Depths of winter in Taos

Meet....
Frick and Frack...or....Yin and Yang.....or....Heckel and Jeckel. Their names are actually Jack and Lily--brother and sister.  One of our big (and hairy) responsibilities while house-sitting here in Taos, NM.  They are two of the most lovable cats I've ever met. 
There's never enough lap-time for their liking and Lily will often take the shoulders when there is no lap.  Black clothing becomes hairy-white and white clothing becomes hairy-black.  Ya gotta love 'em; it's not a choice.

Frodo and Pippin--looking for the ring?

We left the boat (on the Florida brokerage dock) at sea level in mid-December and returned to the icy, snowy depths of Taos at 8000ft It was like Frodo crossing from his homeland in the Shire to Caradhras (snowy mountain pass of Lord of the Rings).  

We celebrated our first family Xmas together in two years with Krista in from Vermont. It snowed....and snowed....and then some more.

Orcs? or dwarves?

And we loved it. After all, this was home for 25 years. It made for lots of shoveling, but really awesome skiing.  And since we work up at the Taos Ski Valley---that white stuff is called job security.  It's the first time we had crossed over from recreational skiing to actually working on the mountain. We are part of the crew of 40 in the Guest Services department. We're the friendly greeters, ticket checkers and tour guides on the mountain.  We carry radios, so we can communicate around the mountain and/or call for ski patrol medical assistance as well.  It's actually a lot more skiing than we had originally thought.  We hit the floor running at 5:30am to commute 1/2 hour up the mountain and don't stop until we get back home around 6pm, dragging our butts, wiping out our footprints.  
Thank god for the star-lit hot tub here 😅





Ya gotta understand---we haven't worked for 2.5 years and now we're standing on our feet (or skiing) for nine hours a day (4 days/week) in the snow and cold temps for $10/hour.---yep, it's good to be humble.  (I can hear the groans coming off the Snook Bar at the marina).

1/30 of Taos Ski Valley

Malia hunting for dud bomb ~~~ 😟

We also get to work around Malia, our oldest daughter--28 yrs.  She is in her 3rd year on the ski patrol and one of three women out of 40 on patrol.  She loves her job, with avalanche bombing her personal fav.  On our mountain radios, we can hear patrol say,  "Fire in the hole!"  followed by a huge kaboom!!  One guest skier said to me, "Sounds like the boys are having fun," and I proudly say, "Yep, that was my daughter."

Avalanche rescue dogs, Hattie and June, ready for duty

Injury rescue out of big steep bump terrain--Malia on left

Leslie has tele-ski-luv :)  Free-heeling fun!!  

Three years ago, the Taos Ski Valley was bought by an environmentally minded billionaire (who also owns several islands in the Bahamas that we visited last winter on Fiesta), and he immediately added a new lift up to a previously 'hike-to-only' terrain called Kachina Peak.  It has added a lot more lift-service terrain to our backyard playground and we love it.

New Kachina Peak chairlift

Riding up to heaven...up to 12,481ft

Tim capturing Roswell-UFO cloud on video 

Dos Amigos

One of the best stories to come out of the season is a small-world tale. Part of our job is to scan lift tickets before skiers can take the chair lift up.  It's not one of our higher purposes in life, but it can be fun or monotonous.  One day, Tim was scanning a season pass card and the last name read Mutchler.  He asked the young woman if she knew of a Dwight Mutchler.  She pointed to the fatherly figure standing next to her. "Dwight!  It's Tim Reeves!!!"  Holy guacamole. These two had not seen or talked for over 40 years since they traveled together as young men in South America in the '70s. Dwight is where Tim had originally learned about skiing in Taos, NM.  Long-lost traveling friends reunited.  

Long lost friend found us again---JT!!

Throughout the last four months, we had old friends from the past drop back into our lives, as well as crazy nephews to remind us not to take it all too seriously. Thanks, guys, for three days of deep belly laughter----it will cure anything that ails. 

Loco relatives (nephews) to prove our own insanity....

Tim's trademark---who needs ski poles?

Tim's video production creativity has continued from the warm water world into our winter world.  Here's a link to his latest----an imagined perspective from Ernie Blake, the founder of the Taos Ski Valley, revisiting the massive changes to his beloved ski valley.  It's 4 1/2 min.

We have had so much snow that our season has been extended an extra week---closing date set at April 9th. One more week on the clock and then it's into our next phase... which is ???   We still don't know.  We're tired of worrying about it, so we will just take it as it comes.  Ya know, it just always seems to work out for us anyway.  After all, who needs ski poles?

So dear friends and family and lovable blog followers, hang in there with us as we continue our mid-life wandering and wondering. 

And remember...we're all here...cause....we're not all there.  Cheers!!

Little guys are baaaaack!!!

   

Paid to smile----and ski :)

Laundry day.....is this the north pole?