It has been a long camp and there is definitely an eagerness to head home among the kids here. We decided to make the most of our time the past couple days by driving over to Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan University to check out the campus' and athletic facilities. We took skier-oriented tours of the schools and got to meet some of the athletes from the team which was nice for the kids; sometimes its easy to forget that there are schools beyond Lake Champlain...
Now we are back in Ironwood packing up so Pete can get a head start on the snow storms that are finally ascending on the UP. So far the flurries have not left us with enough to ski on so its looking like we will wrap up here without actually getting to ski, but the kids are all healthy again and the training has been really good despite the lack of snow. We will be back to campus on Friday night, hopefully returning to some white stuff on the ground!

Scenes from a run on the North Country Trail

Hopefully everyone is full and somewhat comatose at this point in the evening. We had a great feast professionally cooked by the Prevots today. Meanwhile, the kids had a team competition of Battleship, Twister, Pool, and Trivia today (won by Holly, half a point over the team of Jordan and Jenna.) Here are some photos from our ski yesterday and the feast tonight, enjoy!

Hollybear.

There's not much new to report from here- still rollerskiing on good pavement with minimal traffic, clouds and cool but not the snow and freezing temps we would like to see. Today the crew worked pretty hard with a mock sprint race in the morning and a recovery interval session in the afternoon that pushed us into and beyond dusk. Here are some more pictures of training in Michigan, check back soon for pictures of us on snow (we hope!)

Pat's natural reaction when the camera is pointed at him

Mitch getting pumped to sprint

Matt's Nature Shot of the Day

The title of this post suggests that there will be a future entry after the snow arrives. While we are all hoping that it will come soon, we aren't holding our breath in the 45 degree weather over here in Ironwood Michigan. Despite the lack of white stuff on the ground, the normal mid-November doom and gloom attitude has not settled on the crew. The rollerskiing is actually really good over here and its if nothing else a change of scenery from the usual view as we roll up Mountain Road.

Those of us who have been recovering from illness are slowly getting back into the normal training regime, and while many of us have lost some valuable training hours in the past two weeks, the focus on the season looming in front of us has not been lost. The forecast is calling for probable snow on Wednesday and Thursday which could be a "wintery mix-ed" blessing at this point.... While we would be completely stoked for a big dump of snow and great skiing, it could potentially derail us to get an inch or two of slush that puts us out on the rollerski front too.

There are a few things one could be justified in complaining about here, but we aren't hearing any groans coming from the team, which is a testament to their focus and determination to
push through until snow finally arrives. In the meantime there are still technical issues that we can iron out just as easily on rollerskis, and the pool table in our house has been in constant use as well. We are keeping our fingers crossed for now...

Sorry it has taken this long to get some photos up from Sun Valley, at very least we can all reminisce about the good times, the lack of oxygen, the Sun..

The view from our house one of the first evenings

then a day later...

its snow!