Friday, January 20, 2012

Simone's races on Jan 15

Here are a couple of videos Robert took. Simone's first race ~



~ and her second race ~



She learned a great deal that day!

UPDATE: Here are the links directly to the videos in You Tube. This blog format is cutting off about one-fourth of the video on the right side.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The Spandaus' ski place

In very northwestern Massachusetts, there are Williamstown and Jiminy Peak Ski Resort (photos below). What a lovely place -- cold, cold, cold, but lovely! Here is where Robert, Danielle, and Simone come to ski on weekends.

This is the building from which the main ski lift begins. I took the photo from inside the lodge, and it was definitely colder out there than inside! It was snowing a bit, even though they had the snow-making machines going full blast, too!

Here's the guide to which ski runs are where.

More and more skiers were starting to show up.

Snow-making machines in action on one of the runs.

What looks like fog rising from behind the trees is really the man-made snow being made on a different ski run, one not completely visible from the lodge.

And a couple of little videos ...




Now it's beginning to clear up ... and get more and more crowded with skiers, too!

More and more crowded ...

Here's Simone when she came in for lunch -- goggles are off, and the rest came off very soon.
Cutie!

Here is a view of the whole ski area from the highway as we were starting our drive back to New York. It's a very beautiful place, day or night, snowing or clear!