The Power of the Peak

This is just a great post from the Big Sky blog. I know the power of this mountain and to read her story is really fun. I have been on the top of Lone Peak multiple times and know the beauty, the awe, the immense feeling of a connection to something bigger than you from the top of this beautiful mountain.

The second time I skied from the summit of Lone Peak down a run called Liberty Bowl, I stopped a 1/4 way down to admire the view. I ended up sitting down in the snow for about 15 minutes and looked around taking everything in, this amazing ski run I was on, this beautiful place I was in and then it hit me. I realized while sitting on the side of this gigantic piece of rock truly how small I truly am in the universe. It was the weirdest and most amazing felling I have ever had. In fact it had such an effect on me that I can remember it like it was yesterday, when actually it was 3 years ago. I think the thing that makes Lone Peak so unique is that it is kind of on it's own. (hence the name) It is an 11,166' mountain in it's own space. Sure there are other mountains around but none are really close, so it is just really neat how this mountain sits by itself away from the others...

click on line below to enjoy the Big Sky blog post:

The Power of the Peak: Love on Lone Mountain

Silence of the Lambs...

So I bought we bought a cast iron dutch oven the night. Like I said in my last blog post I have a bunch of recipes to try and a couple of them called for a dutch oven. I did a little research online and discovered that Le Creuset was the king of the hill when it comes to cast iron dutch oven’s, but I had a really hard time spending $250 on a pot I wasn’t sure that I would get a lot use out of. We have really nice cookware at home and I know that it pays to spend some money on cooking stuff, but I continued to do some research and found another option. Fontignac cast iron is also made in France and gets really good reviews and is half the price, so we went that route. It seems like a nice pot, I am looking forward to giving it a try. The thing weighs like 50 pounds, it is crazy. Anyway, I think the first thing I am going to try in it is a Moroccan-style Lamb Stew. I am not sure I like lamb, but the recipe really sounds good and the reviews that people have written include a lot of “I never liked lamb till I had this recipe” stuff like that, so I am going to give it a go. I think Sunday.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

Cooking spray
1 (1-pound) boneless leg of lamb roast, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
6 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 cup dried apricots, quartered
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, lower-sodium beef broth

Preparation

Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Sprinkle lamb evenly with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add lamb to pan; sauté 4 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Remove from pan.

Add onion; sauté for 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Add remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, cumin, and next 3 ingredients (through garlic); sauté for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in honey and tomato paste; cook 30 seconds, stirring frequently.

Return lamb to pan. Add apricots and broth; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour or until lamb is tender, stirring occasionally.

I don’t know, it sounds pretty good I think. Nervous about the lamb part...

In other news I went out snowshoeing yesterday. I was OK, the rain basically ruined the snow on the trail which was a total bummer. Now I am hoping for more snow to make the snowshoeing trails soft and nice again instead of hard and crappy. Oh Well…

Tonight Melissa and I are headed to Everest on Grand for dinner. I am really looking forward to going. I love that place. It is Nepali food and they have really good chow. Melissa loves the Yak Momos as do I. That’s right Yak… A Momo is a little steamed dumpling. They are really damn good. I am not sure what else we are going to get but their food is really good so whatever we have will be awesome.

I am heading out on my snowboard tomorrow after work, I think. I need to get out there and give it another go. I am thinking about buying a 3 pack of lessons from Welch to see if I can learn to ride before we head west. I think it would be really fun to ride in Montana a bit.

Changes in 2011

Happy New Year!

So I have decided to make some fairly major life changes this year. I know everyone say that, but I am not one for the resolutions thing. But this year something told me to make some changes. I think as I am getting older I am really starting to change my ideals, way of thinking, and thoughts. I am hoping that the year of 2011 brings me happiness, adventure, good health and a quiet mind.

Basically I have decided to rebuild myself. Not that I really think there is a lot wrong with me, I am very happy with the person that I am but there are a few things that I would like to change and make better. I think everyone can easily say that if they look at themselves there are things they would like to improve. I am certainly one of those people.

First I would like to improve my fitness level and lose some weight. My favorite jeans are a little tight and that makes me sad. I hate buying clothes because my clothes don’t fit. 2 years ago I started training for a 25k trail race and lost about 40lbs in a very short time. I changed everything, the way I ate, my exercise level and what I did for exercise. My goal for the race was to finish and not be last, (I know lofty goals) but I did finish and I wasn’t last and it felt great. I also skied like a mad person that next winter in Montana. My legs were so strong that I was able to ski what worked out to be in the neighborhood of 100,000 vertical feet in 6 days of skiing. So long story short, I am going to get back in the swing of healthy eating and a lot more exercise. It stinks because I was really enjoying the running at the dome this year until the stupid roof collapsed and they stopped the running there. I was running 5 miles twice a week, I loved it. I can’t run at all on a treadmill so that is out and I can’t run outside when it is so cold out so I am going to do snowshoeing, weight training and other cardio options at the gym I belong too. I think in the long run it will work out great! I have also been trying to change my eating habits, especially at work. Drinking a ton of water and trying not to graze in co-workers candy dished throughout the day. So far that part of the plan is going really good! I have been drinking about 64oz of water a day at work and having a sensible lunch, I have also been trying to eat breakfast every morning which I normally did not do, also working out well. For dinners I am going to try to make healthier better dinners at home. Melissa and I eat well, don’t get me wrong, we are not big fast food people by any means but we do enjoy going out for dinner. I have been working hard to come up with some fun recipes for things to try. A friend of mine gave me 8 old issues of Cooking Light magazine and I found about 20 or so recipes in there that we are going to try. It is going to interesting.

Second, I would like to get more into my Buddhism practice. I have read a lot of the Dhammapada and love the way it is written. It makes sense to me and overall Buddhism works for me. I want to build a shrine in a quiet room in our home and do more meditation, I think it will help quiet my mind and help me in other things. I truly long for a spiritual connection to something and I think my way to that is going to be through the teachings of the Buddha. This is really important to me, but I really don’t know how to get there. I am working on this.

Third, I will finish school this year. I can see the end. It has been a LONG and very slow road but it has been an excellent experience. I will always regret not taking my education more serious in high school and then moving on to college then like I should have. But for now I am incredibly happy with my cheesy 2 year degree that will have taken me almost (gasp) 8 years to get. But boy how my life has changed in those 8 years… I guess looking back on it I wouldn’t have changed anything about my life experiences to this point. But sadly I realized 15 years to late what I think my true calling is, and I am OK with that but it will always bug me a little bit. But overall I am proud of myself for at least trying to finish something I started on a dare 8 years ago all the while, working full time, going through what turned out to be a disaster of a first marriage, selling my dream house that I once owned, meeting and falling in love again and remarrying, and getting that relationship off the ground. So basically I have had to start and stop my education a number of times which is why this has seriously taken me so long to do this. Also take one or two classes a year doesn’t help. But that has changed and I will finish this year! I have it pretty much all planned out and it is going to be good.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with my life and the cards that I have been dealt. Of course I have regrets. And often wonder what would have happened if I would have turned left instead of right a couple times but because of those right hand turns I am the person that I am. Life is good and gets better every day…

Christmas re-cap...

Well another Christmas is over. Melissa and I had a wonderful holiday. Christmas eve we hit the slopes at Welch for what turned out to be one of the best days of Minnesota skiing ever. We had gotten about 5” the night before so I figured the conditions would be good, but we had no idea how good it would be. The snow was deep in areas and was so nice and soft, it was amazing. Melissa and I had a blast! It was so nice to have real snow to ski on, instead of manmade stuff and ice…
For Christmas Eve dinner I made a shrimp and pasta dish that I found the recipe for in a Cooking Light magazine. It was really good. But I was a little sad to say that for the first time in 39 years I didn’t have Lasagna for dinner. That was a tradition my mom started and I carried on after she died. I decided it was time to start a new tradition so Melissa and I decided that we are going to make a new fancy dinner from a recipe every Christmas Eve. I think that will be really fun. The Shrimp Pasta turned out to be excellent and will go into our rotation for dinners. It was a pretty simple dinner and it can easily be altered into a few different variations. We are going to try making it next using chicken instead of shrimp. I am thinking it will be really good.

Christmas day we got up and opened presents, luckily Santa Claus stopped by the house so there were a few things under the tree. I think Melissa really liked her gifts. I got her a few small things that I knew she would like; her “big” gift was a necklace from Tiffany’s. It was a great surprise and she really liked it so I was happy. I got some fun stuff as well. I got a Flip video camera, which I really wanted, a couple Moleskine journals, some cologne and a calendar for desk at work. After presents we went snowshoeing over at Lebanon Hills park, that was a blast. We hiked about 1.5 miles, the snow was perfect and it was great back in the woods. It was awesome, I can’t wait till we go again. Christmas night we had some friends over for a very casual dinner. It turned out to be a really fun night.

Sunday Melissa and I went to the Wild game; we had to leave early sadly because Melissa had a gallbladder attack that turned out to be really bad. She went to the doctor on Monday and then had an ultrasound Tuesday to see if it needs to come out. We are waiting for the results. So this week might turn out to be interesting.
Overall the weekend was great, we had a great time doing stuff that we love, we had some good food and a lot of laughs. Life is good.

Christmas always makes me sad, I miss my parents a lot during this time of year. It is always hard since Melissa and I don’t really have anyone except each other which is great but I miss the “family” stuff. But it always makes me remember all of the good times we had when I was little which is good…

Snow

Although we are finally having a true Minnesota winter it is numbers like these that make me sad inside

Last 48 Hours:

Alta 47"
Snowbird 37"
Mammoth 102"

I can't even imagine what skiing in that kind of snow would be like. I wonder if I could even do it... Well, at least we are finally getting some snow around here. Last night we got another 5" or so and it looks like we are getting some more later this week, which will be cool, Melissa and I are planning on skiing Friday and maybe Saturday mornings. I am looking forward to getting out there again. Melissa and I went skiing at Welch for a bit on Sunday and sadly it sucked. It was so icy and crappy that it was just no fun. I hate to admit but I might becoming a snow snob, which is really going to suck if that is the case. *sigh*

I am really looking forward to Christmas. I love Christmas and all of the stuff that comes along with it. Melissa and I spend Christmas together which is so awesome, we usually make a couple fun dinners and just relax. This year on Christmas I am going to open a bottle of 1998 Dom Perignon, I am really looking forward to it, we will have a champagne brunch with Eggs Benedict, Melissa and I try to do that once a year, it is always really nice and we have a lot of fun.

I am glad my classes are done, I am now waiting for grades so that should be interesting. I am hoping for the best but my A&P class was the hardest class I have ever taken. Hopefully it won't kill my GPA to badly.

Think more snow!

Snowmaggedon!!!

So I basically did the most awesome and the dumbest thing ever this weekend. Melissa and I ventured down to Welch to go skiing right in the middle of the biggest and dangerous snowstorm Minnesota has seen in almost 20 years. The storm ending up bringing just a little over 20” of snow to most of the Twin Cities area, besides the heavy snow the wind was blowing about 20 miles an hour so basically the entire drive from our house to Welch was done with about 10 feet of visibility. Awesome, it was a little scary. The roads were in fairly decent shape, mostly because the wind was blowing the snow off them, but you could see the drifts forming on the sides of the road. It took as only an hour to get from our house to the Welch parking lot. We got there and I was surprised to see we weren’t the only people that decided to take advantage of what turned out to be the biggest snowfall Minnesota has seen in 20 years. We found a great parking spot and got dressed and headed up the lifts. I have never seen it snow so hard, you could maybe see 3 chairs ahead. It was crazy. We got off the chair and started down, Wild Finale. The snow was deep and it was pretty soft which was pretty dang nice. Melissa and I both brought our powder skis. She was trying out her new Volkl KiKu’s and I had my Volkl Mantra’s. It was amazing to be skiing that kind of powder here in Minnesota. We found the best snow on Dan’s Dive and Bakkelyka they were a little protected from the wind so the snow was just piling up, we lapped those runs a few times and had fresh tracks every time it was snowing so hard. In fact I experienced snow blindness for the first time ever it was weird. We skied hard for about 2 hours and watched the weather get worse and worse, we decided to head out. I am glad we did. The drive home was so crazy. The drifts on 50 were about 2-3’ high and when I would hit them they would go over my car. Visibility was about 5-10’ the road was closed just outside of Mielsville so we had to take a detour through Hasting which turned out to be better, 61 was in good shape as was Hastings. The drive from Hastings down 55 to 42 turned out to be a breeze. So that was really nice. We got home and found 4’ drifts in our drive way, so we had to shovel a path so I could get my car in the garage. I have never seen so much snow in my life; I think it was because of the wind more than anything. The snowstorm in 91 brought way more snow but didn’t have the winds so the drifts weren’t as big. We got in the garage and started to laugh about how stupid it was to actually head out skiing in that weather. We were so glad that we did go though, it was epic! I was glad Melissa got to try here new skis in some real snow before heading west with them. She was a little nervous about skiing them because they are so fat and a little longer than her old powder skis.

The rest of the weekend seemed uneventful after Saturday’s adventure. We ended up running a couple errands and I wrote a paper for one of my classes, which I am happy to say will be done this week. It will be nice to take a break from school for a bit. My next 2 classes start up again in March so I have a couple months off. I am hoping to get a lot of skiing in. Life is good. 60 days till Big Sky.

Random Thoughts...

My co-worker left for a month vacation in Vietnam yesterday. I like him will miss him while he is gone. His wife is from Vietnam so they return every few years to visit her family and travel around the country. It is fun to listen to him talk about his past adventures over there. Sounds like a very interesting place. I have asked him to bring me back a small carved Buddha. I am hoping that he will find something interesting for me.

My other co-worker left the day after Thanksgiving for a year of service in Afghanistan. He is in the Army and this will be his second time over there. I was sad to see him leave as well. I sent some small plastic toy dinosaurs along with him. I gave him instructions to send me pictures of the toys in different places during his tour. I appreicate his humor, so it will be interesting to see what kind of photos I get back from him. I have also instructed him to return the toys to me when he returns to work in 13 months...

I will miss my friends while they are gone, I wish them both safe travels.