The snow in Durango has earned the degree of PhD - Piled Higher and Deeper.

Here's a pile about twelve feet high at the Peerless Tyre Store (and gas station) on main street.

             


On Sunday, we'll be leaving 9000 ft elevation at Purgatory, CO to return to New River, AZ.

We've been gone for three weeks this time - we're planning on staying in the Phoenix area for five days, then heading back up here for a few more weeks.

We've got a "goal" of 50 ski days for this year - currently we're at 30 days, so it looks like we're ahead of the curve. And now that we've got this little Love Grotto in the Sky, odds are good that we'll beat that.

But living at 9000 feet seems to be wearing me out - I have to take a little nap on the couch every day around noon. My resting heart rate has gone DOWN, though, since I was living down at 2300 ft elevation - that's not possible, of course. I suspect that it has more to do with my changed attitude at living in ski country than it has to do with the physiology of elevation.

My attitude has changed a lot since we got here. Instead of that feeling of "I'm missing it" that I was having in New River, now I'm quite content; the only real concern that I have now is that I have to live forever, so that I can keep skiing.

This morning Ethel rode up on the six-pack lift with a couple of skiiers; she's 83 and he's 86. They ski every day, from 9:00 till 11:00. I can see me doing that in thirty-five years. (They get to ski for free, too :)

But for now, I've got to get ready to head back down to New River.