Tuesday, November 29, 2011

West Yellowstone Thanksgiving

 The Thanksgiving holiday was spent in West Yellowstone,  Montana this year. Why, you ask? Every year the US Cross Country Ski community descends on the small town of West Yellowstone for the season opening training camps and races. The snow was fantastic and the weather not too bad. We had some cold mornings (-10 -ish a couple days), but most days were sunny and not too windy. I really worked most of the time but I did get to ski most everyday. A typical day consists of waking up at 5:30am to get coffee and breakfast. Head back to the hotel room for application of clothing layers. Get to the Demo venue by 8am and set up tents, wax benches, skis, poles and boots. Stand all day and hand out skis. boots, poles, etc.. Take lunch break and ski for an hour or two. The Demo is usually over at 3pm, and we tear down everything until 4:30pm then race to the Hotel to shower, eat and head to the evening Expo. Stand in Expo booth and hand out stickers to racers and wanna be's. Expo ends at 9pm. Head to Hotel room and pass out. Repeat. After driving 14 hours each way and a week of the above routine, I was very happy to come home on Sunday evening. I slept 14 hours straight! Happy Thanksgiving!