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Day 3. I woke up as the sun was making the front of clouds on the eastern horizon orange, but i didn't get up early enough to get any great sunrise shots. By the time i packed up and drove over to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, the sun was up in full force, but there was also a nice half moon perched directly above the lighthouse (from the right angle).
This day started out well, if slow-paced. I had a 20-minute wait for the ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke, but then there was a wait for road construction (bulldozing drifted sand off of the roads) on the island and i stopped for ten minutes at a beach entry point to take some pics, all of which made me miss the ferry to Cedar Island (essentially the mainland) by about fifteen minutes. That left me nearly three hours so i unicycled around Ocracoke and found a nice little nature trail that came out on a small beach. On the way back into town, i tried a different road and came across a Taco/Burrito truck, so i bought some lunch. The woman running it was friendly and talkative (i was the only customer) and it was a happy accident to come across it. The next ferry was two-and-a-half hours, so i didn't get going down the road again until almost four. I decided to drive for an hour, then look for a camping spot. Hah.
I picked out a state park on the map which was a bit off my route, but was the only place that showed camping. There were actually two parks next to each other and it was a long slow slog through Wilmington, NC down to the first park, which was closed, and the second park, which was also closed. The sun had set by this point, so i decided to find a private RV campground. There was one a few miles away and i drove in, but there was no one in the office. I buzzed a couple of times, but no one showed, so i turned the camper around and left. As i was driving out, i heard someone shout, but i couldn't tell if it was someone shouting at me or not. I glanced back and didn't see anyone.
That whole diversion ate up an hour or so and most of the remaining daylight. I was not in a good mood, but headed down towards South Carolina, where there were some state parks. The GPS did a very poor job of routing me to the first one, but it was closed. The next one was also closed. Finally i found a National Forest access area with camping about halfway through South Carolina. The area was open, but the campground was closed. By this time, it was almost midnight, so i parked in the lot outside the campground and went to bed.
Oh yeah, and at some point on the drive, as it was getting dark and starting to rain, the passenger-side window stopped working. It was only down about two inches, but it was noisy and letting rain in. I stopped at a gas station and duct-taped it up. Grrr...
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Day 4. I woke up a little after 5:30 and drove south in the dark. Sometime after dawn the GoPro mounted on the front windshield stopped working, so i didn't get a record of this trip. It was long and mostly interstate highways. As i approached Tampa, it got super rainy and windy with tornado warnings. The last hour of driving turned into nearly two hours, but i finally pulled in to Oscar Scherer State Park just south of Sarasota. There's a stste park that's about five minutes frrom the ultimate fields, but it was booked solid, so this was the next closest, at about forty minutes away.
I found out when i got in that i owe $70 for uniforms, a fact not communicated to me since i assumed that the $320 that i already paid covered it. Not happy.
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Tournament, day 1. I caught one goal, got scored on once, and had four completions—no turnovers. I also missed a couple of D's by inches.
I got to the tournament site early and met all the Chronic guys, plus my friend Ian, who got me on this team. We started the day with a bye, which kinda sucked because we spent 45 minutes getting talked at by one of the captains and then doing too many warm-up drills. Bleah. We won our first game against Age Against The Machine in a very strong upfield/downfield wind. I was on the starting point, playing marker in a 3-man cup, but the other team was going down wind, so they scored. Didn't play too many more points, but caught the winning goal. Our next game was against TriAged and they took half 8-6, but then we scored four straight to win the time-capped game 10-8. The last game was against Alchemy (my friend Jamal from Santa Fe was playing with them) and we played horribly, losing 15-9 i think. I had my only forehand pass in this game, and it was upwind as well, so that felt nice, but i also got scored on because i was a little behind my guy and he got served up a perfect pass that i couldn't catch up to.
Dinner was at Siesta Key Oyster Bar and it was just OK. I had a burger and fries. I walked down the street and got an ice cream cone after dinner.
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Tournament, day 2. We started the day playing Great Grand Master Flash in quarterfinals and losing to them ? to ?. I started the day by getting scored on on the first point, rrgh.We then beat Recycled Ultimate in a come-from-behind win 13-12. I had a few more touches, bringing my total for the day to one assist (goal thrown) 4 more completions, and a not-quite completion. My throw made it to my teammate's hands, but he bobbled it, then dropped it, so technically not a completion. So 5 for 6, with one of them being a push pass! I didn't get any D's though, which was a disappointment. Chronic opted to forfeit the last game, scheduled to be against TriAged again, which bummed me out, but oh well. We sat around and watched DoG beat Surly in the final 14-12.
I went back to the camp ground, showered, then went over to Siesta Key beach and met up with Ian and a few other players who weren't flying out until Monday. We went to a better restaurant than the night before, then ice cream, then i came back to the camper to decide on my route north.
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Vacation, day 7. Left the park at about sunrise and headed north through Sarasota and up the western coast. Ended up at Little Ocmulgee State Park near McRae, Georgia, which is probably the fanciest state park i've ever seen. It has a hotel and a golf course.
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Vacation, day 8. I left the state park and headed due east to drive down the road where my father lived for a year when he has a boy. I drove across the river where he learned to swim but didn't see any of the old structures that he described near where he lived. But it was nice to see the area. From there i continued north on US-221 and ended up at Kings Mountain State Park in South Carolina just south of the North Carolina border. After i set up camp, ispent some time dismantling the passenger-side door on the FJ to see if i could get the window to roll up. I couldn't, so i taped it back up again.
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Vacation, day 9. Another day of back roads, with a little interstate thrown in. I stopped at the Blue Ridge Cafe in Floyd, VA for some lunch. There weren't any state parks along my route in the afternoon so i headed for Hidden valley Campground in the Washington & Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. Quiet off-the-road campground with a few other campers there, but no electric hookups or cell reception.
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Vacation, day 10. Up US-220 through Pennsylvania to the lake. I stopped at the store and Ann gave me a key to the other house, which had heat and internet, unlike our house, where everything was shut off. When i pulled in though, i ran the Scamp into the breezeway overhang, breaking off a vent hood off the Scamp and ripping some boards off the house. Rats.
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Vacation, day 11. Spent a lazy day at the "castle" by myself watching it snow.
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Vacation, day 12.
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Vacation, day 13.
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Vacation, day 14. Drove home.
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Home. Snow. An award.
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Farm.
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First day of the season. It was too busy to get my pass in the morning, so i got a comp ticket for the day, then went back to Resort Services later and got my Vail Employee pass. I rode on my old snowboard that day, then switched the bindings over to the new board that evening.
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First day on the new board. It's very nice.
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I wasn't planning on riding today, but we got about 7" of new snow, so i went out in the morning. At about noon, i drove in to Rutland to have a little clip on one of the back brakes of my truck replaced. It took over two hours. When i got outta there, i quickly stopped by the house, loaded up the truck, and drove down to Providence.
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Providence. Daddy and i went to see The Crimes of Grindelwald at the Providence Place IMax theater. After the show we stopped at Starbucks for Daddy and i went across the street to Books on the Square and bought some graphic novels. I told the clerk that i had planned to buy one of the books on Amazon but decided to buy them at a local store since i'd be in town. That made her very happy.
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Thanksgiving. Pies.
I posted a tweet about the previews i saw the day before and it became my most liked and retweeted tweet.
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Drove back to Vermont, then went up to the farm to get veggies and take pictures.
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First day on the job for the winter season. I was supposed to be in a "train the trainers" clinic all day, but i got pulled out after lunch to teach a lesson. It was a 10-person level-1 lesson which i co-taught with Wayne.
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Drizzly foggy day. No morning lessons, but when i came back for the 10:30 private line-up. i had a morning group lesson that was late. It was one woman from Brazil and she picked it up really well. No afternoon lessons at all and i went home by 2:00.
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Even foggier today. The top of the mountain was crusted over but the lower third was still soft. No lessons. Wayne and i rode around for a bit, then i get let go after 11:30 line-up.
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Lots of heavy wet snow! Much more than expected. I came out to brush off my truck and found that one of the trees in my front yard had lost a few more branches. My neighbor was out there, chainsawing up the limbs that had landed in the street. Slow drive to work, then i hiked up to the Sugar House and rode down to the Sachem Quad, since the Sunburst Six wasn't running. I waited there for about twenty minutes and then Ski Patrol said t would be another twenty before they loaded, so i took a loop on the A Quad and got stuck in thigh-deep snow halfway down. After line-up (no snowboard lessons—one ski lesson and zero ski instructors), Wayne and i hiked up to the Sachem Quad and found out as we were getting on that the Sunburst was running. One super-slow cold chairlift ride later, we came down Lower World Cup to the base for 10:30 line-up. Again no lessons, so Andrew and Katie joined us and we got on the bubble chair. Halfway up it stopped and after a couple minutes, the supervisors got a radio call that the whole mountain had lost power. After another five or ten minutes, the lift started up again (on generator power) and we made it to the top, took one great run through deep powder down Nor'easter, then the mountain basically shut down so everyone went home. The power was on at my house.
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Went up to the farm to get pics while it was snowing.
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No morning lessons. Wayne and i rode around most of the morning, with Katie joining us later. I had an afternoon lesson of a blue-level woman who needed some confidence building on steeper terrain.
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