Soul Gypsy

The closer the dates for the MSI Revelstoke Competition the more I questioned the feasibilty of making this trip happen. We had no contacts in Revelstoke, the parts I needed for the van had not arrived yet, and both Kevin and my cars  were definitely not sleepable, not to mention neither had the ability to go over 65mph and we certainly doubted their ability to make the 1400mile drive. Of course going skiing was much more of a priority than figuring out how to go on this trip so we procrastinated until the last possible minute, this being the day before we had to leave. My dad offered us his car for the journey and I found out that an old highschool friend had moved to Revelstoke for the winter. He had no phone so I Facebook messaged him as we loaded up the car. We were keen to avoid on the road food costs, so borrowing and idea from my CRMS telemark coach Kayo Ogilby we began rapping burritos, (oops I meant wrapping but there was plenty of rapping to go along with that).

Balls deep in Burrito Construction

Lots and lots of taters

Holy Huevos!

Breakfast Burritos

The Whole Lot

Breakfast Burritos: Eggs, Potatos, Cheese

Dinner Burritos: Beans, Rice, Potatos, Cheese (and meat in Kevin’s).

32  burritos in all, my little sisters miniature dachshund in there for scale. Her name is Lil’shit, in reference to her bowel movement size and her demeanor. I tried to convince my sister to let us put her in the burritos but she is still convinced she has the potential to be the next big rapper on the pop scene (c’mon with a name like Lil’shit thats totally feasible). The cost came out to one dollar per Burrito and we possibly created the NGS (new gypsy standard) for road trips. We froze the burritos and just microwaved them in gas stations along the way. Anyone with other ideas on how to eat cheap and good on the road (without access to cooking paraphanalia)?

Road Trip Necessity (life necessity actually)

It was utterly puking snow when we rolled out of Carbondale making the beginning of the journey bitter sweet. C’mon what kinda crackpot drives away from a snow storm, seriously has to be some wires confused for that kinda actions (snow totals amounted to nothing, not sour-grapes I swear!). We caravaned with Fred until just past Salt Lake City and he split off to head back to college in Washington. Initially we planned to take a break and sleep for the night but we just kept on driving, and driving, and driving. We were basically just way too jacked up on Maté, Adrenalin and Stoke (dangerous new drug) to want to pull over. We ended up hitting the border at 3:30am jamming out to Frank Zappa. As we climbed over the top of Rogers Pass, home of epic skiing, mountains and pillow lines, we ran out of washer fluid and oh shit we are just about out of gas too. The journey down the pass amounted to Kevin coasting the car in neutral as much as possible as I dumped our remaining water supply on the windshield, which completely caked with mud every few minutes. On the final hill into town we fishtailed out of control and almost ended up in a snowbank. Happily all in one piece we hit the slopes for a half day.

We skied powder 12 for 13 days and took only one day off. Stay tuned for skiing stories!