I thought I would drop a line before going for a swim - from my house to Starbucks! It is really incredible how much it is raining. I just got back from Colorado where, at higher altitudes, they are swimming in snow. Quite thankfully, I got to enjoy a whole lot of white powder, both on the slopes of Vail, Keystone, and A-Basin, and via snowshoes in the gulch behind my Dad's condo.

I took the train out to Colorado from Emeryville, and just loved it! Lucky for me, my friend Henry lives in Winnemucca, Nevada, (which is a stop on the "California Zephyr" line) so I was able to break the journey into two segments.

Most of you can probably guess what the trip between Emeryville and Winnemucca was like. The train's course is pretty much the same as I-80. I have travelled by train several times between E-ville and Sacramento, but it has been five or so years since I have made this trek by train. I will point out the obvious: There are hundreds of thousands of new houses along that territory! It is really kind of mind boggling.

After living in Berkeley so long, and now Palo Alto, I am very used to the "built out" city. Still, it is odd to see so much development in areas that used to feature miles and miles of commonplace hill and dale.

But don't worry about the housebuilders: they still have a long way to go to filling up the entire state. As the train chugged up the mountains, tall and then taller trees ate up the view and glimpes of people and buildings became rarer and rarer. We first saw snow at around 5000 feet, but not a whole lot of it.

My seat partner was a nice enough lady from Truckee who had come down to Concord for two weeks to make cookies with her daughter. I learned very early on in the trip that she had over sixty pounds of fifteen kinds of cookies and candies in her stow. As we approached Donner Pass, I felt assured that if the train broke down in an untoward location, I would have sixty pounds of bonbons to munch on before having to resort to chomping on the other passengers. As it happened, the train made it to Truckee, where "Cookie Lady" got off with her carton of confection, and I was left to eat the slightly bruised apple I had packed.

A few hours later the train rolled into a rainy Winnemucca, where I disembarked for my much anticipated "24 hours with Henry in Winnemucca." am happy to report that neither Henry, nor Winnemucca were a disappointment.

Within the last year, Henry purchased a cozy 3-bedroom house across the street from the Public Library for a quarter of what I paid for my 550 sq. foot condo here in Shallow Alto. He also crossed paths with a very spirited black and white cat named "Tweepers" in the past year, who is quite entertaining, but not quite as entertaining as Henry, who treated me to a one man "open mike" guitar and singing show the evening I arrived.

We also went for a walk and Henry let me drag him into a casino or two so that I could lose a few dollars. But "gaming" is only a side business in Winnemucca. You can plainly see, hear, and smell, that is is still a mining town. Gold, silver, molybednum, tungsten... You name it, they are digging it.

The next day, we drove to Unionville, and saw one of Mark Twain's early living quarters (a very small cabin) which is memorialized in "Roughing It."

Since Henry has a jeep, we also took a backroads trip to a really pretty valley that Henry has toured via mountain bike. Having taking that ride, and having seen how rural the area surrounding Winnemucca is, I can now say that I know someone who actually NEEDS a "sport utility vehicle," and ironically, that is Henry, aka "Mr. Bicycle."

After treating me to a Basque dinner at the Martin Hotel, Henry very patiently waited with me for the (2 1/2 hour late) train, then I got on and badgered my way into a window seat, albeit with a very snorey seat partner. I "slept" through the rest of Nevada, and didn't really wake up until we got Provo, Utah.

What I saw of Utah, and then into Colorado was absolutely spectacular. Enter the erstwhile world of the dinosaurs and the Morrison formation! Now I will perform like every kid across america and rip off some information from a quick google search:

"The Morrison Formation is a complex series of clays, shales, and sandstones that settled in swamps, bogs, shallow lakes, and the broad and often slow moving streams that wandered over a low-lying featureless landscape. The Morrison Formation contains the fossil remains of plants and numerous kinds of dinosaurs including: Allosaurus, Camptosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Camarasaurus."

Well, forget the dinosaurs. To me all those huge stone formations were just amazing. This kid sitting next to me in the dome car (Once I woke up, I realized I really needed to ditch the snorer) turned out to be a budding geologist and explained to me what some of it was and told me the names of all the streams and rivers we passed. (Which I forgot. Sorry!) He also kept an eye out for a bald eagle which he claimed are typically sighted around the Nevada/Colorado border. No dice on the bald eagle but we did see a lot of other magnificent birds, and I was thankful that someone more observant than I was there to point them out.

The people on the train were sort of an interesting mix. About one third seemed to be like me: People who have consciously chosen to ride the train because they want to see the country and look out the window. Another third seem to be people who are afraid of flying, don't want to pay to fly, or it is more convenient to take the train vs. fly. The final third looked like they were on their way to Chicago to be guests on the "Jerry Springer Show."

Trust me on that one: no exaggeration.

Dad and Len chose to pick me up in Glenwood Springs, Colorado instead of Denver. This shaved off about five hours off the trip. We had a nice drive back to Silverthorne (where Dad and Len live) and made plans to go skiing the next day.

Unfortunately, being at 10,000 feet did not really work out for me. I slept poorly and woke up with a headache. Dad and I opted to go for a snowshoe hike in the gulch. This is a truly beautiful place. Going for a snowshoe hike in the gulch, is pretty much the opposite snow experience from downhill skiing. It is free, takes less than five minutes to get there, and there are no crowds, and no noise.

Next day, I opted for the same thing. The thin air was still bugging me and I had started reading "Roughing It" by Mark Twain. I cannot recommend this book enough: but maybe it seemed perfect to me, having just spent time in Winnemucca, and wanting to learn more about the settling of the west.

Then came a third day of slacking on the ski thing: Half of Len's kids had shown up and the girls wanted to go outlet shopping. Wahoo! We went on a spending spree that in my case can best be described as obscene. Thankfully, everything I bought WAS heavily discounted so at least the buyer's remorse was mostly about bulk.

But then the Rudy's showed up, and it was time to go night skiing at Keystone. I don't think anyone has ever had better conditions for night skiing: the snow was good, it was NOT cold, and there was no wind. Mark (everyone's favorite ski pro) JQ, a friend of his and I had a really great time.

Then it was three straight days of skiing by day and card playing by night. After a day at Keystone, I talked Dad and Len into checking out A-Basin which was windy and wild but the snow was powdery and we had many fantastic runs. Then came the big day at Vail. The drive to and fro was pure white knuckle hell (19 of us caravanning in four vehicles), but the snow was unbelieveable and we got to see pretty much of the mountain.

Surviving extreme weather conditions seems to make me very happy right now. I parted ways with the group to check out the "China Bowl" which was TOTALLY awesome. I had three truly fabulous runs, the best was in "Inner Mongolia" where I was way over my head in "steep and deep" conditions but everyone there was having fun and hooting and hollering and I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

But all good things have to come to an end. I was having lunch with Dad and Len yesterday and I just kind of burst into tears because I didn't want to have to come home. The ski trip was all about putting off chemo and now it was rapidly coming to an end. I really felt like a kid the way I just started crying. It was as if it had just popped into to my head that the trip was over and I had to come back to six months of heavy treatment and all of a sudden I am having a mini melt down.

But the sad feelings ended and I came home and now I am really glad to be home, even if it is Noah's Ark weather out there. It is a good thing that I am into "extreme weather conditions" right now as they are being provided for me everywhere I go.

For those of you who made it all the way through this email, thank you for your fortitude. For those who are just reading the Executive Summary and Conclusion, consider getting up to the mountain because there is HELLA snow and this is the year to enjoy one of nature's greatest gifts.

Okay. Enough of me! How are you? Keep the cards and letter and emails and calls and prayers and wackadoodle stories coming!

Happy New Year!

Carolyn