Cross-Country Skiing

One thing I really admire about Greg is that he wasn't scared to try anything. I also loved that he would involve me in many of his wild schemes. I don't know how he got into it but one day he called me up and told me that he needed me to help him teach a cross-country ski class. I didn't even know what cross-country skiing was and I don't think he really did either. Some how he had taught himself all about it and had signed up to teach this class. Lester and I were his assistants. What a great time that was. We held the classes out in the wilderness somewhere between Fort McCleod and Pincher Creek and we had many big classes. It was on one of those classes that I met an Eden girl. I don't remember her first name but years later I actually became friends with her brother Bob who ended up marrying Lisa's good friend Ruth. What a small world. I did a lot of cross-country skiing after that and the whole family got into it. On one of these ski trips we stayed in a motel somewhere and I had to sleep in the same bed as Greg's oldest son Michael. I was quite concerned about that because I knew that Michael was still a bit "iffy" on the potty training thing. Gaylia assured me that he would be fine. Sure enough, in the middle of the night I had this wonderful warm feeling come over me. It felt great until I woke up and realized that Michael had wet the bed. BIG TIME. I was drenched.

I have many very fond memories of Ross screaming down the hills in deep powder among the trees shouting at the top of his lungs, "your mother wears army boots". We had great times but my absolute favorite memory was a trip we made to Waterton.

Waterton used to get a LOT of snow during the winter. I have a picture (somewhere) of me sitting on top of a telephone pole the snow drifts were that deep. One year we decided to open up a room at the motel and go skiing. We had a sauna at the motel and we fired that baby up too. I soaked in the sauna until I was so hot I couldn't stand it and then, after carefully checking the surroundings, I dove naked into a very deep and very cold snow drift. Steam billowed up all around me. What a wonderful shock to the system.

One that trip we skiid along a trail that somewhat followed the highway that led up to Cameron lake. Coming down was pretty much all down hill so we just glided along the trail in completely virgin snow. I don't remember who all was there but I do know that Greg and Gaylia and Jackie and Ross were there along with Lester and I. As we came down the path we entered this small meadow and there in the middle of the meadow were a heard of deer. Because our skiis were so quiet we skiied right on by those deer and they never even flinched. I'm sure we were within 20 feet of them and all they did was lift there heads and look at us and then they went back to digging in the snow for some food. What an amazing sight that was. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of me skiing or of the deer so these are pictures I just pulled off the internet. They do show the kind of places that we skiid though. I'm almost missing Alberta and the snow right now. It truly is a beautiful country.

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Did you know that they have proven genetically that every single human being alive today descended from one lone woman (does that sound like Noahs wife?). They also believe that she lived in the middle east somewhere (perhaps Mt Ararat?). Even more unusual is that the genetic migration of mankind seems to indicate that from this point (the middle east) the human population migrated in three directions, towards Africa (Ham?), towards India and Asia (Japeth?) and towards Europe (Shem?)

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