Ghetto Activity

For 2009 New Year Celebration, Steve and I spent a couple of days at the Casa de Rios. It was fun, relaxing, and spiritually uplifting. But the most interesting thing we did by far was to be invited to experience a "Ghetto Activity."

So we got into our cars, went out for breakfast, then headed to the nearest mountains, searching for a patch of snow. Now a little background. . . I grew up in snow. I ate it (not the yellow stuff), slept in it, played in it, fought in it, built amazing forts, sled in it, had sleigh rides, snowmobile rides, ski trips, made snow angels, iceskated, blah-blah-blah. But this was interesting...hundreds of cityfolk, desperate for a "snow day" drove 50+ miles to find a patch of dirty snow to play on.

It took us 45 minutes to drive half a mile, bumper to bumper on a two-lane twisting road to find the perfect spot of snow. Finally, we just stopped and got out. Fernando had sub-zero gloves and four layers to protect him from the cold. I just had on a turtle neck sweater and my decorative scarf that I always feel a little silly wearing if the temp is not below zero. I was surprised the snow had not all melted it was so warm. We walked in the melted, compacted snow, pretending to slip and slide. Steve and Fernando had something of a snowball fight. Liz asked in a wondering voice, "What does fresh snow feel like?" I think this place is sort of like an island. People who live here don't know about the rest of the US. Oh, yeah, this is such a foreign world.

People had tub lids, trash can lids, and trash bags dragged behind them to slide down a patch of snow on the mountain. They would slide right toward the road. Evidently their mother never told them to never slide toward the road or rivers. People were tailgating with thermoses of coffee, and cocoa with picnics, pretending it was really cold. The temp. was like going to a fall football game in highschool.

Yep, I live in Los Angeles!