things to be thankful for.
I know, it’s a little early for a saccharine collection of words about how lucky I am.
But I’m going to do it anyway, because this weekend I had a great trip – and it reminded me that yes, I really AM pretty lucky. On Saturday morning I drove over Santiam Pass to Bend and went for a wonderful ski at Mount Bachelor – so I’m thankful for snow, and skiing, and being healthy and able to enjoy the outdoors!
It was the first day that the nordic center had groomed, and the roughly three feet of snow hadn’t quite packed down all the way. There were no tracks, but I slapped some Rode Super Blue on my skis and set off down the trail. Slip, slip, slip. I wasn’t sure if it was my technique or the wax, so I covered it up with Swix Extra Blue. I slipped a bit more but eventually either I skied the wax in or I started shifting my weight, and by the end of my hour-long exploration of the trail system I was striding comfortably – or as comfortably as I could at 6,000 feet of elevation.
The snow was so beautiful, so perfect, so abundant, that I couldn’t keep a shit-eating grin off my face.
When I finished my ski, I drove back down into Bend and over to my friend Anna’s house. Thing number two I am super thankful for: amazing, generous, big-hearted friends all around the country and the world.
I was pretty much a trainwreck after a long and crazy week, so I’m a little bit afraid that Anna was like, oh man, Chelsea is so boring, this is a terrible visit, but we did have fun. We cooked! We went out to a microbrewery! (We are in Oregon after all) We watched a little bit of a really lame rail jam! We rented a terrible comedy! And mostly we caught up.
On Sunday, I caught a ride up to the mountain with Anna and the middle school team she coaches at Mount Bachelor Sports Education Foundation. In exchange for the ride, I helped coach. Anna decided that she’d send me with the faster kids, which was great because I wanted to do some actual skiing and get some exercise, but tough because, well, enthusiastic 13-year-olds can really wear out a sea-level twenty-something.
It was a lot of fun though. The kids were great. We did a fairly long ski, then worked a little bit on no-poles skiing and did some relays. Anna and I jumped on relay teams, and the highlight of the races might have been when I got tangled up and fell face-first into the snow. It took me a while to get back up and my team finished last as a result, but I’m pretty sure that they were so entertained that they weren’t too upset about it.
Once again, the sun was shining and it was the kind of amazing, warm day that you only see in the spring in New England. I felt so lucky and so happy to be there enjoying it. It was tough to drive back over the pass to Eugene and leave all that bright white snow behind, but I knew that I’d be back in the next few weeks, and tried to let that be good enough for now.
Me (red tights) in the relay races during Sunday’s middle school practice. Look at that corduroy! Thanks to Anna and to Matt Plummer for photos.
