Spring Travel

I watched a duck land on the pond this morning. Man, those guys come in hot sometimes. It is contrasted with the geese, who land mostly flaps down, and nearly stalling out. And then, the geese usually land in a large gaggle, whereas the ducks land individually. Pretty cool on many different levels, and lots to watch. For my purposes, I'll focus on the hot landing ducks. Last night, I think one of the ducks was piloting our plane. Well, we had a dramatic stop. I don't know maybe I'm painting the wrong picture. Anyway, it was no emergency issue, I think it all had to do with the runway we used. The main runway ( 3/21) is being worked on, so we landed on 7/25, which is shorter. Also, landing that way (7), we run out going away from the terminal. So, I think the pilot wanted to keep the taxiing as short as possible. So, we hit the ground, and put on the brakes. I think we used less than half the runway. We were in an Airbus 319, so midsized plane. I have been in a C-5 (much bigger plane) that performed a similar maneuver. In other words, I have been through this before, and not concerned. The only discomfort was that Ethan, sound asleep, was falling in his chair - no longer comfortable, due to the quick deceleration. Riles had a better seating position, and was unaffected. Funny thing was that he woke for a moment, and then lights out again. We had to wake them up after all the passengers got off and I got my chair. Fun, and awesome that the kids fly so well.
We were flying because we had gone to Vail, to participate in a fund raiser for the Adaptive Ski Team. There are plenty of activities provided for the kids to do, under supervision, its really cool, and opens up opportunities for Sarah and myself. With all the skiing Ethan has done, I did think we could handle a little skiing ourselves unassisted. Apparently standing up on skis is harder than I remember. That and what looked like cat track, had areas of more steep than he was ready for. And we had a cascading effect, where fear, fatigue, and frustration added up and took over. Thankfully, Vail is used to this sort of thing, and there were plenty of employees on the hill, who stopped by to help us out. He made it up the hill on the chairlift, and cruising the cat track quite easily so I was impressed. His command of the snowplow, however, was not enough to overcome some of the pitches. So, that ended our ski adventure, and next year, we will sign him(and Rileigh) up for classes. That left us with activities other than skiing. We swam in the pool, and played on a nice playground city park. They also had a movie night, and a Disney party. Sarah and I had dinners and socializing with NBC higher ups, and other benefactor types.
We were not scheduled to leave Denver until 9pm. And because we can't think ahead all that well, we played that day by ear. Which meant out of the hotel by noon (a challenge for us any day), then to the playground again, then into Denver where we decided to try out the aquarium. Add to the fun, we got stuck in traffic as the I-25, I-70 interchange was closed due to an accident. Raise the level with a little of Keelie needing to eat, no water, and she had spilled a little on herself =uncomfortable baby, uncomfortable family (stressed Dad).
It is cool to see how well the kids travel. I get a little unnerved as we mingle in crowds, and Ethan likes to play hide and seek, but all in all, they do what we say, and we have fun.
The comments were: "It is good to be home" "I like VailDenver (its what they call it), there is lots of cool snow."
I'm ready to stay home for a while, but that is not to be.