eastern skiers' last stand

Andrea and Chris had booked the red-eye flight home this past Monday so they could get one more day of skiing in.  I got up and went to work and thus missed all the morning's drama:  the boys were ALL tormented as to whether to ski or not.  They were achy, tired and sore, and when they dragged themselves out of bed, they spent about an hour checking the weather channel on the television, the online snow reports and staring out the window at the skies over the canyons.  Andrea, however, played it cool, saying that she didn't care if they skied or not - but if not, she'd like to go out to Antelope Island - and as soon as that masterful bit of reverse-psychology was offered up, H and Chris decided they'd all better go to Solitude.

Chris's legs must hurt too much to smile

Andrea reported that although it wasn't a day where they were flying up and down the mountain, they did do pretty much nothing but bumps trails all day.  Since there hadn't been any new snow to speak of, they gave up on Honeycomb Canyon after one toothy run.  They managed a full day of skiing and when I rejoined them at home at 5:00 p.m., they were enjoying an apres-beer, all leaning up against the kitchen island since if they sat down, they'd likely fall asleep.

Our guests got cleaned up and packed, and we went to the Porcupine for dinner (Southwestern salads for Andrea and me, chile verde burrito for H, and some kind of chicken sandwich for Chris) before dropping them off at the airport.  I hoped that they'd be tired enough that sleep would be a possibility - red-eyes are just brutal.

And, of course, that night it started snowing and Alta got another seven inches.  They'll just have to come back again next year.