Utah - Day 3: Snowed in at Sundance?

Cross country skiing in the backyard during a semi snow storm:

Emily and Hunter in their awesome matching jackets.

Getting their gear on.

It's not everyday you have 2.5 feet of snow in your backyard.

Chris and I went after Hunt and Em got back.

Chris is the one on the left.  I'm in the outerwear to the right.

I wasn't going out there without protection.  The wind was blowing pretty hard and of course snow was flying.  So I put on our all gear and some borrowed.  My Dad taught me to be prepared.  And yes, I offered some to Chris, but he's more hard core than I am and declined my offer.  That's when I put it all on.

Long legs louise took some time to get his bearings.

It was a little tough and his feet are size 27 so that makes things hard.

I wasn't much help and evidently neither was the photographer we had.  (Who was it?  Emily or Allison??)

Later, back on his feet:

(Me to the left, Chris on the right)

We raced:

At this point, we were racing backwards.  I was winning.

Just kidding.  He was beating me by a long shot.  Those long legs have a wide stride.  You can actually see where I was cutting the corner off the track and going in for the kill.

He still won.

In case you were wondering where we were, here's the view from the road:

Casa Utah.  Because of all the gorgeous snow, the sky was a bit cloudy.  Evidently, when it's clear, you can see mountains and mountains behind the house.

Even with the foggy sky, it's still so beautiful!  And look at the house... 

nestled in the snow our warm hide-a-way.

5 feet of snow had fallen by this point.  The crazy part?  People were still driving!  And not just big SUVs like we had - they would drive little cars on the road right by our house.  Two inches of snow at home makes us stay locked up in our houses for days.

Utah has big equipment just for days like this:

Running day and night so our world didn't stop.

Snow wouldn't stop us!

The girls and I ran off to Sundance for some fantastic night skiing.

Allison and Emily

Don't they look just like gorgeous snow bunnies?

Sundance is smaller and has one lift.  That is totally fine when you consider one run there is like 5 back in NC.

Pre-blizzard.

Middle of blizzard:

Yep, the snow storm that was brewing earlier came full force while we skied.

Refreshment break:

So, you know how ski boots have a tongue in them like regular shoes?  They do...  It's cushioned more than (let's call them lips) the harder outer lips where you buckle the boots together.  This is embarrassing, but I'm going to tell you - somehow, the tongue in my boot was half in and half out.  During the whole first run, I went down the mountain with part of my chin on cushion and the other half on sharp hard rubber.

By the time we were down, I was almost crying.

I did go back up for more runs, but Allison and Emily looked like professionals compared to me.

One time I fell in the middle of a downhill slope.  This guy felt sorry for me so he helped me collect my gear that had been thrown all over the hill.  It took a bit because I couldn't stop laughing.  That guy was very nice.  I am thankful for him being there.  I could still be there if it wasn't for him.  Nahhh, Em and Al would eventually come looking for me.

I could blame the snow blizzard we were in...  but I won't.  I was done after that run.

The girls went up for "one" more while I stayed back.  Only to learn that no one was able to enter or leave the resort.

ARE YOU JOKING?

"It could be another two hours."

The boys were in route to us and had been sent back the other direction.  The cafe, the store, the sitting areas around were all full.  There were people everywhere.  We weren't going anywhere and that was made clear.  An accident was blocking the way and the blizzard was only getting worse.

We were stranded.

So I did what I would normally do - shopped and made friends with the locals.  One lady told me we might have to spend the night if they didn't let us go sooner than later.  The roads would only get more impassable.  Then she told me where the good ice skating was and how she had just been to a documentary film.

Then the word came - the roads were opening back up.  If we wanted to leave, we better go now.  We decided we definitely wanted to see our husbands (and babies) again so the end of our skiing experience had come.  All gear was gathered and we trekked back to the car.  We took one last picture to remember the trip:

Then traveled for 4 hours to eat Mexican with the crew.  (A 40ish minute drive feels like 4 hours when you're holding your breath which we all did.)

Yummy, warm, and delicious Mexicano food awaited us.

We missed our people.

And they missed us.

Signature father and daughter face.

Day three - the end.