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ashleyd / December 20, 2012

Vermont Skication

This year, my holidays are split into three parts:

Vermont Skication with my aunt and uncle
Family Christmas in Vermont with the Rudolph, Diamond and Myer families
St. Croix with friends

Since Tuesday evening, I’ve enjoyed lots of quality time with my Aunt Rusty and Uncle Randy both at home and on the slopes.

Yesterday, after a quick 4 mile run and weights session at their local gym, my uncle and I headed to the Bromley Mountain for a few hours of skiing. While Bromley is definitely smaller than Stratton, where we normally ski, it was a great place to get back in the groove after 9 months off skis. The weather was overcast and mild, reaching 35 degrees by mid afternoon.

I didn’t want to get too warm so I only wore the OUC Half Marathon technical t-shirt and Nike running tights, which were unlined, under my ski pants and ski jacket. I also discovered that Pro Compression socks make awesome ski socks!

We did a few runs together warming up before he headed for the black diamonds and I spent the day skiing solo on the green trails. Oddly enough, I really enjoy skiing on my own. I love taking in the sights, enjoying the cold, fresh air, and focusing on practicing the skills I’ve learned during the past two years of lessons.

Bromley randomly had really cute, wildlife cartoon signs along all the trails.

After a day of skiing I was pretty exhausted. Therefore, since I was in charge of dinner last night, I went with the simplest thing I know how to make that always delivers: roasted chicken. I followed my normal perfect roast chicken recipe and made a salad and reheated the previous night’s roasted root vegetables while the chicken cooked.

The chicken turned out wonderfully and both my aunt and uncle enjoyed it along with a glass of Chardonnay while watching Road to Perdition.

This morning, since the weather looked so nice when we woke up, Uncle Randy and I headed over to Stratton Mountain, which is about 15 minutes from the house, for a morning of skiing.

Stratton had four of their main lifts running, including the Gondola which goes all the way to the top. After doing 2 runs on the smaller, shorter greens I decided I was ready to conquer my fear and head up the gondola. Last year I did this run with Margaret a few times after 2 days of skiing. Today, I rode the gondola to the top on my own and was so excited when I stepped out. The top of the mountain was gorgeous, above the fog, and looked like a winter wonderland!

I spent the next 2 hours doing the long green and blue runs from the top, making friends along the way with a few other skiers of a similar skill level. We would follow each other down the mountain and then chat on our way back up the gondola. It felt good to realize just how far I’ve come in two years of skiing. The beautiful sights didn’t hurt either! Check out all the snow and blue sky!

After four great hours of skiing we headed back home for an afternoon of decorating. I hope I get to come back and see Frosty at least once more this trip. But, if the weather doesn’t allow, these 2 half days of skiing have been the perfect dose of winter to get me into the holiday spirit!

Your turn: Are you a skier? If so do you prefer the trails that are sharp and fast or do you prefer winding your way down the mountain?

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ashleyd / December 31, 2011

Cozumel Day 2 in Pictures

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ashleyd / June 4, 2011

Biking around Bermuda

Okay, so here’s a bit of advice for all you gentlemen out there. DON’T expect your wife to enjoy a 24 mile intense bike ride when you’re on a tropical island. Trust me…that is NOT the reason that she’s there with you.

She would much rather be sunbathing on the beach. All of those facts notwithstanding, I think our ride, though a little excessive, allowed us to see more of Bermuda than we would have through any other means.

We awoke at 8AM (8AM…really Ash?) as we had to get to the beach to start enjoying ourselves as quickly as possible.

The view from our villa was amazing in the morning sun!

I like to shower, shave, make some tea or coffee and ease my way into the day whenever I’m afforded the luxury. Another point of compromise – she let me shower and shave but I was rushed to the beach with the promise of breakfast and coffee on the beach.

I’ve never been a big fan of eating on the beach (I hate it when sand gets all over everything) but in the interest of compromise, we ordered our food from the restaurant overlooking the beach and brought it down to our beach chairs. The menu consisted of hot tea, egg whites, some grapefruit and rye toast. I added a little ham to mine for an awesome egg sandwich.

After a few hours on the beach, we decided that it was time to explore the island. So far, Ash has been a little freaked out by the prospect of letting me loose on a moped, so we opted for bicycles.

On went our helmets and away we went. Just a little tid bit for those of you who have never been to Bermuda: IT IS HILLY. It was also 1:30 and we hadn’t had lunch so our goal was to head straight to Henry VIII restaurant for a nice fish sandwich.

We passed some amazing coves along the way and the views from the road were fantastic.

It was a little further than we hoped but after 45 minutes, we made it and, despite the fact that the restaurant was empty, were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food. Ash and I split a bowl of the famous Bermudian fish chowder and we both had the grouper sandwich. The tarter sauce tasted home made and we could definitely taste the British influence in the cooking.

Our trek continued and we decided that we’d ride all the way to the old British Royal Navy Dockyard.

We didn’t know exactly how far it was but we figured that it would be the best way to see the whole west side of the island. After we got home, we found out that it was 13.4 miles which would have been a great distance had we not decided upon the next leg of our journey.

We took the ferry from the Navy Dockyard to Hamilton where we continued our ride.

The ride around Hamilton to the north side of the island was great until we found ourselves in rush hour traffic which was DEFINITELY not fun. Bermuda is a British Crown Colony and follows British traffic law including driving on the left side of the road, using language such as “give way” rather than yield, and having roundabouts instead of intersections. The latter was what caused the real stress as trying to maneuver the busiest round-about on the island during rush hour whilst simultaneously trying to figure out how to get back to the resort created a little friction between us. To add insult to injury, we got lost (or I got us lost) and added an additional 3 miles to our ride at the worst possible moment. The 11 miles that we did after the ferry ride put us at almost 24.5 miles for the day.

All Ashley wanted after the long ride was some yoga time in our villa.

I don’t think my bride liked me very much after this trek.

Within minutes, we rushed to the bar at the beach for some rum and soda (that was my order) and a vodka-loda (Ash isn’t very fond of rum so the made a pina colada with vodka instead of rum). We swam, laid out on the beach and finished our drinks before heading back to the room to shower and change for the evening. We ate dinner here at the resort’s restaurant, Sea Breeze. It is a highly recommended sushi and tapas restaurant.