Hello all!

Greetings in this, our sixth week of social distancing – or whatever you want to call it. I call it boring but that is more about my state of mind than anything else. All considered, we are pretty fortunate up here. We have lots of space to move around. Sure, we are still a bit hemmed in by snow but that is disappearing fast. At this rate we will be snow free by, I don’t know, June maybe? One can dream.

In keeping with me having had enough of the white stuff for this year, I present my last snow scene until next winter. The inspiration was taken from a day the previous year when the snow was equally patchy as now. My dear friend Wendy was visiting and we were heading out towards the Vista Trail on our Nordic skis when the wind whipped up and some pretty threatening clouds started closing in. We almost peed ourselves laughing at our spastic efforts to get to the car, fast.

Thinking back has me musing on how “normal” things were then. Wendy and family was supposed to visit again this past March.  it felt like such an over-reaction to cancel her visit.  Now I am starting to ease in to the possibility of not being able to travel to visit my old friends (or anywhere else) for awhile. It also has me musing on how, in the last six weeks, Nordic skiing has enjoyed a popularity never before seen at this resort. It was like the sexy, exciting bad boy (Alpine skiing) left town and everybody thought “hmm, well, Nordic IS nice and dependable – and looks good in those tight little stretchy pants so why not?” I fully expect poor Nordic will be quickly kicked to the curb again come next season. If there is (knock on wood) a next season. There absolutely will be though.

So here is to Nordic skiing – keeping us sane these past few weeks. Also, here is to the snow finally going away so we can hit the trails with our bikes. Finally, cheers to moving on to snow-free painting… and the motivation to actually paint when instinct tells me to binge read fantasy novels and eat a bag of Oreos instead.

Wishing you a good Sunday,