We Made It!

Mission accomplished friends!

The great eight skied 22 miles across Yellowstone National Park on Saturday and made it- in one piece, a few bloody feet, and still smiling!

I have lots of pictures and will give you the play by play this evening.

The highlights: we drove 2 hours to Big Sky at 4am Saturday in a white out with blowing snow and ice packed roads (asking ourselves "what the bleep are we getting ourselves into?"). Standing in the dark, waiting for the sun to come up the snow stopped and we were skiing at 6:58am sharp!

Thirteen (13), yes thirteen hours later we arrived at our cars in Mammoth. We really didn't stop the entire time. We had what we like to call "the happy donut" following us the whole day. We had sun most of the day, not too much wind, and an occasional flurry.

It could not have been a better day or group of friends and we feel fantastic. My trusty Suunto watch / heart rate monitor revealed that we were moving for exactly 13 hours . . . My average heart rate was about 130 and we burned 5,861 calories! That should mean I am 1.5 pounds lighter, but I am not sure I see the new svelte body yet... Truly though, I have never felt better... Pushing your mind and body like that was a really great experience for me! The jury is still out as to whether it will be an annual trip or not???

Everyone was delirious, exhausted and a little sore at the end, but we went straight to Chico Hot Springs for more beer (the first beers were waiting in our cold cars at the end of the trip) and soaked in the miraculous waters.

Slept like babies on Nyquil. . . .

Sunday morning we joined Jacqueline and Grif at The Beanery for Breakfast and to do a mini celebration for J's b-day. Then, Laurie and Loni and I left for Big Sky to shuttle our cars back.

Peter left yesterday afternoon with Shawn to drive to Denver to pick up our new truck. He arrived in Denver at 6:30 am today... They "took turns napping" in the car and drove straight through - crazy boys.

Hopefully they will be back this evening and won't be bothered too much by the snow storms all around us.

Loni and Marni stayed the night. We did the usual - watch a movie, cook a fund dessert and they do some laundry.

Today we awoke to about 6-8 inches of THICK, heavy snow covering all of town... absolutely gorgeous. Had this happened tomorrow I would have thought for sure it was an April Fool's joke. March 31st? Really?

Picture of the epic trip, new truck and our snowy morning coming ASAP!