17 feet of Home Sweet Home

We found a camper on Ebay to use as our home away from home while we are patrolling at Chestnut Mountain. Let's just say that sleeping separately in the guys and girls dorms with a bunch of rowdy college kids every weekend was getting really old really fast.

It is a gently used 1995 Salem by Cobra. Jonathan drove down to Arkansas to pick it up after we won the Ebay auction. I uploaded a bunch of the photos from the ad on Ebay below. Probably more than you want to look at, but here it goes.....

We especially like the "mountain graphics" on the front window cover.

It came with 2 propane tanks and lots of storage room.

It also has a working air conditioner and a hitch on the back for pulling a second trailer (I'm not sure that we will ever attempt this, but if we want to try it the hitch is there)

A nice view of the dinette and furnace just inside the front door.

The trailer will sleep 6 (4 adults and 2 children). The storage cupboards over the dinette fold down to make a bunk for one. The dinette also folds down to make a full sized bed for two. It will make a nice "guest bed" for any visitors who want stay with us.

There is a nice hanging closet with plenty of room for ski jackets, etc.

A radio, with built in speakers all over the camper, that tunes in some pretty good radio stations.

The storage cupboard above the couch also folds down into a bunk for one. We fold the couch down into a full sized bed that is just perfect for us and our double sleeping bag.

A pantry and big refrigerator.

A shot looking towards the front of the trailer from the couch in the back.

Several pictures of the kitchen and gas range and oven.

It also has a full bath with toilet, sink, shower, and 1/2 tub. For now we are just "dry camping" which means that we aren't hooked up to water or electricity while we are out at Chestnut. We use the propane heater for warmth and the battery for lights. We can still shower, etc. in the dorms or pool area at the resort. We have stayed in it 2 weekends already and it is great!

I did some decorating with outdoor sports posters and ski trail maps. I also made a custom sign/key rack to make it feel more like home. So "Welcome to the Ski Hut." We have decided that is a good name for it.

We have already enjoyed having a place to invite people to come and hangout after the hill closes. Matt (a fellow ski patrol candidate) is pictured with Jonathan above.

Jonathan sleeping soundly. I had to get him back for the puffy coat picture in an earlier post :-)

Record Cold in Illinois

Below are some pictures taken on some of the coldest days yet this winter. It was a high of -2 with a windchill of -30. Schools in the area were closed for 3 days (that almost never happens). We however, had students that were already here and continued teaching classes. We just had to limit our time outdoors with the students to 10-15 minute intervals.

It really isn't too bad when my commute to the office involves a 2 minute walk across campus. The icicles hanging from the roof of my office building are quite impressive as you can see in the photo above.

We stayed warm and cozy in our house. I'm not sure if you can see in the picture or not, but I shoveled through almost 10 inches of snow in the front yard to cut a path to the front door.


I donned Jonathan's puffy coat to stay nice and cozy while watching a movie that night. I got so comfortable that I fell asleep and Jonathan snapped this photo. It is kind of hard to imagine that about a year ago I was wearing a bikini, snorkeling, and using this same camera to shoot underwater shots in the balmy 80 degree waters of South Florida.

Bum Thumb Update

A couple of pictures and an update on my "bum thumb" as Jonathan likes to call it.

These photos were taken on January 15th, two months after the incident with the hatchet.

The healing process is going amazingly well and I am hoping that it will continue to grow back as it has been doing thus far. I'll post more pictures later this month on the 15th. I kind of wish that I had taken more pictures....it would have been a neat time lapse of my thumb regenerating itself.

Our Honeymoon in Keystone, CO

One of our best Christmas surprises this year was the arrival of our new Jetta Sportwagon at the dealership just in time for our honeymoon road trip. We traded in Jonathan's old Jetta and my Jeep. We are down to two vehicles with the truck and the sportwagon.

Jonathan in the driver's seat above. We are all loaded and ready to embark on our Christmas/Honeymoon adventure. We spent two days in Iowa celebrating Christmas with family. Then continued on to Colorado.

We stopped at the Continental Divide for a photo opp.

We skied 3 days at Keystone and 1 day at Copper.


It was sunny and beautiful the whole week.


We also got in some night skiing at Keystone and tried out some "helmet cam" video with the camera on New Year's Eve in the clip below.....

We saw the sunset from the top of the mountains on several nights.

It was a great trip and time together.

Ski Patrol Candidates

Our latest adventure has been entering a year long training program to serve as Ski Patrol at Chestnut Mountain Resort near Galena, IL located along the Mississippi River. We are pictured below in our patrol candidate vests taking a break from skiing.

We make the 1 1/2 hour drive east to the resort about every other weekend for training classes and ski skills lessons. It will take all of this year and potentially part of next year before we are certified and earn our red parkas. During training, we already get to enjoy a lot of the ski patrol benefits. We don't get a paycheck, but we do get to ski, eat, and stay at the resort for free. Essentially we just have to pay for the gas it takes to get us there....not a bad deal if you like skiing and helping people!

There are 11 candidates in our class this year. Only 2 (including me) are female. Most are skiers. A couple of them snowboard. This is a photo of some of our fellow candidates taking a break from skiing. Jonathan has been having fun with "da boys" as he likes to call them. Above (left to right) Jason, Jonathan (who is borrowing Matt's short ski blades in this photo), Mark (his twin brother Steve is also a candidate), and Jordan. As you can see several of them are quite tall. Some of the older patrolers like to tease Jason, Jonathan, and Jordan about their size. One calls them the "half ton of fun" and another says that it sounds more like we are trying to put together a basketball team with a starting line up of 6' 6", 6' 5", and 6' 6".

You may be able to tell that overall the Chestnut ski patrol has a pretty good sense of humour. All of our class instructors are also patrolers. They keep our classes practical, fun, and light hearted. This is a photo of Kathy (one of our instructors) demonstrating a pressure bandage for a head wound while Jason goofs around for the camera.

Last weekend was all about bandaging wounds and dealing with blood. This is a photo of Jonathan practicing how to take off gloves that are covered in blood (we used ketchup for practice) without contaminating himself.

This is another one of our instructors, Deb, showing us what critical blood loss looks like in the snow with some red cough syrup. We also talked a lot about shock and practiced how to assess injured guests.

This is a picture of the view from the lodge at the top of the hill at Chestnut Mountain Resort. It is looking down on the Mississippi River. You can see this view from all of the ski runs. It is really beautiful. Not a bad way to spend our weekends! You can check out more info at this link: https://www.chestnutmtn.com/

Come and ski with us!

Don't play with hatchets!

Well, I wasn't really playing with the hatchet. I was making kindling for the hot tub fire, about a month ago, on a Saturday night while Jonathan was at work. I was doing really good for about 30 minutes and then something??? distracted me, I got smoke in my eyes, or I was just getting tired. Whatever it was I ended up chopped off part of my left thumb!

As you can see it was a very clean cut. I managed to miss the bone and my nail bed. It is also on the outside edge of my left hand (I'm right handed) so the emergency room doc didn't think surgery was needed....it will mostly just be a cosmetic scar. I did manage to find the missing piece and bring it with me to the emergency room, but it was so small (it didn't seem small at the time) that they didn't think it would survive reattachment.

As you can see, after a month, it has already started to fill in and "plump out." I have been cleaning it daily and putting neosporin on it. So far no signs of infection etc. It is just a very slow process of growing skin and scar tissue. They say most of it will grow back and I might have to trim my thumbnail a little slanted. Thanks for bearing with the photos. A little gruesome I know, but I thought it would be a good idea to document some of the healing and see how it actually turns out. For now Coban (a.k.a. Vet Wrap) bandages are my friend.

Winter Wonderland

Starting December 1st we got our first snow, and it has been a winter wonderland here in Illinois ever since. I forgot how much I enjoyed shoveling the sidewalk. I may feel differently come February....but for now it is still a fun novelty after 6 years of living in warm climates.

This is a random group of students out on the trail. It has been bitterly cold and if it weren't for the snow the students would probably be pretty miserable outside in classes all day. I think the snow ends up being more of a distraction (in a good way) for them then the cold. It also means that we can teach them cross country skiing and snow shoeing as part of their classes. It has been really fun teaching and watching kids try these things for the first time. It reminds me of the first time that I tried them and fell in love with winter sports and playing in the snow.