Skiing Snackers

I’ve lived in northern Gilpin County for twelve years out of the sixteen years I’ve been in Colorado. I lived in New Jersey for seventeen years. Despite the wind, the snow, the wind, the cold, and the wind, I love living here. Prior to moving here I lived close to the beach in California. At that time, weekends were great – volleyball, surfing, cookouts with friends, and bar hopping all night long. Things are a little different now. Now I have a lovely wife and two cute kids. Weekends are still great – begging the kids to get dressed for skiing, dragging the screaming kids away from the television to go skiing, going skiing, coming home to eat dinner, dragging the screaming kids away from the t.v. to go to bed, and bar hopping all night long. O.K., the kids don’t scream THAT much… and I don’t go bar hopping anymore. It’s hard to “hop” from Roy’s to the Stage Stop to the PI in the middle of the winter.

We’re pretty lucky to have Eldora so close. To be at any ski area within 20-30 minutes usually requires a 2^nd home in Summit County or a slope side condo in Steamboat. I know Eldora is just a tad small compared to the bigger destination ski resorts like Vail or Beaver Creek, but I’ll take small and close any day. I think of it this way – on those amazing powder days that we get at Eldora, I can be making my 2^nd or 3^rd run while some folks are still working their way up the Georgetown hill on I-70, loudly cursing the two-wheel drive sedan in front of them that just turned sideways. Better yet, when the family goes skiing, the drive is short (always a plus!) and if the weather is miserable when we get to the parking lot, there’s no feeling of “oh crap what a waste of time!” when the kids stage mutiny and refuse to get out of the car.

The kids are always hungry, so there are some snack prerequisites to satisfy before we leave the house. If there are no snacks packed, the kids don’t go skiing. That’s their rule. It seems reasonable to me. I’m the same way when I go skiing. As much as I’d like to tell you that we’re a totally wholesome household, only stocking good, nutritious foods, the truth is that we have plenty of yummy junk food. We’ve got Goldfish, fruit leather, Girl Scout cookies (TONS of Girl Scout cookies!), pretzels, chips, etc. Sometimes it seems that the kids are going skiing just for the snacks. Of course, what good are snacks without beverages? The obvious drink of choice is hot chocolate. That requires cups, spoons, a thermos full of scalding hot water (you can see where this is going), and a couple of packets of hot chocolate mix.

The fun part is mixing everything together without spilling it. That never happens. Either I get hot water in places that hot water doesn’t belong, or I get a fine cloud of coco mix drifting through the truck cab, coating everything like Rhino Liner (the stuff you permanently spray on your truck bed to keep it from rusting). Weeks later, when I clear out all the kids booster seats to go hunting or fishing, I’ll find the school of goldfish crushed in between the seats, a thousand little orange pieces held together by bigger pieces of fruit leather and the cream filling from countless Girl Scout cookies. (Did I mention the metric ton of Girl Scout cookies I have in my pantry?) Usually mixed together with the goldfish/fruitleather/cookies will be some hot chocolate dust and a few “mystery” crumbs that not even the detectives on CSI could figure out what they were.

Someday, when my son or daughter is older and they buy their first new car, I’m going to tell them to come pick me up so we can go skiing – at Vail. I’m going to sit in the back seat for the two hour ride with a basket full of snacks. When they’re not looking, I’m going smash everything into microscopic little bits and shove it in between the seats, occasionally pouring hot chocolate on top, to make sure it gets all the down to the bottom. If they ever clean the backseat (I doubt that) and ask me what happened, I’ll just give them the same blank “I don’t know” stare, shrug my shoulders, and pretend like I have no idea what they’re talking about. Perhaps then they’ll understand the joy that I now enjoy going skiing with them at Eldora with all those yummy snacks.