Winter… Oh Winter… Where For Art Thou Winter?

This has been the weirdest winter I’ve seen in AGES!
The temperatures are hovering in the lower to mid 40° range.
There’s no snow on the ground in Zion.
I haven’t had to put my Tahoe in 4wd in weeks.
I’m still wearing capris.
And I only need to wear my winter coat when I go out early in the morning
(which is NEVER)
and at night when it’s dark.
Otherwise I just wear a jacket.

Now that I think about it, I probably could still have my bedroom window cracked open a bit
so I can have fresh air while I sleep.
I’ll get right on that.

Well, other than praying, I guess there’s not an awful lot we can do about the weather.
But we can go out and enjoy the beautiful blue skies and sunshine.
And we can enjoy the little bit of snow that’s in the mountains.

For New Year’s, Flynn, Scooter and I headed up to YNP and hit our favorite skiing trail.

The day started off a bit bumpy:
Scooter took a LONG time learning how to tie shoes.
And he doesn’t like doing it.
He prefers it if we do it for him, which is not the most convenient thing to do…
…tying shoes for a 9.5 year old.
And since we’re mean parents we WON’T do it for him.

This is the result of Scooter tying his own ski boot…OOPS!

Okay.
We got quite a laugh out of that one.
And yes, I helped him tie it back on.
I’m not THAT mean!

It was a beautiful day
and we really enjoyed spending time together.
I took this picture, which has turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of Flynn
EVER!
Isn’t he HANDSOME!?!?
And I love the reflection of the snowy hill in his glasses.

We weren’t in a big hurry.
We stopped to enjoy the scenery
and
whack some snow off the tree branches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This trail has two loops on it: an upper and lower.
Most skiers were taking the “lower loop” and we since we tend to be people who
“take the road less traveled”
decided to ski the upper loop.
It hadn’t been groomed yet, so we went quite a distance breaking the trail.
Unfortunately, someone who had taken the upper loop previously
(we think it might have been a ranger)
didn’t follow the trail and created his/her own trail.
We followed this trail for a while and when we came to a crossroad, Flynn said,
“I think the trail is supposed to go this way,”
What should we do?
Continue on the course we were on, which would lead us to parts unknown,
or veer right and eventually end up where the upper trail meets the lower?
With hardly any hesitation, we decided to follow the trail we were on
-- to parts unknown --
and after dodging branching and skiing over fallen tree trunks,
(an obvious sign we weren’t on a real trail)
we ended up on the road in Yellowstone.
Surprise. Surprise.

By this time Scooter was tired, so it was easier to take off the skis and just walk to our vehicle
instead of skiing back into the forest to reconnect with the trail.

This next picture is not artistically impressive or even interesting to most people.
But to me, it’s the portal into THE BEST and HAPPIEST place in the world!

And a great place to start off
2012!