More skiing, and a peek of some knitting

Sorry for the delay, but I had a friend visiting this weekend, which both slowed down my knitting and kept me from blogging! Brent, one of my roommates from college, came to Seattle for a few days, and it was great to get to hang out with him. It's been quite awhile, although we did see each other at Andrea's wedding back in September.

Sunday we went skiing at Stevens Pass, which was great. Lovely sunny day, pretty good snow, no major incidents and everyone made it home in one piece. Brent did have a slight issue when he fell and his binding twisted when his ski came off (Which I really don't think is normal. The binding, not the ski. The ski is meant to come off if you fall with enough zeal.), and he walked down quite a bit of the hill before a ski patroller stopped and fixed the binding. I had been ahead of him so I didn't witness this, but it made for a good story...I wish I would have been skiing with the camera as it was a really spectacular day. These photos were taken around 4:00 so the light was already not ideal, but you can see the blue sky at least, which is always appreciated around these parts.
Since I waxed poetic about Mt. Baker last week, I feel I should give my 30-second review of Stevens Pass. This was only my second trip there, and it was much better than the first. We went there three years ago (Really? Wow. Time flies.) and that day the visibility was awful because it was snowing like the dickens (What does that even mean? Why do people say that? Do other people say that? And should it be Dickens?), and really crowded. As I've mentioned the weather was beautiful on Sunday. But, it was still really crowded, and the lift lines were totally chaotic and completely unorganized. However, aside from that it didn't really seem that busy since the ski area is pretty big and everyone was spaced out around the mountain. So, although I wasn't keen on the waiting, overall the skiing was pretty good. They have a nice variety of terrain and good grooming, and Dave reports that the double black diamonds were to his satisfaction. The drive is about an hour less each way than to Mt. Baker and much less frightening. Plus, leaving home at 6:30 instead of 6:00 felt downright luxurious - I even took a shower! I suspect we'll go back.
I'm sorry that this appears to be turning into Emily's Musings on Skiing (Maybe I should grab that and save you all the boredom of reading this? And why aren't there more knitters who ski? Do they just not talk about it, or are they mutually exclusive activities?), but most of my knitting has been secret gift knitting that I can't talk about yet. However, here is a snippet of something I can post about soon, and after Sunday I can show off another secret project.
Them some bright colors! Sorry about all the parentheses this evening - apparently my mind is wandering...