Snow Day

Today was the first overcast day we’ve had since arriving in WY a week ago today. We lazed around the house for much of the day enjoying the snow falling outside and catching up with friends and family over the phone. I had a nice catch up chat with Judy who brought me up to speed on what’s been happening in her life since she retired at the end of January. I took what I believe was only my second afternoon nap since going on leave in December and it was absolutely fabulous! Today was the perfect day for napping and the only thing that could have made it better would have been a fire in the fireplace. I’m trying to talk John into building a fire for us later but for some reason he’s just not all that big on fire building. The internet installation was pushed back by a day so I’m still “borrowing” wi-fi from one of the neighbors and it should be installed here on Thursday. We went into town for groceries and for a stop at the library. We also made a stop at the video rental where we picked up three movies including two westerns, John’s favorites and I rented Good Hair. It’s been snowing all day so ski conditions should be great tomorrow and John plans to spend most of the day on the slopes. I will be at the cabin watching my movie and reading tomorrow.

We really should be having dinner right about now but John has been "helping" Mary with a paper for well over an hour more like two hours, so I skipped on over to the Swedish cabin to post this entry. Call me old fashioned but in the olden days our parents didn't "edit" our papers or help with homework after say elementary school; apparently things are different now it's common for highly educated parents to "edit" college writing assignments! It seems a very fine line between helping and cheating when a college student gets over 2 hours of help writing a paper it smacks of academic fraud in my opinion and how can someone feel good or right about turning in work they haven't done entirely on their own? Ugh! This is becoming a major source of conflict and might well be the death of our relationship because I can't stomach cheating of any kind! Does this sort of thing happen on college campuses all over the country? Have we really became a culture of "whatever it takes to win"? Am I just so out of touch? Should I just keep my opinions to myself and mind my own damn business, because after all what does this have to do with me? I am struggling with this and could really use some advice and guidance.

All is well here in WY with nothing too exciting to report. However, our dance cards are booking up for the weekend with plans for dinner with Bob and Lynne and some of their friends on Friday night, and dinner here at the cabin with Peter and his mom Ingar long time friends of John’s Saturday night. Peter built John’s original cabin in 1987. We ran into Peter this afternoon at the grocery store and I think it was the first time they’ve seen each other in several years. Peter is battling cancer and has been for over a year, but John thought he looked pretty good considering his prognosis and said he seemed in good spirits. I met his mom last summer when she came to the cabin for dinner. She’s in her nineties and still drives herself all over the place and is quite active in the Jackson community. She has an interesting story so I’ll tell you more about her in a future post.

Walking Through Snow

It’s hard to believe that two years ago tonight I was meeting John for the first time at Lucia’s restaurant in Minneapolis. Tonight we’ve just finished dinner together in Wyoming after an afternoon of snowshoeing in Teton National Park. In my wildest dreams I could not have envisioned this journey and that has made it all the more amazing. Although we’re embroiled in a disagreement tonight I wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world.

I met John at the airport at noon and we headed into town for lunch at Shades Café and then to the library for a wireless connection. Fortunately, we didn’t spend much time at the library because it was an absolutely gorgeous day and one to be enjoyed out of doors. We stopped at the cabin and picked up the snowshoes and drove up to the park. This was my first experience on snowshoes and the hardest part was getting them on properly. Lucky for me I got it right the first time around and my snowshoe remained intact throughout the hike. John wasn’t as fortunate or maybe as skilled so his snowshoes came off a few times. Snowshoeing is basically walking through deep snow on something resembling a lightweight mesh skateboard (the original ones looked like gigantic tennis rackets). While snowshoeing is just walking through the snow it is much harder than it looks. Imagine walking through mud with 5-10 pound cement blocks on your feet! I stumbled a few times and fell down in the snow but my new soft shell pants and jacket kept me warm and dry. Actually once we got going on our snowshoes the performance gear proved a little too warm because it was easy to work up a sweat even in the cold because it’s hard work and the sun was intense. We pranced around on our snowshoes for a little over an hour but it felt more like two or three to me. We were back home before 6:00 and just finished dinner and I’m off to the Swedish cabin to copy and paste today’s blog post

Oh I forget to mention that I managed to lock myself out of the Swedish cabin last night after I posted that I would be sleeping there. I decided around 11:00 last night to put John’s car in the garage. Once I walked out to move the car I realized the door had locked behind me! Luckily I only had to drive about a 100 yards to find shelter and warmth.