KILLINGTON !!!

YEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!! That was fun. We needed to get out of Dodge for a few days and Presidents Day weekend was the opportunity. High Ridge condos D-6B. Perfect for our needs and only 1/4 mile from the Snowshed base lodge.

FRIDAY
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picked up Carrie at school 3pm. drive drive drive. check in 9:30pm. Boy was it WINDY and very COLD. I had 1 beer and crashed soon thereafter. Carrie never had a chance. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

SATURDAY
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Up at 5:45am. Found breakfast at Johnny's Pancake House adjacent to the Comfort Inn 7am sharp. Best breakfast in town. Remember Bart the Bulldog.

8am many lifts not running due to high winds but the Ramshead quad was working and those first few runs on Header and Timberline were simply incredible! Fresh snow - pretty much empty mountain. I guess people don't like to get up early. Good for us.
It simply poured sunshine all day and I got only a single picture before the camera's battery's died. Mah. (but it's a good one!)

But oh the skiing was so nice and the hot sun offset the biting wind which did calm a bit in the pm after a nice lunch at Bear Mtn Lodge. We did our only black diamond of the weekend that morning on Mouse Run. Carrie handled it like a champ but what can I say ... I was not ready and froze up. Yikes. That sucked. Later I took a head-first dive into the snow after getting particularly aggressive on a bumpy stretch of blue mountain. Lost a ski but no worse for the wear otherwise.
So we covered everything from Ramshead to Bear and never quite made it back to Ramshead, finishing up in the greens Learn-To-Ski area. In actuality that was fine. The legs were done.

After cruising the strip a bit we decided on Charitys for dinner and it was great. Nice rustic place. Saw this nut-job there.

Daredevil Ted Ferguson.

Then we partied all night at the Pickle Barrel and the Wobbly Barn. Carrie puked in the snow and I got on stage with the band for a guitar solo.

(Or maybe we just went back to the condo and crashed. I don't recall.)

SUNDAY
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Up at 5:45am. Packed the car. Back to Johnny's for an encore. Had the best damned corned beef hash EVER. That Johnny can cook it up! My God!

Sunday's skiing was incredible. Low 20's but this time no wind at all. Better yet it started snowing as we headed out of the lodge and it NEVER STOPPED. Big beautiful flakes floated down all day. A winter wonderland. Adding to the 6 or so inches from overnight snowfall the conditions were ripe. It was a tad more crowded but with a little smarts and patience you could avoid lift lines. Again we did it all. Ramshead, K-1, SkyePeak, Bear, and even made it over to Sunrise where it was just so calm and serene. The ski-out condos directly on the Sundog trail have to be the best ski lodges on Killington. The views are incredible.

That is where our next group condo has to be!

We met some interesting characters from New Hampshire at SkyePeak Lodge and had a few good laughs before skiing the afternoon away. Right after lunch I hit some kind of weird groove - thinking about my shins and looking farther down the slope - and really started to ski better. Hell, when Carrie says I am "looking good" then I must be doing something right!

Great Eastern was the slope of the day as the extra snow made it perfectly greenish-blue. But really it was again Ramshead that took the prize. We finished up where we started the week-end on Header and Timberline and the Timberline terrain park. Wow.

We drove to Glen Falls and crashed at a Red Roof that appeared to have been erected the night before. Very nice. Ordered in some beef-n-broccoli with egg rolls and it was night-night time for Carrie while I watched Donald Trump can another Apprentice-wanna-be.

MONDAY
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Checked out by 7:30am and started looking for a local diner on Rt 9. If you blinked you missed Peter's Diner. We didn't miss it and what a treat. It was as if they were running a combo antique store / diner. Not an item in that establishment was less than 40 years old except maybe the waitress. Best home fries you could ask for. And if you don't like your food Peter will cover himself like a champ, "NOT MY FAULT!". Peter's Diner get 9 stars. Could've been a 10 but the Coffee Princess didn't get topped over frequently enough for her liking :-)

Home by 1pm to the little B. Gutters are still up. For now.