Snow Ski

This Christmas week Uncle Dave and Aunt Sue used their time-share condo to get a place at Shanty Creek in northern Michigan ski country. They were very generous to invite family to come up and visit them. So Evan, Melissa, and I seized this golden opportunity and headed north.
Melissa, Aunt Sue, and the girls spent the day relaxing in a car trip around Torch Lake.
The boys learned the ropes in ski school.
Uncle Dave, Evan, and I took on the big slopes. We each dressed our respective part: Evan the laid-back snowboarder, Dave the suburban soccer dad, and me just pure awesome.
There were several ski hills in the area; however, a recent thaw left snow at only Schuss Mountain. The snow quality was poor, but the resort was nice, the slopes were big, and the rental skis were high quality and brand new.
I hadn’t been skiing in a couple of years so I took it easy. I suffered a few embarrassing spills right under the ski lift, but nothing too bad.Evan said he was going to hold back because of the snow conditions, but he still impressed me by making some big jumps. Uncle Dave was always the first one down the hill, and his skiing mentality would best be described as “attack the hill.” This was the first time he had gone skiing in around 20 years; however after only one warm-up run down a small hill he decided it was time to take on the very steep, very tall, black diamond. He managed to make it half way down on his skis. Then he slipped and traversed the next quarter of the slope on his back/stomach/head. That was the last time he attempted that run.
After skiing we headed back to the condo for some yummy home-made tacos. Thanks Dave and Sue for a very fun day-trip!