finish siding the shed, hang and finish the doors on the shed, place the grate in the deck, drain hoses and put them away, shut up the crawl space vents and place some insulation in them from under the house. I also hung 2 towel racks and the toilet paper holder in the master bath. Hung the clothes hanger rod in the closet and flipped the fridge & freezer door to open from the right side instead of the left. About the only 3 pressing items on my list that I didn't get done is to finish touching up some paint spots on the outside trim, paint the shed and put the ridge cap on the shed. But the weather needs to be 50+ degrees for me to do that. So maybe next weekend.

Here's a shot as the sun was coming up this a.m.

So after accomplishing all that, the dogs and I went for a hike at the ski area. Geez I should'a brought my worst pair of skis. Could have made a run on the north facing grass slopes. This is a quick shot from the car windshield looking up at one of the lower runs at the base. The lodge is coming right along. They have the roof shingled and were even working on it today when we were there.

Stay tuned, see ya next week. SP