Snow, snow, where did you go?

        After the first week, the weather in Chile became nothing but beautiful sunny days. It felt like summer again and we were once again in shorts and T-shirts. The hot weather meant everyday our first run had to be an inspection, finding the new rock gardens that had broken through the thinning snow pack. 

 

               View from my window                                       That cloud is CRAY!

Instead of a minute thirty Downhill we had a 15 gate Super G

      
         Both the American Men's Team and the BC Men's were heading home after just two weeks in Chile. My team was planning to make the eight hour bus down to Termas de Chillan. The day before we were packed up to leave, the Spanish National Team reported that the snow in Chillan was disappearing fast, there was probably only three days left of skiing down there if the heat continued. Instead of strapping on my skis again, I suddenly found myself strapping on my seat belt on a plane headed back to Canada!

         My travel route was Santiago to Toronto, Toronto to Calgary, so instead of heading back to Calgary after just two weeks, I decided to visit Emma in Kingston and changed my ticket to have a week layover in Toronto. Unfortunately I still had all of my luggage to lug around with me, from downtown Toronto to Pickering to Kingston and back. Luckily there are some amazing people in this world that are willing help a twenty year old girl get around with 250lbs of equipment! The Pavlidis' are top on that list of people. They not only gave me a place to stay and fed me my first home made meals in weeks but also drove me to the train station at seven am and RAN with all my stuff to catch the train to Kingston. I was sent off with a bagged breakfast and apologies that they couldn't help me out more!

        Emma met me on the other side with a borrowed car and whisked me off to start meeting all her friends, attend a class or two and explore Kingston in all its fall beauty. It was fantastic to finally meet people I had heard stories about for the past four years. I felt like I already knew most of her friends and they were all incredibly welcoming and fun. My cousin Alice Main is in her first year at Queen's, living just across campus from Emma. It was wonderful to catch up with her, tour her dorm and attend a drama class with her. I ended up spending most of my time hanging out with Emma's friends while she and Alice attended class and tried to be studious. 
  
           Emma and I spent my whole last day exploring Wolfe Island on bikes. Wolfe Island is a lot like Pincher Creek; windmills, farms, small towns and open sky. It was marvelous to get out of the city and enjoy fall. After we had a picnic on the Big Sandy Beach we met up with Alice's brother Charlie, who goes to school at McGill and came to Kingston for Thanksgiving. Our trio completed the local corn maze and celebrated with hot chocolate and pizza.

 

            Catching a bus from Kingston to Toronto at 1am, a plane from Toronto to Calgary at 7am and then driving the two hours to Pincher, I made it home in time for my Grandma's famous Thanksgiving feast. I was welcomed home to 10inchs of snow in the Rocky Mountains!

            I had traveled halfway around the world searching for snow and it was waiting for me in my back yard when I got home.