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Killington

With thanksgiving this weekend, the ski season officially starts. Although this weekend was our third trip up to Killington, Vermont, twice for the snow. The three pictures below give you an idea of the varying conditions we have meet up there. Today being the toughest with rain and fog, which did make for nice soft (slushy) snow and loads less people, but eventually the weather got to us and we came home.

We had a great thanksgiving feast at home and were invited to a local which was great as well. I also managed to run a thanksgiving morning race with about 1400 others. 4 miles took me just over 40 mins and I came in around 1100. Oh dear

More photos of Thanksgiving are in the gallery

Bring it on winter!

It's been a very long week for me. Not so much because it was in the negatives most mornings (I think i got to work one morning and it was -6 degrees C) and I've had an annoying head cold, but because we are going to open our ski season here this weekend. We have everything ready, lodge, lift pass and great equipment. They've even made and had enough snow for quite a few trails to be open at this still early stage of the season.

This morning I got very excited when I was driving to work and it started to snow. I've obviously seen snow many times, but for it to be part of everyday life is, so far, quite exciting. Check back with me again when I'm stuck in snow storm just trying to get home. At least I'll have my snow tires and at $100 a set they are a bargain. Just quickly on auto bargains, we got Jen a car. 1989 VW Golf for $300. All it needed was a new exhaust ($360) and insurance ($600). Crazy country.

Anyway I'm taking a quick break at work at the moment to type this out and if I turn around to look out the window I can see it snowing quite steadily. It's even starting to collect on the ground. The weather map below shows the snow coming across New England. Note that the mountain we are going to, Killington, is actually north of the snow, near Rutland. Although they don't have snow forecast for this weekend, it is apparently going to get down to -10 C Saturday night!

Halloween, Lunar Eclipse, World Series .. oh and an Election

So a lot has happened in such a short time. The big news in Boston (actually all over New England) is the Red Sox have won the (baseball) world series for the first time in 86 years, and during a lunar eclipse no less! Up until now it has been quite normal for the Red Sox to almost win and then dramatically choke at the end. Supporters have seem to be even used to this and are a little lost now they have finally won. Never fear, the football team, The Patriots, ended their 21 game winning streak on the weekend. At least we'll have something to talk about.

So there as a huge victory parade on the weekend and Jen and I went down to cheer the boys in, along with 3.2 million others!! Luckily we found a nice, relatively quiet location to support the sox, along the Charles river. You can see some typical drizzly autumn photos of the event here http://www.dbradby.net/gallery/redsox04

This weekend was also Halloween and coming from a country that really has trouble getting it when the Simpsons do a halloween special, and the whole trick or treat thing, we really wanted to try it out. So like everyone else, we bought a pumpkin and $9 worth of candy. Sunday afternoon before the hoards of kids would come knocking on our door, we carved out a simple design into a pumpkin. Then we placed a candle in it, took it downstairs and waited. Well not one trick or treater came knocking on our door. There was a few kids around in costume but we either missed them or they just went passed without stopping. We suspect we may needed to have been on some safe house list? Anyway I have now drowned my sorrows in about $5 worth of candy (that's a lot of candy in the US) and have taken the rest into work.

Oh ... and the US are electing the leader of the free world tomorrow for the next four years. Some fun commentry from Bill Bryson who grew up in Iowa, mvoed to England and then came back to live in New Hampshire. He now lives in England again and this article comes from an Australian newspaper!?

http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Two-men-One-difficult-choice/2004/11/01/1099262786562.html

Of course I can't forget the Melbourne cup. If anyone is listening put $1 each way on "Another Warrior" for me ... thanks :)