For the past couple weeks, I had been bothering Travis to cross country ski on the lake with me. I saw people posting their ice skating pictures on Facebook, and I was anxious to get out on the water, in frozen form. Travis encouraged me to go ahead without him, but I have an overly healthy fear of ice covered lakes, so I wanted someone there to help me if I go through into the dark icy water. Perhaps he wants to collect on that term life insurance policy before it expires. 

Sunday, Travis says,”You still want to ski on the lake?” Ummm, YES! So he goes to get the equipment from the hot box (this is the attic, and it most definitely isn’t hot this time of year) and the basement storage, because why would the skis and boots be together. Our equipment is so old that it could be referred to as vintage. And we haven’t used it in over 20 years. My skis date back to when my mom got the younger kids cross country skis for Christmas when I was 12 or so. You do the math on its age. Travis’ skis were a Merle cast off, and Merle doesn’t have high standards for ski equipment. They were probably from a garage sale in 1980. 

We get our rag tag set of stuff together, and I grab a life jacket as I go out the door. Trav asks, “You are not seriously going to wear that, are you? Because if you are, I can’t ski with you.” I had tried to fit it under my shell, so nobody would see it, but coats aren’t made to accommodate life jackets, so I was forced to wear it on the outside. I responded, “I am wearing it, so if I break through, you and the rescuers can pull my cold lifeless body from the water and I don’t need to spend the winter floating around the bottom of Lake Louise.” Travis mumbled something incoherent and out we went. 

So those old skis probably need a layer of wax, even though they are technically waxless skis, because they did NOT slide at all. The snow was heavy and wet, and stuck to the bottom of those vintage skis. So we were walking, with style, out on the lake. We tried to slide, but it didn’t work. But it took a ton of exertion and that life jacket was HOT. So, I’m sure we looked really cool out there. It was a lot easier when I stopped trying to slide. 

At some point on the far side of the fast zone (part of the lake remains water, so we are limited on how far we can go out), we got ourselves trapped. On the left was water, and on the right were huge slush zones, which I steadfastly refused to ski through. These slush zones were about 40 yards across. There was one snow bridge that was fairly big, but we had to turn around to go back. In Travis’ attempt to turn around, he experienced an equipment malfunction. When he lifted his foot up without a ski, I thought his ski had slipped off, but actually, the vintage boot had broken, leaving the top section securely fastened in the ski. Neither of us thought it was a good idea for him to walk over the snow bridge, putting all his weight in one spot, rather than spread out on the ski. So, I broke trail and Travis had to step with his attached foot and slide the ski that doesn’t slide the entire way home. It looked like a ton of work when I turned around to laugh at him. Turns out even Travis was a little concerned about going through the ice, when faced with the slush fields. 

I ordered us new equipment off of Amazon when we got home. Maybe we will get it in time to actually use it this year. It doesn’t look like good equipment, but it can’t be worse than what we already have. Have a great week everyone! And keep your life jacket handy!