Last night, we changed our clocks. Jumped forward. Sprang ahead. Lost an hour of sleep. Kaitlyn’s kiddie magazine which we subscribe to to help us learn French says Ce week-end, on change l’heure sur les reveils. Literally, that means This weekend, one changes the hour on the alarm clocks. That’s sort of a more honest way of putting it than spring ahead. Spring ahead sounds so, well, cheery.
I’d forgotten yesterday morning when I woke up that this was the annual weekend of lost sleep. That would have been nice to have remembered when in my am grog I told Bill to go skiing alone, but to sign Kaitlyn up for a Sunday lesson so we could all go. When I realized what I’d done, it was too late. He’d signed her up for the 9:30am class. And he was so proud, he’d managed to do it all in French. I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t going because of the clocks.
When the alarm rang this morning, it sure did seem early. But I got up (eventually) and got ready and poured some coffee down my throat (only one cup… there are not a lot of toilets on the ski slopes. Ok, there are none on the slopes, one at the bottom and it’s always wet because it’s one of those clever self-cleaning models. Wet and cold is not a good description of a toilet.) I glanced out the window and saw that we were in the clouds. Yuck. But I did sneak a peek on the internet and saw that UCLA won (I didn’t stay up to watch since we were going skiing) so I pulled on a UCLA sweatshirt over my other many layers of ski attire and got in the car.
Chamrousse wasn’t crowded. Which seemed weird. I thought maybe the rest of France refused to give up that hour of sleep. The ski resort was above the clouds. The sun was out, it was perfect.
Here’s the really weird part. I had a good time. I didn’t fall. I didn’t struggle an abnormal amount with the lifts. I think I may have even smiled while NOT snowplowing my way down the runs. Bill took a bunch of pictures of me. He has to do something while he’s waiting for me to catch up with him, I guess. You can’t tell in the pictures but I’m going really fast. For me. Sure, a few toddlers passed me. Sure, I didn’t actually pass anyone who wasn’t standing still. But it was fast for me. I took my ski instructors advice and looked up and ahead of me instead of down at my skis. What an amazing view.
Hard to believe we were skiing in the Alps this morning and lounging around watching a movie at home this afternoon. And enjoying every minute of both.
I wish I could have gone skiing with you there. The powder in Mammoth was up to our knees and was some of the best skiing I’ve ever done. We had such a good time, I thought of the great ski trips we’ll all be able to go on in the future.