Practice Day 2

Today was a frustrating day at practice. Whitney had one run, just about got the start down when they said they were changing the start. By the end of practice they had decided to tweak the start again. I also heard something about changes to the finish but I'm not sure about if that was done. Again it was good to have a good coach with her. Chad really helped her figure out the best lines on the course and how to get over the difficult elements. Although all the changes were frustrating overall it was a good day.

We got about an inch of snow overnight, not nearly what they were calling for (which was fine with me). Over at Ski Cooper they got about the same so it didn't really do much to the course. It was just enough to cover the roads and look pretty. I was lamenting that rental cars in Colorado should come with an ice scraper or snow brush but this was a super dry, light, fluffy snow so it easily brushed off the car this morning. After I got Whitney dropped off I came back and decided to poke around Leadville a bit more. Our house is just a block off the main street so everything is in easy walking distance. I was waiting to cross a street and decided to pop into a shop that was on the corner. Turns out it was an artist's collective and they had some really cool stuff. If money and packing space were no problem I probably would have bought more. As it was I bought some Christmas presents and a sticker for Whitney. I saw a few other things I liked but space to get them home was a problem. I walked further down the street, most of the way, again then came back down the other side. We had seen a pillow in a window that we liked shaped like mountains but the store wasn't open today. I think Tuesdays are a generally decided upon day to be closed; quite a few stores are closed on Tuesday and Wednesday here.

After we got back from Ski Cooper Whitney changed and we went for a drive. We went back down 24 past Ski Cooper and all the way to I70. It was a super pretty drive, up and over mountains. There was snow falling in places, the sun was peeking out and lighting up tops of mountains. We came across and old abandoned mining town on the side of a mountain. There were a bunch of colorful houses in the open and a bunch more in the trees on the other side of the mine. The houses looked to have been built relatively recently (late 20th century) but they were definitely abandoned as none of them had windows including the main mine building. I was hoping to get some pictures of Mt. Massive and the range along 24 where it's wide open but the clouds and snow were low hanging today. This morning it was the clouds and it was gray anyway, this afternoon the sun was out but the clouds and snow were also around on the mountains. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for pictures.