The players; daughter Kathleen, son in law Jim, grandsons Conor, Patrick, Daniel. Last week Daniel asked me to come to his third grade class to talk about my job with NASA and space. They are studying the solar system. Of course I agreed.

I am snowed in. My Fri presentation to Daniels class did not to take place because school was cancelled on Fri. But they only got about 8" here. Wimps! In the time and place where I. Grew up that would never happen, not in Feb. maybe in the first snow of the year but not in Feb. so my flight home on Sat was cancelled. The teacher asked me to stay until Mon and I agreed. This sets back my trip west by another week. One year old grandaughter Ella, who lives in Chicago, is going to Maine to see her other grandparents for a week beginning Tues, so if I want to See Ella I have to wait until she gets back to Chicago. I will stop there on my drive west. What the hell? 10 years from now I am unlikely to remember much of an extra week skiing the west but both Daniel and I will remember that I came to speak to his 3rd grade class. He will only be 9 once and may only think that much of his grandpa once.

Well virtue has its rewards. Today Jim, Conor, Patrick, Daniel and I skied at Mad River. They got 14", and it was 10 deg with a stiff wind. Snow was light, dry and fast, and ungroomed of course, the best day of lift skiing I've had in several years. I didn't bring equipment because only a short visit was planned, but Jim had a pair of AT boots that fit me and my old Stockli World Cup racers that I once had mounted for tele and gave him a few years ago. Maybe that was a mistake. They were great, turny and stable. They are 93/63/93 a pretty weird profile by today's standards. That is a zero taper, which was always dissed by the ski mags, but I always liked it, as does Jim.

Kathleen took a new job in CA last month and the rest of the family will follow when the school year ends. She negotiated 4 day weekends every few weeks to see her family in VT during the transition. This was one of her 4 day weekends and she has really been missing her boys, all of them. She was supposed to arrive at mid day Fri but is still not here. Virtually all flights to New England were cancelled on Fri and many today. So United sent her to Portland, where she arrived about 2 hours ago. They got a record 29.3" of snow, they are on the coast where the storm was most severe. She rented a car to drive one way to Burlington, which is 5 hours on dry roads. I think it is sheer insanity that the airlines did that. We expect her between midnight and 2 AM, if all goes well.

When everyone else was tired today Daniel wanted to ski another run with me. He had not worn his warm jacket or his face mask, but denied being cold. He is a hard man. He wanted to show me his cliff jumping skills. He did a 10 footer and a 20 footer, nailing the landings with ease. Then he agreed to go home, satisfied that I knew what he could do.

Meanwhile Jim took Conor to Smugglers Notch where the older boys in his scout troop will climb to a backcountry cabin and stay overnight in 15 below temperature. Conor and one other kid were skinning, some were on snowshoes, and some were walking. In the morning they will all ski or snowboard down.

Denis, all I can say is, May You Live in Interesting Times.
Good thing the grandparents are there as a steadying factor.

Just to follow up, Kathleen made a safe and surprisingly fast drive from Portland to Burlington, arriving in the wee hours. Talking to the kids was great; I loved their enthusiasm. Returning flights were a problem. Kathleen arrived in CA at 4:00 AM PST after multiple weather delays and had to lead a meeting at 8:00. I had 3 flights cancelled and finally made it back to DCA at 1:00 AM but thankfully am retired so I slept late yesterday. Conor returned safely from the overnight on Sterling mountain, at smugglers notch. the air traffic problems on Monday were apparently not blizzard related, but wind and low cloud ceiling in the mid atlantic states.

It was a rewarding and exciting long weekend, but not one that should be repeated too often.