93546, Mammoth Lakes

Snow coating the firs at Mammoth

Dear ——–,

We’re on our first trip to Mammoth of the season and Mother Nature has been showering us with snow. We had to put the chains on about a mile or two after crossing the Mono County line. When we got to the mountain, the snow was coming down steadily, though it was still a little wet since it was barely under 30 degrees. There were a few times where the heaviness of the snow buried my skis and I almost lost one of them going a different way from the other. But I never got going very fast. The thickness of the snow reminded me how much you have to shift your center of gravity when you’re skiing in powder rather than when your’e skiing hardened, groomed runs. The snow kept coming down and we made fresh tracks every time we got off the lift. We decided to quit before we got bone tired, mostly because we’ve got another few days of skiing. The snow is expected to keep falling. Some of the locals raised the specter of road closures on Sunday. I hope we can still drive home!

90041, Eagle Rock

Christmas decorations in L.A.

Dear ——–,

Peacha and I went for a walk in the “nice” part of Eagle Rock, up the hill above Colorado Blvd. The Christmas decorations have come out, though they’re a little different in L.A. than other parts of the country. While I saw a lot of the typical lights and reindeer, I also saw this house with red paper lanterns hanging from the trees. Only here, where it doesn’t snow and rarely rains could you get away with that! I guess the weather is also the reason we somehow decided to repaint our house in December. If we lived in other places, would the rain and snow have reminded us that painting is best done at other times of year, when the sun doesn’t go down at 5? It’s been a little difficult to settle on the right shade of gray when there’s not a lot of light to look at it. We made two wrong choices (too dark; too purple) before finally finding the right one. Who knew there were so many shades of gray? Oh.