Happy Birthday Diane.

Goose

If you have ever been to a foreign country you know that there are difficulties with communication, adventures with food and transportation. Chile was no different for me. I was in the country of Chile for seven days doing what i love most and that is snowboarding. I have snowboarded for about seven years now, but i have always been confined by the lack of snow in the summer. Not any more……this past winter my mother Birdbrain told me that she thought i should do sometime wholesome this summer……now i have no idea what she thought i would pick, but i thought to myself….heck ill go snowboarding in the summer. So i talked to my cousin tim and was like hey ask your mom if you can go to chile with me for a week…..he did. Just like that we got the ok and we were off.

This time around there was nothing exciting in the airport to tell….so ill skip to the good stuff. We arrived at Portillo Chile about noon on Saturday the 7th, after 27 hours of travel. I go up to the front desk greeted by a nice hola, i say hello hoping that by some miracle he speaks english. He greets me back by saying hello…..thank god….He does the check-in and starts to ask if we are from the states and whereabouts. I tell him that i am from Massachusetts. He was like nice i grew up in mass, what town? I say Acton and he nearly falls over in disbelief. I grew up in Harvard he tell me. So here i am like 5000 plus miles away from home and standing next to a guy that grew up no less then ten miles from where i live. Strange.

I won’t bore you with my snowboarding stories i’ll let the pictures do the talking on that front. But let me put it to you this way, people have always said that a picture was worth a 1000 words……well i am going to tell you an experience is worth 10,000,000.

Every night there was live music in one of the bars in the hotel and every night my cousin and i would go there and grab a table and then meet up with some of the people that we met. We would talk about things like the iraq war and politics and what we want to do when we get out of college. But the best conversation we had was about the toilet. Yes i said it, THE TOILET….i am sure that you have all heard the phrase that the toilets flush the other way in the southern hemisphere. We got into this very large debate about what way they go in the United states because none of us could remember, and then we all went to the bathroom and flushed a toilet to watch the way it spins. If you can, imagine 4 guys busting in to a bathroom all just to watch what way the water went…..it was quite comical. We could never finish the debate because none of us knew what way the water spins in the states. So we went back to bar and enjoyed the music.

My whole week in Portillo was the most amazing experience of my…..i would go back any day in a heart beat. I feel like i could write for days but its so hard to put in words the friendships i acquired the rides i had and fulfillment i gained…..i can put it in words i………………….wow…..just wow.

Photo Gallery

Chris (Goose) is off for a week of skiing in Chile with his cousin. How special do you suppose I feel when an email arrives addressed to his Mother, his Father, and ME!

Hey mom dad and mike,

 How are you?  Tim and i just finished our first day of skiing and it was a little slow in the am b-c we could not see with all the clouds everywhere,  but in the afternoon the sun came out and we got some really nasty lines in some nice powder. Some of the trails here are sooo steep that when we turn we touch the side on the mountain.  It is sooo sweeet.

So anyway,  we got here yesterday about 12 and checked in and had some food and then we walked around  and explored the area. Its really nice here….the resort itself is kinda small but that’s ok.  Its all snow,  no trees,  and there are very few ppl on the slope at a time.  The pple here are really nice and the spa and pool and gym are all good too.

 i hope you are all well

talk to you later

goose

 

By Goose

I’ve known Mike Miller for a very long time – gone camping to Gilsum and worked summers for him. With all this time to get to know him there are a few things that I’ve learned, like how he thinks. He has a fascination about studying people and their actions in certain situations. When we worked together I noticed that if I said something or did something that was the slightest bit amusing to Mike, it was instantly up on the blog. For example the Cell phone Incidents and the Slug Throwing. This interest in studying people has rubbed off on me a little, and I did not really notice it until my trip to Colorado this past December.

A few years ago my aunt and uncle on my mother’s side bought a house in Silverthorne Colorado. Silverthorne is in the Rocky Mountains surrounded by three major ski resorts – Breckenridge, Keystone, and A-basin. These Mountains have given me the best skiing experiences in my life, so far.

When I was there this year Denver got hit with 18+ inches of snow. The airport was closed and the city was almost shut down. Now we were having some of the best snow for skiing so that was AWESOME, until it came time to go home.

The two days before we were supposed to leave for home the airport had closed because of the snow. I kept on looking at my flight hoping it was still scheduled, and I found there were until about 5 hours before I was supposed to leave. My cousin’s flight was canceled and things were looking grim, so we all decided to drive to Tennessee, and I would fly home from there. But then I found out that my flight was on, so I was taken to the airport. I checked-in at the curb for my plane. Then I said my good byes and walked into what look like a refugee camp.

I could not believe what I saw. The lines for the check-in counter were 300 people long. I was a bit hungry so I tried to find some food. NOTHING! All the cafes had run out of anything that was worth eating. I decided that it would be best if I went to my gate , but I found the security line looped around the whole airport.

I was in shock. It wound through all the ropes and then though all the cots, and people that had been stranded there for 2 days were around the airport. Knowing that I did not have that much time to spare, I hid behind a pillar and when no one was looking, I darted into the line and continued on my way. No one even noticed. When I got to my gate there were people there fighting for a flight to just get out of Denver. They wanted to find a way home, but seeing that it was near Christmas there was nothing for them.

It was really interesting to look at how certain people were dealing with their situation. I said to myself what would this situation look like if I was in Mike’s shoes, and it opened my eyes to people’s behavior patterns. Some were just patrolling back and forth looking for a flight that had one seat that they could use to get out of Denver. Others were just yelling and swearing and just making fools of themselves. I felt so bad for them, but there was nothing I could do. I was just one of those lucky ones that had their flight leaving almost on time.

I was very grateful that I made it home for Christmas, but I will never forget that I was one of those lucky ones.

By Goose

I’ve known Mike Miller for a very long time – gone camping to Gilsum and worked summers for him. With all this time to get to know him there are a few things that I’ve learned, like how he thinks. He has a fascination about studying people and their actions in certain situations. When we worked together I noticed that if I said something or did something that was the slightest bit amusing to Mike, it was instantly up on the blog. For example the Cell phone Incidents and the Slug Throwing. This interest in studying people has rubbed off on me a little, and I did not really notice it until my trip to Colorado this past December.

A few years ago my aunt and uncle on my mother’s side bought a house in Silverthorne Colorado. Silverthorne is in the Rocky Mountains surrounded by three major ski resorts – Breckenridge, Keystone, and A-basin. These Mountains have given me the best skiing experiences in my life, so far.

When I was there this year Denver got hit with 18+ inches of snow. The airport was closed and the city was almost shut down. Now we were having some of the best snow for skiing so that was AWESOME, until it came time to go home.

The two days before we were supposed to leave for home the airport had closed because of the snow. I kept on looking at my flight hoping it was still scheduled, and I found there were until about 5 hours before I was supposed to leave. My cousin’s flight was canceled and things were looking grim, so we all decided to drive to Tennessee, and I would fly home from there. But then I found out that my flight was on, so I was taken to the airport. I checked-in at the curb for my plane. Then I said my good byes and walked into what look like a refugee camp.

I could not believe what I saw. The lines for the check-in counter were 300 people long. I was a bit hungry so I tried to find some food. NOTHING! All the cafes had run out of anything that was worth eating. I decided that it would be best if I went to my gate , but I found the security line looped around the whole airport.

I was in shock. It wound through all the ropes and then though all the cots, and people that had been stranded there for 2 days were around the airport. Knowing that I did not have that much time to spare, I hid behind a pillar and when no one was looking, I darted into the line and continued on my way. No one even noticed. When I got to my gate there were people there fighting for a flight to just get out of Denver. They wanted to find a way home, but seeing that it was near Christmas there was nothing for them.

It was really interesting to look at how certain people were dealing with their situation. I said to myself what would this situation look like if I was in Mike’s shoes, and it opened my eyes to people’s behavior patterns. Some were just patrolling back and forth looking for a flight that had one seat that they could use to get out of Denver. Others were just yelling and swearing and just making fools of themselves. I felt so bad for them, but there was nothing I could do. I was just one of those lucky ones that had their flight leaving almost on time.

I was very grateful that I made it home for Christmas, but I will never forget that I was one of those lucky ones.