Heading for home

Well, spring is here and it is time to head back to Raleigh. After a lot of snow in late February, we basically switched over to May weather. We had almost no snow and temperatures that were a lot warmer than normal. For Julie and I, this meant very little skiing. It just isn't much fun in the slush. Perhaps the worst thing was the picture in today's Park Record. People coming down the town lift in Park City were told to take off their skis and snowboards. There wasn't enough snow at the base to safely get off the lift. The Park City golf course opened yesterday, several weeks ahead of schedule.

The house is moving along well. So much of the progress is inside, which doesn't show well in pictures. Here is one of the outside. The big changes are that the fascia is up and the roof is shingled (or will be today). Makes it look more like a house, but the big jump should be when we return. The house will be sided and the stone will be up. We shall see.

Off to Raleigh!!

Tony and Colt Hudson come visit

Tony and Colt live two doors down from us back in Raleigh. They came out to visit and to see some snow. Unfortunately, we have been having a long run of warm temperatures and no snow. More like May then March. Just the same, we found some for Colt that you could never run across in Raleigh.

After meeting them at the airport we went for a visit to Antelope Island. This island is 18 miles long, 3 miles wide and rises thousands of feet out of the Great Salt Lake. We did some hiking, saw some bison, and found a really cool skull of a deer.



On our most structured of the snow days, we took Colt to one of the local tubing hills. The warm weather meant slushier trails, which meant slower tubing. But it was fun! Why they don't open the tubing hills first thing in the morning is beyond me.



We needed to find Colt some deep snow. He had built two forts using what we had left in our back yard, but that was pretty meager. We headed up to Guardsman Pass, right beside the Deer Valley Bandana ski run. The snow was several feet deep and Colt spent about four hours on each of two days, digging a massive tunnel/igloo. Quite impressive. While he was busy working, Tony and I threw snowballs to Jasper (the dog). The dog played fetch for four hours and still wanted to play more as we walked back to the car.



This is the Park City sign up at Guardsman Pass. From here, you can see miles in all directions. In summer you can pop straight down into Big Cottonwood Canyon, but in winter it is for snowmobiles and skiers only.



Tony and Colt went to visit with a long time NC friend who also lives in Park City. They did more snow digging and then headed indoors to Kamas for a pool with a big slide. I think a good time was had by all. Just wish we could have offered our normal depths of snow without having to drive hunting for it.

Land in Park City

I have enjoyed watching the absurd things that go on the market in Park City. First, a 400 square foot cabin on 0.2 acres. It is right on Deer Valley drive. Because the cabin is a historic site, you have to build your house around the cabin. Asking price? $1.1M.



Now my favorites. Close to downtown Park City are these two lots. As you can see from these two pictures, the lots are small and very steep.





Notice that there is a really crappy house next door and two houses right above the lots. Getting any sense of the price? Each lot is 75 feet wide and 25 feet deep for a grand total of 0.04 acres each. Now how much? The "better" lot is being offered at $430k and the discount one is only $420k. What a bargain!!!

Visit from Stuart and Laurie

This past weekend we had visitors in from Chicago: Stuart and Laurie Jones. They came out to do some skiing and were met with spring conditions. It was sunny and in the 50s every day. That makes for glorious weather for sitting on a deck, drinking a beer, and watching people ski. It makes for some tough skiing. Mornings bring hard pack, then a bit of nice snow, then slush for the rest of the day.



Taking one day off from skiing, we went over to Park City and watched the Half Pipe competition. It is always impressive!

Creating the guts of the house

They have been doing the low-voltage wiring in the house. This includes phone, ethernet, coax, and some distributed video. This first collection is mostly phone/data.



This is the audio/video collection.



There is well over a mile of Cat5 in the house. I am hoping this means never having to run another wire.

Boy, I sure hope they labeled them well!!!

Golfing at Myrtle Beach

We had a great golf trip in Myrtle Beach. Played once decent course (Blackmoor) and two excellent courses (Caledonia and True Blue).

Here is one of the less welcome participants we ran across. No one went and got their ball.


This is Darrell, posing with a ball that just missed being a hole in one. He could have won our days bet immediately with such a shot.

Where's Waldog? Part 3

This one is the hardest yet, so I added a second picture as a clue.






Yes, the snow is that deep. Jasper is a pretty tall dog and he needed a dog snorkel.

Annual ski trip

OK, it really isn't a trip any more. Since both we and the Kahn's live in Park City, it seems much easier and cheaper to have everyone come here for skiing. After all, this area has some of the best skiing available.

Here is our group photo for the year. The two people missing are Anne and Bill. Anne had a sore knee and wasn't skiing this day. Bill had too much work at work and couldn't join us this week.

Top row: Mark, Tom, Sherrie, Carol, Julie, Bruce and Steve
Bottom row: Cameron, Katie, Carson, Hannah and Hilary



JohnQ, Bruce and Carol at Deer Valley



One night we had a Chilean chef from Deer Valley come over to the Kahn's house to prepare dinner. It was quite wonderful!




Bruce ripping through the powder.



Hilary, jumping off a ledge.



This is Cameron becoming at one with the snow.

Good progress

Lots of things happened while we were off in France and the pace continues now that we are back.

• The trusses are all in and the roof is finished
  
• Almost all the windows are in. The big picture windows just got ordered.
• The roof is papered and waterproofed
• The house is wrapped in Tyvek
• Lots and lots of the little framing changes got made
• The electrical rough-in is 75% complete
• HVAC is going in and is 25% complete

With all the exterior work getting done, it feel a lot more like a house.

Skiing in France

Julie and I went to France for a ski trip. This is the third we have done with Norman and Ginny from the Wine and Things store in Raleigh. We flew to Paris and then headed to Meribel in the Alps. Meribel is in an area called the Three Valleys. It includes three huge ski areas, one in each valley, that are interconnected by lifts. For a map, click here. The central valley alone has 16 gondolas. Not lifts. Gondolas. HUGE!! After a week of skiing, we went back to Paris for a few days of visiting. It was a great trip.

This is the group of 10 (as long as you include the photographer). One of the nicest things was that everyone skied at roughly the same level. That made it much easier to ski together throughout the day.



Even in the Courcheval valley, Park City is famous. Apparently someone had decided to name one of the ski runs "Park City". I love our home town, but it never looks quite like this.



Dick and Cosette are getting ready for another day of skiing. The scenery is so dramatic. We never could figure out why the tree line is so much lower here than in the US. Probably some soil thing since the weather is warmer.



Scattered around the mountain sides are rock cabins. They were used to hide Jewish refugees during WW II. Most seem to be in good condition although I don't think they get used any more.



We never found any details about what happened, but we are pretty certain that this plane should not have tried landing in the mountain side. The crowd of people seemed to be trying to figure out exactly what they were going to do with it.



This is the group on the front porch of our house in Meribel. The house was ski-in/ski-out and was large by European standards.



The house we were staying in came with a most wonderful couple as our caretakers and hosts. Regan was the chef and his fiance' Ome handled most everything else. They were from New Zealand and were working for an English company called Ski Cuisine.



We had dinner served at the house on every night but one. They were incredible!!



OK, the food was so good I included another night's fare.



Oh, we the meals included all the wine you can drink, and it was good. That is a scary offer to make to a couple that owns a wine store and their friends. They said we drank 18 bottles, the first night.



In Paris, we did some sightseeing and I did a bit of photography. One neat thing about Paris is that the Eiffel Tower shows up from almost anywhere.



My favorite building is the Notre Dame cathedral.



Oh, did I mention it was my favorite?



It was a dark cloudy evening, looking down the river.



This is the Arc de Traffic, or something like that.



Our only museum stop was the Musee de l'Orangerie. About half the museum is specifically designed for Monet's Water Lilly's, but there was a surprising amount of other works on display.



A most wonderful trip with a great set of people.