Next Please: Vacation: Day 2

Are we there yet?

Ow! Ow! Ow! (stretch) Ahhhhh...

Sunday - Day 2 started feeling muscles in my body that I haven't felt for sometime. The most pain was felt in my inner thighs. Crossing my legs today was not going to be an option. Lots of stretching made everything feel, well, less sore. Strangely enough, I love that feeling. It means I did something that my body is not used to and needed. A little pain means more improvements.

We started with a carb packed meal. I'm embarrassed to say what I ate...but here it is. 1 pancake (Rick and I split a short stack), 2 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, 4 pieces of bacon and home fried potatoes. Plus Rick insisted I have a few bites of corned beef hash off his plate so I did. Yummy! We had already checked out of our hotel room. We were trying to determine where we should spend the day skiing. Drive back or hit the trails in Roscommon. I insisted that we should go back and complete the trails we didn't do. After all, we wouldn't make it back in some time (sadly) and I seriously doubt the trails near our hometown had the "tracks" groomed in place which I had become a raving fan of. We had did the easy trails on Day 1, although the Manitou was definitely the longest (5.7 km) and had 2 large hills. Now I should give my definition of a hill.

Hill = extra exertion of energy and loss of control on the downhill. If your bike or skis precede forward without assistance than that is a down hill. If there is resistance required to stop then it is a scray downhill. If falling would cause injury then the downhill = uncoordination.

Those that know me know the fear I developed after mistakenly getting wrapped around a tree completely entwined in my pedal bike on a easy bike ride on a sandy trail ( I had done a dozen times before) to get a gallon of milk. I used to love, LOVE, the feeling of the wind in my hair, cruising down a hill, rather on skis or on my bike. Not so much after my accident. Luckily nothing was broken, except maybe my pride and definitely my confidence. I had bruises and scrapes on both of my knees, one severely swollen knee that was hard to bend. I scraped both shoulders, elbows and twisted one wrist at a strange angle that made picking up anything over 2 oz. difficult for weeks but nothing broken. However, I looked like I was in a car wreck right before Kama's wedding. I was mostly healed and bruises concealed well by speciality cover-up for the wedding and all swelling not existent. My dress was 5 sizes to big (not an exageration so really the bruises were completely ignorable considering).

Anyways, so whereas fear exists, uncoordination follows. That's why I simply loved the trails groomed with the tracks provided. It takes some of the fear away because really it's difficult to jump the tracks. It's like riding a bike with training wheels. Day 2 we decided to do "Wild Turkey", "Adventure" and Rolling Hills" trails to say we did everything at that site - a total of 12.5 miles of trails. We started with "Rolling Hills" mostly because the name terrified me. I better do it while I'm still somewhat fresh. The weather to note was amazing. Rick halfway through stripped down to his long john shirt and over shirt- no coat. I was only in long John shirt, no sweatshirt but I still worn my coat. No scarf, no ear coverage whatsoever. AND we were warm! I wish I was strong enough to have gone all day, not just the 2 hours we skied.

"Rolling Hills" were rolling. We had some large uphills which I have learned to master after the mistake of skiing backwards once. Nothing is more scarier than a downhill that you can't see. Yikes! The downhills were taller than the day before. I actually went down fast enough to make my eyes water with the cold air hitting them. "Rolling Hills" however had turns partially down the hills. I don't know who thought this was funny but it wasn't. I jumped tracks 3 times!! The first time I did it resulted in a crash at the corner before a clump of mature trees. Apparently I wasn't the only one who did this because the snow was disturbed quite a bit. After the fear of injury had passed, Rick and I got a good laugh out of it. Rick had then decided on the hills he would ski ahead and tell me if the tracks were good to use or if I would need to do outside and actually ski. This took a lot of instruction and patience on his part but I did it. Two hills I had to do this. Both hills I fell but the second one I was almost successful and the fall was less elaborate. At the end of this trail I was ready for some flat surfaces.

SweetPea got lots of attention on the trails. There was a little wind that caused extra work but overall, I had the most fun ever. I would so do this again and actually hope do it again soon!!

After skiing, we began our trek back home. The wind had picked up and made driving difficult for Rick. Once we got in the area we decided to stop at Mejier of Zeeb Rd. and pick up some fish for our aquarium. We then finished the night with a nice dinner at Red Lobster. I had 2 Corona Lights and then came home to finish off the night with Food Network programming.