A moderate snowfall was reported last night and it still raining down here in town. This may be as good as we get this trip, time to check it out!
So all that wind and rain equaled icy on our visit to Snowbasin. Venturing off the groomers was rewarded with superhardpack bumpy jarring ride. It was a groomer only day. A shame because there was a lot of really nice looking terrain at Snowbasin. We made what we could of it, capped it off by trying to ride a box at the very end and falling on my ass onto the concrete hard “snow”. It was still a fun day.
Reported 6 inches of snow at Snowbird, head out there. Step out into parking lot to a chilling wind. Stand in snail pace line for what seemed like half an hour to arrive at window to find all but three lifts closed. Make last minute decision to bail & try Brighton. Brighton is also chillingly windy, & crowded with people with the same idea. We decide to save the legs & call it an off day for riding.
First day of riding, off too a late start, no new snow, everyone feeling unmotivated. We head to Solitude, a 40 min drive at most. Cloudy skies, calm winds, pretty warm. No lines, we get passes and head on up the lifts. Right off the second lift we head into gnarly land through a gate with warnings for experts only. We survive, but it was hardly worth the effort, snow conditions were not prime.
We did find some fun stuff, but later in day the precipitation started, which from midway down was rain. Rain makes for pretty sucky snow.
An not bad first riding day. My impressions of Solitude up to now, easy access, not crowded, no lift lines even on a long weeken Sunday of regular season, pretty good sized area, lift price on par, food prices high on par with resorts. Wish we had some of the Utah powder it’s famous for as that would be something to give it props over WB. Only other main complaint is they have a bunch of slow lifts and seem to like making steep exit ramps that shoot you right into walls.
Off to board in Utah. Hopefully the snow conditions will be much nicer than what Root and Fabio experienced on their initial early-season exploration last time!
Oh, krapp! I slept thru the first hour of the Kohaku! Once again, I sit in front of the TV on New Year’s Day watching the local delayed broadcast of the NHK “Red and White Song Festivalâ€. Let’s get to it forthwith. Hopefully I can catch the beginning in rebroadcast later… Going live!
Never shy about giving themselves a pat on their own shoulder, this year’s theme seems to be revolving around NHK’s morning drama, “Ge Ge Ge no Nyoubou”.
So spending this last day of the year on mundane news. The new kitty that adopted us a number of months ago had gotten into some kind of altercation a bit before Thanksgiving. Her injury became ugly just before I left for my Whistler trip, so there was a bit of last second rushing as we wrangled her into a box and I dropped her off at the vet barely an hour before I left for the airport. It turns out the injury was a bit more serious and she required some surgery, but she’s now been back home for a few weeks and doing fine. She has this funny pom-pom tail from having her butt shaved. She’s up to her lizard (& one dove) hunting. And just recently looks like now using the litter box I bought when I brought her home. I’m glad for that. I’ll be atempting the next task of giving her a worm (or rather de-worm) pill in a few weeks. Vet gave her one a week ago when I stopped by after seeing an oogie wormy thing on her butt. Ah the wonders of pet ownership. Continue reading ‘Closing out the year’
After hearing mention of this, happened to be going past the second location of the Japanese Market Nijiya (a California francise, I believe) and saw that it was open, and I needed stuff for NewYears. It’s in that small collection of stores at the corner of Piikoi and Kona, where Blockbuster used to be. It’s a fair amount more condensed than the University location, and a large portion I thought was wasted on a eating/lounge area. Anyway, it a pretty convenient location and parking is free and easy, although their dedicated lot is not huge and can get congested when there is some lady in a Mercedes waiting to pick up friend blocking three people trying to get out of stalls and leave. You can always park in Ala Moana in the Sears corner and its a short walk over. I didn’t think they were so successful to warrant a second location, but we shall see! Oh, and a good amount of interesting JDM goodness to see.
Ah yes, good ol plywood on floor of drivers, and tongue and groove planking on passenger floor. You know it, there’s rust. Pulled the stuff out and pulled the carpet, fuzzy stuff, and that asphaltish sheet stuff off the floors. Oh yeah, Flintstone grade rot going here! Driver side is marginally better than passenger, but thats not saying much. Passenger side rot starts to extend into rear floor area also. Fab brought up good point of if I plan to use different seats, if so then don’t need to worry about the original seat cross bar.
 Not worrying about rebuilding this as it was floating on rot would be a good thing. Anyway, the good news is I got in touch with a guy on the East coast fabricating 510 floors so hopefully this should be a somewhat less daunting task, something within our capabilities, to fix.
Also found someone else fabricating rocker panels. There is hope!
So it’s done, I’m now the proud owner of a brand old Datsun 510. I have yet to get it home, but check out this old school government form.