Canmore

Hi CBC,

It was eighty degrees when I left Colorado.  Packing for on-snow skiing when you've spent the last couple days with your air conditioning on and avoiding working out in the middle of the day is a weird feeling, one I haven't had often since I ventured out of the great state of California.

The Lady Fortune and me chilling on my front balcony.
It was actually too hot to be wearing this long sleeve shirt,
but the orange is too lovely to pass up

United delayed my flight (surprise), so I spent two hours sitting outside in the sunshine, watching the strange new artwork of the Denver airport, which has finished its new transit center and added "artwork."  Look at those klister scrapers billowing in the breeze...

But I get ahead of myself.  Remember my rear sight acting up?  Turns out that isn't super uncommon.  In flew the cavalry.

When your bullets are stuck on the left side and won't move right.

The Oppligers (Team Oppliger Biathlon) are close family friends from Houghton,
 and one of my major biathlon catalysts

My dad decided on Friday that he was showing up on a plane Saturday morning, so suddenly he was there.  Rather than tangle with my rear sight and its newly acquired attitude problem, we decided to swap it out entirely, and analyze the part later.  Apparently sometimes sights don't appreciate you asking them for clicks, and therefore just don't bother to move.  Mine actually had a major wobble where the aperture is inserted into the sight.  Odds are that I, the Human Hammer, as my dad has thus titled me, probably whacked it somehow.  I also whacked my snow cover, speaking of.

Human Hammer at SMR, wooden firing line vs. snow cover

I also became the new owner of this sweet one piece "whale tale," courtesy of my talented mother.  Yeah, my mom is cool enough to mold my rail and butthooks, and then recreate them in carbon fiber wrapped wood.

After some drilling and tapping, more drilling and tapping, reinforcing, stabilizing, and gluing, the required visit to McGuckin Hardware (greatest hardware store ever?) my dad flew out again on Sunday.  No daughter of his was going to go cavorting around the world with a wobbly cheekpiece.  How awesome is he?

What I would like to know, if any of you guys have done this, is if this Anschütz nameplate can be removed.  It's heavy and it's metal, and it's advertising a company that I had to give money to.  So really, why keep it?

this is actually Clare's new action-
 she swapped over to the sprint barrel

So delayed United flight notwithstanding, I arrived in Calgary and caught a ride with the rest of the team to Canmore.  We decided to go to Canmore because they have this early season situation they call "frozen thunder," where they take stored snow from the previous year, and roll it out on top of woodchips.  So yeah, we got on snow on October 25th- how cool is that?

If you haven't been to Canmore, I recommend you go.  Encircled by Canadian Rockies, bisected by the Bow River, and just to the southwest of the border of Banff National Park, Canmore is lovely.  I do recognize that everyone can't just spend their time traipsing about in pursuit of snow, but I imagine in the summer this place is even lovelier.  I would like to declare this one of the loveliest places I've ever been.

I present my argument as follows.

The rarely-captured smile of the elusive Russell Currier

Leif disappearing up the road to Lake Moraine.
This is actually natural snow, up higher in the mountains in Banff

The range on intensity day, otherwise known as:
get your butt mostly kicked by Susan Dunklee day

So, we spent Halloween here.  And between the three of us, Clare drew the most laughs.  Can't see her in the picture?  She actually is wearing a fake mustache and sporting a Ukrainian suit.  To get that, she actually went over to their hotel, used google translate and pantomime to try to explain Halloween, and managed to acquire the goods for that costume.  The Ukrainians were so excited by this they spent the whole day (which was interval day, mind you), cheering for her, and in one case actually pushing her uphill.  When they saw us taking the photos, they came over to join in.

But really, the best way to suffer through intervals is to follow Susan Dunklee's fake grass skirt around the ski trails.  In case you were wondering, our coaches were of course THRILLED that we showed up to intensity decked out in ridiculous attire and taking ourselves overly seriously.

#squad

There was too much snow to classic rollerski (oh darn),
so we suffered through this beautiful run instead

Susan really wanted to climb this rock, so she did

Susan and I just finished some of the slushiest, sloppiest intervals I've ever done (it was over fifty degrees and we were skiing on post-race snow), so I'm off to go faceplant on the couch.


-Joanne