Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!…and the morning after the silver anniversary of Carole’s 29th birthday.

The Michel family just returned from a long weekend in the mountains. Over the span of more than 20 years we’ve been venturing out West to enjoy Yellowstone National Park in all its Winter wonder. This year we did it in style:

Snowmobiling
Shooting machine guns
Good food at the best joints like
-Wild West pizza
-Bullwinkle’s
-Running Bear pancake house
Sight seeing and picture taking
Bear and wolf watching (very cool)
Mega screen movie watching
Hot tubbing-inside and outside
Snowboarding
People watching
Buying funky furs
and singing in the car.
It was riddled with normal family bickering but in the end, we had a chance to enjoy each other’s company.

For those who don’t live in the mountains, there are scant few times where everything comes together…
Sled is running right
Fresh snowfall
Good base
No tracks

This trip, the stars aligned.
•Turbo charged snowmobiles (check)
•8+” of powder (check)
•Great base of snowfall (check)
•untouched areas of powder

Exactly what we were hoping for!

Unfortunately, the lack of riding, lack of exercise and lack of oxygen left us panting, stuck and frustrated. It didn’t take long until the locals showed up … and showed off. Time for the flat landers to tuck tail and boogie on down the “road”.

On our way to the local pub (45 miles away) we pounded through bumpy stuff for a while then when we hit Idaho, the trails opened up and we found the throttle. True to form, out of the 20 some years of tripping to Yellowstone, each year had memorable events; Stuck (badly-where it took two days for the snow conditions to improve and to assemble a 9-person recovery crew), blown up snowmobile, flat trailer tire, dropped sled in the river, rolled sled, broken leg, bent trailing arm requiring bailing wire and lots of duct tape to limp back to town…by now you’re thinking
-glutton for punishment
-horrible snowmobile rider
-poor judgement
-stubborn

I just love riding, pushing the limits of abilities and conditions. Snowmobiling is one of the rare few sports where grabbing a handful of throttle can get you out of more trouble than not. Aggression often rewarded.

The following picture shows an unfortunate byproduct of 200 hp and a rental sled beaten up by a previous rider (or riders).

Notice how far past the track that the sled continued to slide. No one was hurt in the making of this memory. The mechanic for the rental shop had an acute aneurism over the phone but we bowed our heads, pulled it 10 miles to a pick up spot, helped load up the wounded soldier and finished our day on 30 more miles of bumpy trail.

We may never return to Yellowstone but we have a trunk full of memories and a few scars to prove we were there.

My hope for you is to identify a place, a hobby, or a group to find peace in this world. Cherish it and ride it like you’re never coming back.

Have a blessed weekend!