Adventure Starts Here.
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You gotta hate that guy. The guy sitting next to you on the plane, at the pool or the chairlift who can’t stop bragging about the fantastic vacation deal he snared that saved his family big bucks.
Mary Blilie had been at Big Sky Resort in Montana for just one day but had already snapped more photos of her kids than she had in a long time. That’s because when Blilie, now a Minneapolis engineer, was a kid her family skied here every winter and now, after a 17-year hiatus, she was determined to create some of those same happy memories for her own two children
Your next-door neighbor insists he has the skinny on finding bargain lodging (you can find rooms, especially in winter for well under $100 a night). One friend says she wouldn’t leave home without “Birnbaum’s Walt Disney World 2007,” the official guide to Walt Disney World, while a co-worker says her bible is the “Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World.”
Did you know Yellowstone has more thermal feature than anywhere in the world? And I’d rather visit in winter anytime. The last time we were here in the summer, there were so many people, the kids could barely see Old Faithful. Now we’re hiking in snowshoes around the geyser basin and there’s no one but us and Miguel.
Mother Nature, my daughter Mel says, delivered the best Christmas present of all — more than a foot of fresh snow. But unlike other ski resorts during a holiday week, there are no lift lines and no crowds. Where is everyone?
The good news is that it’s snowing — dumping snow actually. The bad news is that it’s snowing — so hard that there’s hardly any visibility Even my die hard skiers don’t want to move from the cabin. They’re watching an ER marathon. When do we get to do that at home?
By Eileen Ogintz Tribune Media Services It’s two days before we leave for a trip out West and my husband can’t find his hiking boots….
Other families I meet around the village at the Base of Big Sky are equally enthusiastic about the ski school. The mountain is big but the ski school is small “and that’s important” says Lori Woolbright, who is back for her third holiday here with her husband and eight year old daughter from Myrtle Beach, SC.
That’s the thing about Big Sky — it’s at the same time a mountain known for its steeps and deeps with the most with moonlight Basin next door — the most terrain in the country – 5,512 skiable acres and a 4,350 foot vertical drop. There’s enough extreme terrain at the top of the tram to satisfy my kids but also plenty of wide open blue terrain for those like me nursing a bad knee.
It’s seven in the morning and we’re ensconced in a cozy log cabin with a stone fireplace at Big Sky Ski Resort. I smell bacon and coffee — my husband is cooking us a hearty breakfast before our first day on what is billed as “the biggest skiing in America.” I’m hoping my kids will love here that Big Sky allows access to some of the country’s biggest vertical drops and steepest lift accessed terrain anywhere
Have you ever gone to a party on the wrong day? When we arrive Christmas afternoon, the hosts and their kids clearly aren’t expecting company. In fact, we catch them snoozing. But we barge in anyway — we have come so far, after all, to see them. Our hosts, the Sea Lion family, live on San Cristobal island in the Galapagos
Let’s hear it for innkeepers who always have a smile for their guests — and everyone else who is struggling to keep smiling when hosting family this holiday season, when the visiting toddler drops Goldfish everywhere and the teen refuses to be roused before noon from the family room sofa bed. Did I mention the uncle who falls asleep on the couch before dessert, snoring loudly?
Honestly, I can’t remember anything I saw that day. I could never find that field again (though I do have a picture of it somewhere.) But I’ll never forget that glorious I-don’t-have-a-schedule feeling. Of course that was long before responsibilities – like children and jobs — curtailed my freewheeling travel style.
The next time the kids give you a hard time on vacation, remind yourself that you really are building memories to last a lifetime. Just ask Sheila Dennis. She was a wide-eyed 9-year-old when her parents took her to see the world-famous Rockettes perform at Radio City Music Hall in New York. It was her first trip outside Texas. “I loved the glitter and the color,” she said. “I was thrilled.”
As I fought my way through the crowds to inch closer to Rockefeller Center I wondered to myself why anybody would venture into Midtown Manhattan for the annual tree lighting, yet every year they come.
I’m lost! Hopelessly, completely lost on a winding, backcountry road somewhere in Westchester County, N.Y. Did I mention it was night and pitch-black? “How could you do this?” asks my aggravated 16-year-old daughter, Mel.
[et_pb_section][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text] By Eileen Ogintz Tribune Media Services Three hundred and 40. That’s how many steps and ladder rungs we climb to Bandelier National Monument…
ALONG INTERSTATE 95 HEADING SOUTH —: “PLEEZE make the radio louder!”
“Turn off the radio and put on a CD!”
“Not THAT CD!”