Adventure #10 - Kids Spring Sport

Well, it has been a very busy summer here, so much so that we have failed to turn out a single blog since May.  So we decided that we needed to bite the bullet this Thanksgiving Long Weekend and knock a couple out – the first being coverage of the kids spring sports.

As always sport is very much associated with a season - at home it is normally summer and winter sports whereas here you also need to add spring and fall sports – so the sport seasons are a bit shorter. This spring the boys decided to play Rugby Union and Ball Hockey. Ball Hockey is just like Ice Hockey except you play on concrete (Ice hockey rink with no ice), you use a ball and wear shoes instead of skates.

It is probably the first time that Ben has been extremely keen to play any sport and I put that down to the coach and managers of his club (this is particularly in contrast with the coach and managers of Tom and Jared’s team but more on that later).  

I think the highlight of Ben's season was his game as goalie. He did let a couple of goals in - usually because he was picking his nose or his backside, but the team won. 

All suited up and ready for battle!

Benny in action. 

 As is customary at the completion of the game, the team swarms the goalie in appreciation of their efforts. I think this was Ben's favourite part as he doesn't mind being the centre of attention.

Benny being thanked by the team.

Ben progressed very well given he had not even seen the game, let alone played it before and they never trained. In fact they did so well, that they made it all the way to the last play-off game only losing 3 games throughout the season. Unfortunately in the final play-off they were blown away and ended up losing 11 to 5. Either way, Benny loves the game and continues to ask when it starts again. He had a blast and the coach and staff were awesome.

The Runners Up.

While Benny's team was awesomely organised, Tom and Jared's was anything but. It was a bit like Lord of the Flies and a fight for survival - and that was before the game in the change room! Despite that the boys enjoyed the new sport and also made it to the play-offs although they bowed out quite early in the piece. 

Jared in the face off.

Tom defending well. 

Tom and Jared before the play-off.

The team after bowing out.

 Rugby was very well organised and well financed with Rugby Canada playing a part even at the junior level. Training through the season included a visit from the Canadian National team and the boys escorted players onto the ground for the international between Canada and Tonga. It was appropriate I think, that our boys escorted Tongans rather than Canadians.

Ben checking the line before kicking off.

Ben not interested in the Rugby....

Tom with a couple of the Canadian team.

Tom kicking off.

Jared stepping a Canadian national in his Wallabies jersey.

Tom and Jared with Canadian nationals, Phil Mack and Sean Duke.

All three boys escorting the Tongan team onto the ground. Ben has the biggest bloke there!

Adventure #9 - V8s in Texas

Well this adventure had a bizarre start: with me in Washington DC for work having to fly north to Philadelphia, to fly south to Austin, Texas; Jac and the boys driving north to Ottawa, to fly south to Chicago and then eventually meeting me in Austin. Despite all of this and the shoddy travel offered by US based airlines in general, there is one area where they come out on top - WIFI - we were able to communicate via Facebook whilst flying on different planes to the same location.

Now without wanting to start a war with anyone, the US is different! Then Texas is different again. And above all else, they are hands down the worst drivers I have experienced anywhere in North America - yes you heard right, worse than Montreal drivers! I dropped more than the odd Heyzeus whilst manoeuvring the 7 tonne Chevy Suburban around morons. On second thought there was heaps of Aussies there, so they could have all been from Melbourne!

Backwards? No, we're not sure either, but we think so.

The Tank.

Inside the Tank - heading to the V8s. 

The Roads where Texans race and generally drive like idiots!

 So after recovering overnight from the travel to the deep south, we headed out for a bit of pre-race sight seeing, and ended up walking up a mountain in 35 degree, 90% humidity. Now ordinarily that wouldn't be too difficult, but after 5 months in Canada and a max temperature of about 23 and bugger all humidity, it was  a slightly sweaty affair. Not to worry though, it set us up well to go hang out with the bogan's at the V8s - some of these guys could recognise a tin of deodorant about 3 times in 10......

Off for a walk - Mount Bonnell.

Colorado River from Mount Bonnell.

 So after sweating it up, we headed to the Zilker Botanical Gardens. Nope not another V8s attendee there either, but not somewhere I would normally hang out either. It did get the kids out of the car and provided us all with some shade from the heat of the day but also introduced us to some local reptiles. Whilst checking out the local turtle population and taking a few photos, we noticed a few snakes in the ponds. So after taking a few steps backwards we moved to somewhere a little more protected. But this meant that the photos were not so good.  

I cant see any Snakes!

 So I moved forward into the scrub to get some photos of this slippery buggers and they turned out quite well.

But then Tom decided to move in for a better look too, and at about head height in the branches of a palm like plant, there was a big snake. The photo doesn't really do it justice but I wasn't really concerned with how good the photo was as I back pedalled out of there!

Yep, that's a big snake!

Jared taking a load off on a Butterfly.

 So with all of this sweating and excitement, it was time to go and boost the local economy and buy over priced water and junk food at the track. And not only did the 'awesome' seats that I paid a fortune have us in the main grand stand on Pit Straight, they were part of the only section without any roof! So would you like to suck it up for a few hours more in the sun? Yes please! We did go for a walk through the pits - we couldn't get any hotter, but Benny was really struggling.

Benny struggling with the heat at Lowndsey's Pits.

Tom at Russell Ingall's Pits.

The view from our heated seating.

 Eventually after feeding the horde and buying t-shirts, hats etc, we sat down (in the sun) for the first of four races. It was a great sight to see the cars all lined up ready to go.

Lined up ready to go. 

 There were only three cars we were interested in  - #888 Craig Lowndes - an old favourite from his time as a Ford driver.

Craig Lowndes

 Jared is a fan of 'Frosty' - #5 Mark Winterbottom.

 And Tom loves the 'Enforcer' - #66 Russell Ingall.

At the end of the first of four races a pattern formed that would follow for most of the weekend. The Redbull Team - Whincup and Lowndes dominated, Whincup with three firsts and a third; Lowndes with three seconds and a fifth.

Lowndsey - always the gentleman (without the helmet).

A common sight over the weekend. 

 After a bit too much sun on Saturday we decided to turn up just before the first race on Sunday, which gave us a bit more time to get out and about in Austin. Jac just had to have a pair of Cowgirl Boots and a Hat, so a visit to Sheplers was first stop.

The Boot and Hat place.

We then went to the Capitol Building and had a good look at the various monuments and inside what is essentially the State Parliament building. 

The Capitol Building - built in 1988.

The Tribute to Texas School Children - with a couple of Aussies as well. 

 Then it was off to broil for a bit longer at the track.The best part of the weekend was when it was all over.....and then we were allowed onto the track. We walked all the way up the hill to the first corner with the boys collecting tyre rubber on the way up.

Family shot - standing on the main straight at the Circuit of the America's.

We had a great time, there's no doubt. But there is a bit of a sad footnote to our trip. Our flight back to Ottawa was via Chicago. After take off, the pilot advised us that we would be taking a westerly route to avoid some big storms. It turns out that these storms were those that created the Oklahoma Tornado where 24 people were killed including a number of kids who were at school at the time it struck. And ironically after the heat we experienced (that really just would have been a warm day at home), one week later people have died around the Austin / San Antonio area due to flooding. Its amazing how quick things change.

Adventure #8 - Easter skiing in Vermont

With the expectation of a quiet Easter at home in the wind, but some great spring skiing still on offer I asked my mate Marc G in New York where I could head. He suggested Stowe in Vermont so I booked some accommodation  hired an SUV, filled it to the brim then we shot off to the border.

Loading the Truck!

  The photo of the truck does not do this thing justice! It was massive with a huge V8 to get it moving. Whilst it was extremely spacious, we still filled it, and despite being very comfortable, its size would make life difficult in the coming 24 hours. So anyway we arrived at a border crossing into the US of A and everyone else must have left at the same time and used the same Gary Garmin GPS to get here about 30 seconds ahead of us. All in all it took about an hour to cross on a day which is apparently the busiest day on the calendar (note for next year - don't cross the border on Good Friday).

So after about 5 hours of driving we were approaching the Stowe Mountain Resort, our accommodation for the next 3 nights. In fact, we were less than 5km away when the road suddenly became very closed with a road block and a sign which said "Closed for the Winter". Well, Gary Garmin almost went out the window when he said the alternative was another 60km, to travel less than 5km! So after a U-Turn and another 40 minutes drive we came upon a great sight.

The view from about 10km out (on the right road).

We managed to get another shot on a following day when the weather was great.

Perfect weather and a great mountain.

We arrived late afternoon at the Mount Mansfield Townhouses and if anyone is ever going to this neck of the woods, we cannot recommend this place highly enough. On night one, just as it was getting dark, a Moose cow just went running passed our kitchen - pretty cool!

Tom and Benny out the front.

We arrived to find our 3 bedroom Townhouse / Condo / Cabin was awesome and was literally less than 5m from the snow which took you straight to the lift.

Our Condo.

The view to the lift from the Condo.

Morning one, ready to go out the front of the Condo.

Day one had a slightly delayed start.....the lift opened at 0900, so at about 0830 I went to walk down to get our lift passes. As I passed by the truck I happened to notice it had a flat. I spent the next half an hour finding the tyre changing kit and then hoisting this massive beast up on a jack which only looked capable of lifting a mini. Eventually with that done and lift tickets in hand we grabbed our skis and were on the snow less than five minutes after returning. The day was spent going up and down the green runs directly next to our accommodation trying to work out how to ski again. With around 20 minutes up on the lift and depending on which runs you came down on it took anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes to get back.

Jared and I ready to go.

Best on Ground - Jared.

Tom off to the lift.

Both followed by Dad, to pull them out of the snow when they have a stack!

Tom on the lift.

Tom boarding down the "Easy Mile"

Day two was Easter Sunday, so after an Easter Egg hunt we were almost the first ones on the lifts. We decided that today we would take our lift up, then ski across the mountain to another lift, up again and then come back down around the back of the mountain. Jared again proved his natural ability and with poles under his armpits he took off. I could stay with him, but I couldn't catch him. Tom is Boarding so that is a bit more technical and more difficult to pick up, although he had the ability and confidence to get down all of the green runs on offer - he would just randomly fall off every so often. This long trip took the best part of 90 minutes and took us on a lift above a Double Black Diamond Run - my lord, we're not quite there yet I can definitely say. By the end of this and one more run, Tom had had enough, so Jared and I continued on. We were joined by Jac for a couple of runs in the afternoon and by the end of the day, Jared and I were skiing the Green runs without falling over at all, and Jac was down to a couple of falls per run.
    

Tom cruising down "Ryan's Folly"

As always  - Jared waiting for us to catch up.

Jared taking the alternate route.

Tom having a cruise.

Tom and I after a couple of runs together.

Tom and I returning home after a run.

A section of the Double Black Diamond Run

Even the Easter Bunny found us!

Our lift tickets gave us access to the 13 or so lifts across the resort which was massive. We drove up to a different part of the resort (the harder end!), to ride the Gondolier to near the top of Mount Mansfield. We had a waffle and a coffee / hot chocolate and tried some hot apple cider. Then took some photos and headed back down - the scenery was amazing.

The Gondolier.

Jac, Jared and Benny on the way up.

The family snap at the top.

A frozen waterfall.

We didn't do any lessons this time but poor old Benny could really use one or two, mostly because he doesn't listen and generally speaking doesn't care! So he had a few little runs with Jac, but lessons weren't really happening where we were, so he'll have to wait until next season (which we are hanging out for already!). Needless to say he still had a great time and got some skiing in although he didn't get to the top of the hill.

Benny doing what he does best - being cute.

Benny doing what he does second best - shoving things up his nose and watching TV!

Moose tracks from our visitor on night one.

We packed up our goods and shackles on Easter Monday for the drive back to Canada. After a short stop at a Maple Shack in Vermont for a variety of Maple products, we fuelled the boys with Maple Syrup Moose Heads, and drove back home.

Our next adventure will be our trip to Texas on 17 May to see the V8 Supercars race in Austin. Until then, have fun.

Cheers

MIMS