Family Time on the Gulf

Our last official trip of Bonus Year involved visiting with my (Shannon's) family in Mississippi.  Yes, they live in Illinois, but they were up for a vacation and so we all headed to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for some spring sunshine!

Dad, Mom, me, and brother, Steve at a Biloxi pier

My parents rented a nice condo right on the Gulfport beachfront (thanks!!!), so we enjoyed walking over to the beach and soaking up the sun.  Scott had fun flying his $4 kite (which he later engineered to include a tail, improving flying capabilities).  We also got some stunning sunset views!

This is pre-Walmart bag tail addition. 

Sunset from our beach dinner. 

Other fun family activities included golf.  I want to be very clear that I am not a golfer. There are some pretty hilarious videos of me whiffing on swings over and over.  I also hit a house.  But we had a lot of fun driving around the carts, learning some new golf techniques and enjoying the southern sun.

Girls cart!

Scott, Steve, and Dad assessing the shot. 

Steve and Scott also enjoyed the activity of jet skiing.  Per my experience on our honeymoon, I opted out of jet skiing.  I'm pretty sure they had fun ripping around. When they returned, they referred to themselves as "pirates".

Getting ready to hit the jet skis!

After our time on the beach, Scott and I headed north with my parents to Horn Lake, MS (suburban Memphis) to visit my other brother Corey, wife Jess, and their daughter, Peyton.  Scott and I last saw Peyton during the summer and she has grown a lot since then!  It was really fun to play with her and listen to her call everything "doggy".  She's pretty much the cutest baby ever. :)

Many attempts at pictures later...

We had a great visit with all three Memphis Pearts (Corey, Jess, and Peyton), including a delicious dinner in Overton Park.  Special thanks to Corey and Jess for hosting us in Memphis!

Cute little Peart family!

The end of our Mississippi trip marked the "official" end of our Bonus Year!  This isn't exactly true as we're currently doing some serious job searching and hoping to settle down...somewhere?  We've been traveling around Washington and trying to enjoy the end of our unemployed time while working on the job hunt.  We'll update the blog with those adventures and hopefully soon be ready to hunker down!  Keep us in your prayers as we look for work opportunities and a place to live.  Stay tuned!

Victoria - Jason's Bachelor Party

After getting back home to Seattle after Whistler, I (Scott) had less than 24 hours before turning around and heading back to Canada for Jason's bachelor party.  In "real time" Jason is getting married this weekend, very exciting!  For Jason's bachelor party, we headed to Victoria, BC by seaplane!  I've never flown on a seaplane and it was a pretty cool experience.

Locked and loaded!  With the groom-to-be sitting co-pilot.

On our way there we saw whales (we think) and really cool low clouds right by Victoria as well as a Space Needle fly-by.

After arriving in Victoria, we picked up fishing licenses and enough food/snacks to feed 8 hungry men for the weekend and headed to Sooke where we had a great cabin for the weekend.

After a scotch filled evening, we woke up and headed out fishing.  We had two boats and tragically our boat came up with some below-the-legal-size crabs and only a few bites.  The other boat bagged a salmon which would later become our delicious dinner.

This is basically Deadliest Catch

Back at the cabin, after some hot tubbing, we played board games including an epic 7 hour round of the game "Eclipse."  Of course some beers and scotch kept the game good-spirited.

I forget the rules to this game, but I remember the anger.

The next morning we headed back to Seattle on the Clipper (a high speed catamaran) and enjoyed some games of Wizard on the boat with a random German stranger.  Jason is a great guy and it was awesome to hang out with the guys for a bachelor party weekend!

Oh Canada - Whistler

We swung back through Seattle briefly...  Went to home-sweet-home (the storage unit) and swapped out some clothes, popped into a job interview, and then promptly hit the road for Whistler.  I've been to Whistler three times and EACH time have been rewarded with powder.  This time would be no exception with each ski day getting little 2 inch hits.  But before I get into the skiing, I should mention that we also had great food up at Whistler, especially after coming from Bozeman.  Our first night, Mongolian Grill:

Chop chop chop

The first ski day, we headed to the Whistler side and had a great time charging all over the alpine terrain.  We didn't have full power bluebird weather, but visibility was great for all but about half an hour.  Skiing these peaceful high alpine zones is always great.

Alpine forever.  You can go anywhere.

Our second day dawned with another 2" up high and we had a great morning skiing around Blackcomb while dealing with some high clouds on the upper mountain.  We had some really nice soft runs in the 7th Heaven zone and the top of the Glacier Express chair.  But sure enough, the in-and-out snow squalls slowly but surely changed to rain by the afternoon.  In the last post, I mentioned that I consider it mandatory to ski in the rain once in a year (for character building purposes).  Twice in a year?  Well why not build some more character?

The first day we had downloaded off the mountain because we'd heard all kinds of horror stories about the lower mountain.  I wanted to ski that thing to the bottom on our second day and Shannon obliged.  Something about skiing to the bottom (bitter end?) just feels right and the skis survived the thin cover just fine.  We're champions.

We fear no thin cover.

We had a really nice date night at a restaurant called 21 Steps and headed back to Seattle after another great time in Whistler.  Before this trip, one of my co-workers had claimed this as the best skiing in North America, and I get it.  Tons of variety, views, and a fantastic village (the three V's?).  Can't wait to head back!

Montana - Bridger Bowl and Big Sky

After getting our fill of fun in Wyoming, we headed north to Bozeman, Montana.  Our first two ski days in Montana were a little... character building.  On our first day, rain was predicted in the afternoon.  We could ski for free at Bridger Bowl from our Stevens Pass passes so... why not?  I try to ski in the rain at least once a year to stay tough.  Shannon is not so amused by this philosophy.

When you think about it, it's just liquid snow.

As our road trip approached the Pacific NorthWest, the snow pack began to decline dramatically. Things were pretty grim at Bridger:

Do ya think it goes?

Still we had a great day and saw the potential for Bridger.  It's a very open, mellow ski area ideal for powder days.

The next day we went to Big Sky and had a fun day just cruising around getting familiar with the resort.  Big Sky is huge and definitely had better coverage than Bridger probably due to elevation.  It was overcast and nothing really special, but we had a fun day ripping around.

We waited out a weather day and finally, finally, the rain turned to snow.  We woke up to 4" of new snow at Bridger.  Glorious!  The new snow went a really long way to improving the coverage and the resort was deserted so we had a great full day of charging around in mellow powder.  The snow was pretty heavy which really made the 4" count.  Surprisingly, Shannon proclaimed a love for schmoo (wet, heavy snow) over Rocky Mountain blower.   PNW representing.

Zoooooom

The views opened up too...

Towards the end of the day, Shannon would get a little over-ambitious while we were scouting some fresh snow and charged ahead of me only to face-plant two turns in.  With a banged up elbow, she would go on the mend for a few days... a bummer of a way to end a great pow day, but we focused on the fantastic morning.

I spent our last day in Montana back at Big Sky.  They received the same fresh snow a few days before and the sun came out to play.

I skied off the top of Lone Peak enjoying a great run down the Lenin  Chute (one of the well lit ramps on the left side of the peak in the photo below).

Shannon and I met up for lunch and she scheduled a very well earned pedicure in the afternoon so I skied until the closing bell guilt free.

We finished our time in Montana with Shannon's first trip to Outback Steakhouse.  Sure, it's a chain, but I re-discovered my love for the restaurant as well.  Bloomin' Onion?  I do believe so yes.

The next day on our way out of Bozeman, we visited the Museum of the Rockies which has a pretty interesting dinosaur exhibit (lots of triceratops types in this area apparently) and a cool planetarium where we saw a film on black holes.

And then it was time to make the journey back to Seattle!

Skiing in Wyoming - Grand Targhee and Jackson Hole

We did ski in Wyoming, but stayed in Idaho. (I figured I should give Idaho some credit, mostly for having cheap lodging.)  Anyway, shout out to Driggs, ID for providing this view of the Tetons on the way into town:

Our ski days here were at Grand Targhee and Jackson Hole. They really couldn't be more different.  Grand Targhee is a smaller, less intimidating, more local resort. Jackson Hole is steep, iconic destination skiing.  We had a great time at both places!

The perks of Grand Targhee are cheap(er) lift tickets, low crowds, and honestly great terrain. The visibility wasn't perfect the day we went, but the snow was pretty good off piste and we discovered some great areas and views of the Tetons.

Scott on run called "Teton View"

The day we chose for Jackson Hole was bluebird and we were excited to check it out!  This was a new resort for Scott and me.  We had some great skiing in the morning since the temperature was actually pretty warm and the snow was already soft.  Jackson Hole is another one of those resorts that is known for being difficult (how do I end up here?).

In the afternoon, we went for a tram lap.  The Jackson Hole tram is pretty famous (so I'm told) and the only way down is black diamond. (Don't worry, mom and dad, no problem!)

I'm pretty meh on the tram because the line is really long and they cram tons of people in it. But, the view at the top was pretty incredible, and the ski down pretty fun (and long!).

Skiing from the tram allowed us to get to this cool bowl zone (pictured). We both skied this area a couple times, although Scott took a few more laps than me.

We ended the day with some great apres ski drinks in the sunshine.  We had a great time in Wyoming, and hope we can ski here again soon!

Many More Utah Ski Days

Our time in Utah continued with four more ski days!  Since this actually happened about a month ago, Scott and I apparently have different memories. So, for your enjoyment, we have each added our own personal comments.

#1. Alta. Shannon- Alta is known for its skiers only policy, powder, and long traverses. We definitely got to experience all of these!  I enjoyed the first two, not so much the third.  We also definitely got cliffed out once.  It included a sketch side slip that I was not a fan of.  I also crashed and thought my ski was lost in the snow forever. I found it after about 10 minutes (but it felt like an hour!).

Scott - I really like Alta, despite the long traverses.  I started out this day on my groomer skis because it was a few days after the storm.  We quickly found powder stashes everywhere and I ran to the car to switch to the pow skis.  Dad and I got in a giant line for a huge traverse to the Devil's Castle zone which just opened and provided top-to-bottom boot deep powder.  Niiiiice.  We did get cliffed out a few times here, but that's what you get for chasing the pow.  Sent the smallest cliff band we found which felt very good.

Devil's Castle in the background.

Scott finds the powder at Alta!

#2. Snowbasin. Shannon- Snowbasin is about an hour away from Park City, and since Scott and I could get comp tickets (from our Stevens Pass pass), we thought we would check it out.  This was definitely one of my favorite new places.  First of all, the bathrooms and the lodges are super fancy.  I also demo-ed some different skis so I can work on picking an upgrade to my tiny, baby skis. (As Gene said, I outgrew my skis!) I tried some Volkls in the morning that were kind of the worst. The Potion-80 K2 upgrade that I had in the afternoon was much better!

Scott - Our great day at Snowbasin was filled with good snow and premium views.  This place is definitely a gem and the terrain allows for a lot of variety on each run which is ideal for a non-aggressive day.  The rocky views of the upper cirques are very unique and we enjoyed em' all day long.

And there's a moose statue! Is this pic worth 10 bucks, Dad??

After lunch at a fancy lodge. Great view!

#3. Park City Day 2. Shannon- We had a huge group headed to Park City for another day of skiing. This time it was perfect bluebird conditions, and after the snow softened up, made for pretty good skiing. Joining us were Scott's cousin, Colleen, her fiance, John and Kate and Kate made it up from Salt Lake.  One of the highlights of this day was seeing a real moose (unfortunately, the pictures weren't very good) from the chairlift!  Scott and John also climbed up to the top of Jupiter Peak, while the rest of us watched them (nervously) ski down very expertly.  At night, we all headed to Deer Valley for Empire Dining. It is a gluttonous dining experience, but delicious.

Scott - In the morning we sampled the Signature groomed black runs which  I think we normally overlook.  Very nice skiing and fun to take laps off the Crescent chair.  Taking in the views from the top of Jupiter Peak is always fun and gets my heart pounding.

We call ourselves Groomer Babes, but we actually do ski off piste. :)

John at the top of Jupiter Peak. 

Everybody met up in town for apres ski!

Yes I will eat an entire plate of melted cheese. 

#4. Snowbird Shannon- I was told Snowbird was a difficult resort, so that made me a little nervous. In the morning, the snow was very firm, making me even more cautious. As the day went on, the snow softened and we actually had a good time. I can vouch that my ankles and knees were quite sore at the end of the day (because everything is STEEP!).  This included a tram lap and a cirque lap. The cirque lap in particular, included a quite difficult traverse.  All in all, a good challenging day.

Scott - Oh, Snowbird, you hold a special place in my heart for your relentless difficulty.  You also amaze me at the ability to retain good winter snow quality on the front side eons after the last storm.  I just love this place because, as John/Colleen pointed out, you can't ski here without getting better.

You get to ride through this cool tunnel on skis!

Me, Scott, Colleen and John at the top of the tram.