Lonely Ride Up the Mountain

This past winter will be one for the record books because of how warm it has been. Right now is the end of March but the weather thinks it is the end of April, if not May. Then Mother Nature decided to throw us a curve ball today with a cold front that brought temperatures at my house down to almost freezing. Unfortunately my truck did not like the sudden drop in temperature and decided to not let the radio work on my drive to the morning gym, Alta ski area. This is the 3rd time it has happened in the 7 years I have owned the truck. The simple fix is to allow the truck to warm up slightly, turn it off, and turn it back on. As the drive is not very long, I just drove to the ski area without the radio.

I had hoped my wife would like to ski with me for an hour this morning. She is not a fan of the freeze/thaw cycle we are having right now. In spring skiing, the snow starts out frozen solid. Imagine an ice-skating rink stuck on the side of a mountain. It is like that and if you don't know how to carve turns, skiing can be a little scary. Without my wife to join me, the ride up the mountain felt extra lonely.

There are also a number of displays that show up on my radio like time and outside temperature. Without the radio working, I couldn't see those either. I like to know the temperature so I can see it change over the 4000 vertical feet I climb to get to the ski area parking lot. Generally there is a 10-degree Fahrenheit difference but I had no idea today. All I could do is guess.

It is amazing how I have come to appreciate little modern conveniences for the short drive to the ski area. I thought about that and how technology provides feedback about the world around us. Something as simple as knowing the correct time is very comforting. Couple that with all the information we can get at our fingertips thanks to Smartphones and the Internet and we have the ability to be very aware of what is going on around us. Unfortunately we do not all take advantage of that information and there are a lot of ignorant people in the world. But that is a topic for another post.