Oh, Canada

Hey!  Remember me?  It's been 5 weeks since my last post, which I'm quite proud to say is the longest gap I've had since starting in August 2012.  Things have settled down A LOT since getting back from The Maldives, but President's Weekend was a great opportunity to get our old ski/snowboard group (all high school friends) back together for a trip.

The destination: Banff, Canada.  I think everyone was in agreement that it was a great choice.  The scenery and terrain were perfect for our group.  The area has three resorts all included on the Big Three ticket which also includes transportation.  It was very easy to navigate without a car.

 Day one was spent at Norquay.  It was a nice spot to warm up, not a whole lot of stuff in the trees and no terrain that was over anyone's head.

But boy, was it beautiful.  The four of us on the right here, Barry, Andrew, me, and Jon, took a trip to Colorado in the Spring of 2011.  Stuart, our photographer, was a welcome addition on this trip.

Stu has become quite the photographer in the last couple years, and he had a backpack that held all his lenses (and our lunches!) which allowed him to get great action shots.  This was great because I have hardly any pictures of me riding a snowboard even though I've been at it 20 years.

A nice chairlift picture for mom.  You're welcome Mom!

I've been watching a lot of snowboard videos lately and these step-down rails and boxes are becoming very popular.  They're pretty technically difficult, it's very easy to slide out on the transitions.

One of our favorite runs on the boundary of Norquay.  The views were incredible.

Day Two was Lake Louise, definitely our favorite of the three.  This run is called the "Rock Garden" and was one of the most interesting (and certainly most unique) runs I've ever seen.  You ride down over the rocks.  There's so much snow on top that they all form mini little cliffs.  It was a lot of fun!

I got this shot from the top of the ridge between the front and back sides of Lake Louise.  You just can't beat these views!

We had such a fun weekend.  I don't get to see these guys a lot now that we're spread all over the country (and sometimes all over the world), so I'll take any excuse to get together.  Snowboarding is an added bonus.

Our day at Sunshine Village was unfortunately pretty windy.  Another huge resort, there are lots of hidden gems here that just weren't accessible because of the weather.  We made the best of it, finding cliffs to ride and ducking into trees.  We were able to find some pretty good snow on the ridges facing away from the wind.

The Garbage Chutes, probably our most heart-pounding runs of the trip.  That's me standing on top of a 15 foot cliff waiting to drop.  Another great picture of me, thanks to Stu, and you're welcome, Mom!

On our last day at Lake Louise, Jon and I took a pretty adventurous run that started as an unbelievable 4 to 5 foot deep powder run and ended as a 45 minute hike out of a river valley.  Oops...at least it was worth it!

Since returning from Canada, besides a trip to see some good friends in Madison Wisconsin, I've been back home in Edina Minnesota.  I've been picking up sub jobs around the metro, trying to get into math classrooms whenever possible.  I'm interviewing tomorrow for a long-term calculus position, so we'll see what happens!

I pulled into the garage one night and noticed my odometer was overrun with 9s.  How cool is that?

So the next morning on the way to work I snapped a picture of the milestone.  Ignore the speedometer, driving and taking pictures of your dash is dangerous and should never be attempted...

Anyway, right now I'm focusing on what's going to happen over the summer and next fall.  There are lots of possible avenues, but I'm applying to some international schools across Asia for August to have that as a possibility.  The travel bug is still very much alive, so keep an eye on the blog...I just put 48 new pages in my passport, so you never know where I'll be next!