A little of what I saw as I trekked along in my snowshoes.
My youngest is home from college for spring break. Earlier this week, we drove up to Kirkwood Ski Resort to visit my daughter who has been working there this winter. We stopped by their Nordic center so the kids could do a little cross-country skiing. They both were part of their high school Nordic teams, but it had been awhile since they had a chance to cross-country ski and years since they had skied together. The helpful woman working behind the counter started to find skis for them. I told her that I was “just going to read my book.”
The sign at the rental counter had alerted me to the cost of a daily trail pass for skiing or snowshoeing. I also thought I would need to rent skis for my son. I imagined that my daughter’s employee pass would get her a complimentary trail pass and a discounted rate for skis, but I was planning to pay whatever was necessary for my son to enjoy a day out skiing with his sister. I knew they had snowshoes for rent, and it would have been nice, of course, but it wasn’t really necessary. By opting out, I could save some money. And it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing, to read my book (a Louise Penny Three Pines mystery) in such a beautiful place.
Then the woman in charge looked at me and said, “You could read your book, but you really should get snowshoes.”
So I did.
I had a morning last week that felt like Christmas morning. Or like the memory of one of my teenaged days when I woke up and my Mom and I would get in the car and drive to town and spend the day together, maybe go shopping and out to lunch, and there wasn’t anything tremendously special that happened, it just was that we were together, a golden ordinary day.
