Geminai: Cultivating Smile Lines

Last night we took Bill and Marcia over to meet Barb and her crew. I think Marcia was a little excited about it. We were all getting into the car to go, my space was the driver's side back seat. I slid my bag in next to Jeremy and lifted up a foot to step into the car and to my surprise, Marcia started backing out of the driveway! *laugh* The door was getting close to sweeping me away and I was hopping on one foot, trying to keep up, crying "Wait! Wait!"

Well, try as she might, she didn't get rid of me that easily. ;)

So we went and made various introductions, to two-footed and four-footed alike. When the dogs were all loaded back up, we went out to dinner (10 of us total). It was awesome catching up with Barb. She's just one of those women who has this incredible energy about her, y'know? You can't help but love her.

There was, however, one moment during the evening when we were talking about sled dog fights and such when I had second thoughts about Barb. She said, in response to a comment I'd not heard, "Oh, Inuits? I'd take a club to an Inuit, too! They are ferocious and mean." I think my jaw about hit the table. It took about two full minutes of conversation for me to realize she meant Inuit DOGS and how they fight .. and not Inuit people. I made sure to give her a good razzing, though, and we all went our separate ways laughing.

I went to sleep early, and Jeremy and I got up around 7 a.m. and headed to Mt. Shasta. It was snowing a little, which was great. It really added to the ambiance and made for much better photos! I'll just post a few pics of Barb here. She's amazing!

Happy dogs, happy Barb! Talk about a woman who enjoys life. :)

For these shots, Barb's husband, John, had taken me out on the snowmobile. Well, lemme tell ya. It happened very fast, and there was apparently no spare helmet. And I couldn't find Jeremy to tell him I was leaving, so off I went. I thought surely John would go slow, since I said I'd not been on a snowmobile in about 25 years AND since I had no helmet. Um, no. And Barb, I know you'll probably read this at some point, it's absolutely nothing against John here, as I'm sure he was fully in control the entire time but I was scared out of my mind! I held on for dear life and flashed back to my motorcycle accident and lamented the fact that I never got to say goodbye to Jeremy and tell him I loved him before my brains were splattered all over the ground when this death machine tipped over.

Maybe it's a control issue, y'know? I guess maybe if I was driving at my own comfortable pace, I'd have been better. But I was terrified. By the time we got there I thought "maybe I'll just walk out ..." My legs were aching from tensing up to try to hold on and ... well, I just wasn't enjoying it. Same with the ride back - that was enough to convince me not to go back out for the next race. This was the short race, just 5.5 miles, that was run at around 10:00 in the morning. The mid-length race of 18 miles got started at around 12:30, and let me tell you, it was snowing to beat the band!

So, instead of going back out on the snowmobile, Jeremy and I hiked in a little over half-mile in on the slushy, slippery mush. Y'know, the kind where you take a step and your foot slips one way or another so that every footstep is uncertain. Yep. We got a workout! And yes, I'm feeling it tonight.

As you can see, the snow was really coming down for this 2nd race.

It was snowing so hard that my camera was having a hard time with autofocusing, by the time the last mid-length racer came through:

By the time this last racer came through, I was really about done with shooting. I'd taken about 550 shots this morning, and my butt was frozen and I was pretty sore and achey ... and hungry! It was nearly 1 p.m. and I'd had all of 1 cup of lukewarm "hot" chocolate. *whew* So, we sludged our way back to the car, and when we got there Jeremy said, "Hold on!" and took a picture. This is 1 long-sleeved shirt, a fleece, and an army jacket, along with snow pants. And yep, that's my camera under all that snow. The camera with the 100-400 lens, and wearing the "shutter hat" that Jeremy bought me last year. I'd not had much opportunity to use it yet, but it was a lifesaver today. There's no way I would have been able to have been out there shooting in this weather without some kind of protection.

So, some lunch, a lot of hot coffee, a steaming hot shower and a couple hours in front of a roaring fire have done wonders to warm me up. Except now the aches are setting in and I'm not lookin' forward to tomorrow.

I'm thinking there might be some wine later on, at which point we'll MAYBE get those Kippy-Marcia pics. We'll see if I can stay awake long enough.