Paule

The thing that you quickly come to realize about powder is how much you can throw your body around, come a complete cropper and get up smiling. Seriously it is almost impossible to hurt yourself falling into powder. Once you learn that, a door opens into another dimension. "You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone" The other dimension is rather the ungroomed runs, but the rest is true. Went to bed with snow falling and again this morning it was still snowing and then throughout the day. There is fun to be had busting through a bank of powder and surviving. Although I ... read more

Ah back in Aspen where they had 25 cm of snow 24 hrs ago and more due tonight, tomorrow is linig up to be another great day. Amazing how quickly your skiing improves on good snow and long runs. Montrose turned out to be quite a good choice, the house I booked turned out to be a house that had been built pre GFC and was huge, even had its own temperature controlled wine storage room. We took a guided tour of Telluride with Jay, who turned out to be an excellent chap so we invited him and his wife to the house for apres. He lives within walking distance of the house and gave us some background. Turns out some investors from Las Vegas bought up a tract of land, got Jack Nicholaus to design ... read more

It's hard not to be impressed with a mountain that puts on 12 cm of snow on the slopes overnight followed by a bluebird day. Over the last five days we have had three on the snow all of which have been simply stunning. I'm not sure what I expected of Telluride. I remember my first visit to the States in the early eighties, we caught a Greyhound from Boston to New York. One of the stops was Hartford Connecticut. I expected a quaint New England town not the insurance capital of the US. so instead of a white picket fence main street, there were towers of concrete and glass. Telluride I thought of being a newish ski village overflowing with shoulder to shoulder condominium complexes, rather it is an old town that retains a certain ... read more

Okay so we're all agreed god put Nevada on earth to make shit holes look good, not all of it but there are places where House Proud is a fantasy graphic novel. Then on to Utah and Brian Head. Having a Brian in the group made a visit to Brian Head a no brainer, sadly we were unable to graffitti the signs but no doubt all the jokes have been made.We based ourselvrs in Cedar City UT, a town which hasmore take away "restaurants" (why do they insist on calling themselves that?) than there are pick up trucks. We ound one family mexican restaurant which was preety good and the staff were excellent and so tolerant!Brian Head is out of the usual ... read more

Utah, that's what's on the other side of Nevada, we took the TomTom tour from Mammoth to Cedar City Utah via the extraterrestial highway, as featured in the Movie "Paul". We stopped at the AlieInn at Rachel Nevada and I had a martian burger, tick eating an ET burger in Area 51 off the list! Driving across Nevada is kinda surreal especially if you avoid the main cities (there are only two so it is not too hard). someone should really call in the cleaning lady, or the scrap metal dealer, this place is a tip. Civic pride seems to consist of keeping the rubbish downwind fron the trailer home. Lots of snow lying abut the place, it should be a bit deeper in places but thems the breaks. Surprising how tiring sitting in a car ... read more

Although really day two of the trip, or is it three? the whole date line thing is a bit like breaching the time space continuum, anyway that aside, today feels a little like the start of the holiday. The jet lag may have something to say about it later but five am seems like an almost reasonable time to be getting up. it is minus 5 outside, there is snow on the ground and not a cloud in the sky. Today will be one for the bluebirds. Naturally everyone else is asleep, all of them chemically assisted no doubt. I had a little assistance from acouple of glasses of Mammoth Paranoid Pale Ale which seemed apposite, went to bed at about 9 pm and had a dream that involved work. I wonder if more or less ... read more

Yesterday was a recover day, landed at Heathrow more or less on time, at quarter to six in the morning. We were told not to take pictures inside the terminal, no so much for security but because terminal 3 at Heathow is such a shithole. The gaffer tape holding the floor together is fraying at the edges, honestly tearing this place down and replacing it with a pile of rubble would be an improvement. Moya and Gerry collected me in the dark of predawn London and I am pretty sure we had a pleasant day, even though some of it is a bit blurry. But a combination of sitting up the front of the A380 and drugs kept me from falling face first into the lunch, which I cooked! Bloody nice too if you don't mind, ... read more

Day one, can't promise any degree of regularity but if intentions count then start counting. House is locked up, all the power switched off, no gas to remember to switch off and on the occssion of my friend Nonee's brthday the journey begins by fleeing Toy Town for points South. Flight about to be called so more from Bleak City and the splendor of the Q lounge, with the possibility of some of the twilight wine of Scotland. ... read more

In order to preserve their unblemished record Virgin cancelled my flight and offered me one that left shortly after dawn or one that arrived in Sin City minutes before the plane to Singapore departs so I opted for the only sensible course and so I was up before the sparrows for the drive to town for the taxi to the airport. So far so good, through the security check, shoes set off the alarm, bags scanned for explosives, flight to Sin City and a mere seven and a half hours to kill in terminal X. I wandered across to the Qantas terminal, through security again, shoes, beep, damn! on to the transfer lounge and was told to go out again and check my bag at gate 25. Gate 25 tell me that I can't check in ... read more

In America, according to Randy Newman at least "you get food to eat; (you) don't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet". If getting here is half the fun I'm in for a dire few days! Firstly I am up before 6.00am to pack and get generally ready to fly to San Francisco which means first up a trip to Munich. The seasoned world traveller will tell you that from Heathrow Munich is pretty well in the opposite direction if your destination is SFO, but such are the vagaries of modern cheap air travel. So from 8.00am London time when we leave for the airport until 11.30pm SFO time (or 5.30 am London time) when I finally check in to the Islander motel just off highway 80, I have been driven to ... read more