Back "home"

After three long days of travel from Russia, I finally made it back to the States. This time, I am not landing in my actual home of Lake Placid, N.Y. but another one of my “homes.” Every year I become more and more nomadic and have evolved to find “home” where my favorite people and family are. If I didn’t, traveling and being away from Lake Placid would be very hard.

The US feels normal of course, but the first few hours back I felt the shock of American culture. It is just bigger, louder, busier, and faster than what I have been experiencing the past few months. I did, however, just buy some Goldfish and they taste pretty good.

This week I will get to hang out with my brother Lars, sister Kara and Dad who live in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Here they are while at a competition together in Telluride, CO. (I can imagine that one of them pummeled the other into a snow bank after this photo.) Both Kara and Lars compete in Freestyle Mogul skiing – better defined to as ‘bumps and jumps’ to the non-skier. They ski for the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, an organization similar to the Maine Winter Sports Center in the County.

Kara on the podium.

Kara mid-Hele (a full spin) on the first of two jumps down the mogul run. The objective is to ski as fast as you can through the moguls from Start to Finish and to execute two perfect jumps. Her result is a combination of course time (speed), air (the jump) and turns (technique in the moguls), which is decided by a panel of judges at the bottom of the run.

Lars and the Rocky Mountains.



I’ll report back next week from Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. It is a smaller town out side of Vancouver – the 2010 Winter Olympic city.