satisfied
The conditions are so-so (spring is coming on with a vengeance) – I did get the post-snow cold trend I was hoping for, and the snow that we got yesterday helped out a lot. But there was this one bump that Aunt Shirley warned me about.
I didn’t remember exactly where she said it was, but as I was barrelling down the hill towards what resembled a brown, grassy speedbump, I realized that it must be… WHIZZ CRASH FWUMP “Yeah,” I laughed, picking myself up, “That must have been it.”
At another place I fell again, forwards, and somehow my left pinkie finger ended up bearing the brunt of the impact. It still smarts, but thankfully it’s not broken. I lay on the trail throbbing in pain for some minutes. Naturally, my mp3 player kept serving me Quirks & Quarks, oblivious to the whole mess. I wasn’t really in a state to hear about changes to cod evolution based on fishing patterns just then and it took me some time to painfully manipulate the digits required to silence the earbuds tucked into my toque. It was lucky for me that there wasn’t exactly a big crowd out on the trails today; I had the luxury of blocking the way for as long as I liked to.
I picked myself up and took a few pictures – the scene shown here is what distracted me – I heard the bubbling of the brook and I was like, “Oooh, look at the pretty stream!” but I clearly wasn’t paying attention to my balance and down I went.
I fell a third time on a sharp curve, but it was no big deal. So home I come, and I’m about to change, then go across the street for some hamburger buns. “You know the store closes at 8, right?” Aw, man! So off I go, still wearing ski pants, but fortunately not the ski boots. Actually, it’s kind of a funny feeling to walk in sneakers after you’ve been walking around in ski boots for hours. Try it sometime.
I’d like to try going downhill skiing if the weather’s still good when I get back – it’s kind of fun to imagine what having some control and freedom must be like when you’re whizzing straight down a gentle forest hill on fixed tracks. For my money, real alpine skiing is far easier than trying to go downhill on Nordic skis (with any control, anyway, assuming that’s important to you). It’s like hanging onto a rope and rollerblading behind a truck on the highway.
At least I didn’t find the brook!