It's the Journey

It's not the destination, it's the journey... A while back, a friend of mine said that, and it really stuck with me.

I'm a lifelong skier (40+ years).  I've skied all over the Midwest and West as a teenager with my family, then with my own family as an adult.  Back in my younger days, I learned to ski at Buck Hill, since it was close to home.  In the mid-70's, my sister and I received a Christmas gift of 5 ski lessons from our parents.  We we're skaters; my Sister a figure skater and I a hockey player -- having learned on second-hand double-runners when we were just 4 years old at the rink across from my Grandmothers' house in St. Peter, MN.

Ahhhhhhhh, the smell of wet wool mittens on a cast iron warming house stove in the morning...

You know, it was a big deal back then to ski, and not everyone got the chance.  In retrospect, lift tickets were only $10-15, but that was a lot of money in that day and age.  This was after Stein Eriksen and leather Henkel ski boots -- the dawn of when Wayne Wong and "Hotdog" skiing were the rage.  If you remember Jet Turns, Ballet Skiing, orange Olin Mark IV's and Lange Boots famous poster proclaiming "Keep Those Tips Up", then you're getting warmer.

Well, our first ski lesson was in mid-January, and as I recall, the temperature was approaching zero with a wind chill nearing -50°F below zero.  No matter.  We bundled up and were ready and raring to go.  The ski instructor, surprisingly, was not deterred by the weather, perhaps being infected with our googley, wild-eyed enthusiasm. 

After that first lesson, I knew I wanted to be a skier.