Up and Back to Kirkwood January 24, 2015

Sing with me..
"OH WHERE, OH WHERE HAS MY LITTLE BLOG GONE?....."

It is so frustrating not to get the time to write.  I started another post back on Thanksgiving and now too much time has past and I just abandoned it.  So here I am again, trying to get another post written and published.  Wish me luck!

Everyone who skis has done it: the up and back.  Better defined, this is the painful and slightly insane pursuit of attempting to drive to the mountains before the sun rises, ski all day, and then drag your exhausted backside home all in one day.  In college we did this on occasion, but then I lived in Berkeley, which was one hour closer to the mountains, and I was a whole heck of a lot younger.  I hadn't done an up and back in at least 16 years.

But this is how it all came down.  As mentioned before, we told the kids that, as we were going to Disney World in February, there would be no skiing this year.  Then the rain started to fall in the Bay Area, which produced plenty of snow in the mountains. After hearing the Christmas week reports of glorious days on the slopes from our friends, Craig and I became wistful and decided we need to find some way to get up for a weekend.

OK, ..which weekend did you have in mind?  We hoped to find an open Saturday, but none came up.  My daughter's rehearsals for the upcoming school play prevented us from skiing any Saturdays. We were forced to ski on Sunday.  Really though, as skiing is so expensive, and expense was the whole reason we weren't going to go in the first place, we really planned to ski only one day.  We decided we were going to do it, we were going to brave the up and back.

WHERE?

If you are going to brave the up and back, of course it is best to ski in the resort that is closest and easiest to get to.  I spent some time researching and found that Sugar Bowl, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Kirkwood, Bear Valley, and Dodge Ridge all were going to take about the same amount of time to get to.  As we wanted something new and a mountain a little more challenging than previously skied, we decided on Kirkwood Mountain Resort, which is located in Markleeville along State route 88, about 3 hours and 40 minutes from our San Jose home.

Planning a Trip to Disney World

Okay I promised you the Jamestowne Settlement, Williamsburg, and more about Washington DC, but as you can see again my efforts have been thwarted by my blog writing time deficient life.  So on I go, onto the next attempt at planning a family trip.
The kids had been bugging us for a while now to go back to Disney World.  The last time we went , we took my oldest daughter, now in tenth grade, out of third grade for a week to enjoy a less crowded time in the park.  My 11 year old son was five the last time we went, which actually was his third
time, but evenso, he barely remembers anything about our vacations there. 
The problem lies in when to go.  There is no way I am going to go across the country in the middle of the summer and fight crowds and heat and there is also no way that we can take the kids out of school for a week anymore.  So February break was the option.  I told the kids that this was an expensive trip and that there would be no skiing this year.  They said 'fine.'  That was the end of the discussion.

A trip to Disney World requires a lot of planning and a lot of advanced reservation.  The hottest tickets in town fill up 180 days in advance.  We are today about four months from the start date of our week long vacation and so far I have already experienced some shut down.  So let's get to planning!!