By Sherrill Leslie

New Years trip 2002 was a big success. The hotel that we went to was very nice and the staff waited on us with the best service. There were a lot of worries the week before the trip about the snow conditions but Randy Helms did a snow dance and the snow gods provided us with the best mid-west snow conditions I have ever seen. We partied on the bus all the way up to Ashland. However we did not leave Bloomington without incident. Gordon Salmon arrived a minute late and stopped us as we were leaving the parking lot. There was plenty of food and spirits to share on the way. Bus driver Zane did a great job of keeping us on track. Denise Belanger entertained us all with a questionnaire from her Glamour magazine. We watched movies that people had brought and I created a special skiing video for the trip as well.

Day one of skiing started out with dropping off Ken Lasauskas for a day of snowmobiling. He assured me he would be able to snowmobile the 40 miles from Hurley to Ashland. We went on to Powderhorn for our first day of skiing. Dr. Pauley and his son went to the ski school. Jim Hall and Steve Flynn could not wait to try out their new skis. We ran into Barb Knick and other ski clubbers that were there on their own. When we left Powderhorn Zane told me that Ken needed to be picked up that he had not been able to snowmobile to Ashland after all. One of the changes that I made to the trip this year was the addition of emergency contact numbers on cards that I passed out to everyone. Ken had tried to call me but I had not anticipated that the ski areas were so remote that cell phones do not work. Later than night we congregated in the hot tub to sooth our sore muscles. Lee Templeton did his traditional polar bear snow angle. However since the hotel is built right on the water he nearly slid down the embankment into the water.

Day two, New Years eve, we went to Black Jack. We were amazed at how few people there were on the slopes for a holiday weekend. They must have changed their travel plans fearing lack of snow. Curt Johnson, one of the hard core skiers in the group, had a personal best for most runs in one day due to the short lift lines. There were more snowmobilers the second day. In addition to Ken Lasauskas, Brett Schmidgall, Tammy Meister and Bonnie Johnson also rented sleds. Bonnie had never snowmobiled before and was very timid to start with. Consequently, she only made it about 100 feet before she tipped her sled over. Later in the day, while snowmobiling, Bonnie and Tammy saved a little homeless dog they found wandering in the snow. Later that night after hot tub and dinner we assembled in the hotel ball room for our New Years party. Ken Seng brought his sound system and acted as our DJ for the evening. We had plenty of Champaign to pass around. Ali Uludogan showed us some great dance steps. Sandy Wirtz did the chicken dance. Outside our private party the hotel bar had a live band for their New Years party we mixed back and forth between the parties. Everyone had so much fun.

More pictures courtesy of Ron Chickering.

And more pictures yet from Tammy Meister