Celebrating USSA Thanksgiving

Celebrating USSA Thanksgiving
By Riley Steinmetz

For skiing and snowboarding athletes, Thanksgiving often becomes just another day. For some, it’s a competition day. For others, it’s just another travel day during a long journey to far flung destinations in Europe. This year, though, a few athletes took matters into their own hands and hosted USSA Thanksgiving several weeks before the actual holiday.

“Because a lot of us are going to be out of town for Thanksgiving, I thought it was really important to get everyone together and celebrate before we're scattered across the world,” slopestyle skier Emilia Wint said.

“Since I don't get to spend Thanksgiving with my family, it was nice to be with people who feel like family,” snowboardcross athlete Jackie Hernandez said.

Wint, along with fellow slopestyle skier Jess Breda, organized the event while another slopestyle skier, Ashley Battersby, offered her house in Wanship, Utah, as the location. Dozens of athletes were invited and asked to bring their favorite Thanksgiving dish to share.

“My favorite part of USSA Thanksgiving was the collaboration,” cross country skier Noah Hoffman said, “Every single person contributed a vital part of the meal. Everything was homemade. Everyone clearly put a lot of time and effort into their dish and many of us were cooking way out of our comfort zones.”

From turkey to pie, all of the traditional foods were present at USSA Thanksgiving. And with over 20 athletes contributing to the dinner, there was no shortage of good eats.

“I would say the best food contribution was by Mac Bohonnon,” Breda said, “He made mashed sweet potatoes with some sort of crust on top. It probably could have been considered a dessert with the amount of maple syrup and butter that were in it and it went perfectly with the tart cranberry sauce!”

“The butternut squash stuffing,” nordic combined athlete Nick Hendrickson said, “I actually don't know who brought it, but it rocked.”

While many of the recipes were tried and true favorites, there was one Thanksgiving staple that required a little bit of experimentation: turkey.

“Emilia and I were in charge of the Thanksgiving staples: turkey, cranberry sauce and gravy,” Breda said, “But this was our first time ever cooking a turkey and we cooked two! We cut out the turkeys' backbone and broke the breast bones so the turkeys laid flat and each cooked in under two hours. It was quite an experience!”

Despite the nontraditional scheduling of the holiday, the athletes were excited to have the chance to get together with teammates and celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving.

“I have not been able to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family since 2004,” Hoffman explained, “As a skier, missing holidays becomes normal. Consequently, it felt very special to do Thanksgiving with my USSA teammates, who have become some of my best friends.”

Since the dinner was held in Wanship, just a short drive from the USSA Center of Excellence in Park City, Utah, athletes from a variety of sports and disciplines were able to attend.

“We had friends from slopestyle, snowboardcross, halfpipe, freestyle aerials, one of our strength interns and a couple nordic skiers,” Hendrickson said, “I've never seen a more tight knit group of athletes in the gym than this summer."

Despite the busy schedules and Olympic season looming ahead, it was an opportunity to relax and enjoy the true spirit of the holiday.

“It was just a good way to get together and have some fun before the season kicked off,” Wint said, “We didn't do much of the traditional Thanksgiving practices, but the vibe was there, so I don't think they were necessary!”

“My family Thanksgiving is all about having fun, laughing and being with people you care about,” skicross athlete Whitney Gardner said, “And USSA Thanksgiving was all of that!”

The Great(ish) Amtrak Journey: Part 2

I've returned! My trip to Colorado went very well, but before posting about all of that, I figured I'd finish up my Amtrak story.

The rest of my trip to Colorado was pretty uneventful. After the sun set, there weren't many things to look at, so I watched more TV on my iPad Mini and slept off and on. We did go by a herd of elk at one point, though, and that was pretty cool. I attempted to get a picture, but the lack of sunlight made it a little difficult.

On the way back, I was planning on leaving from Glenwood Springs since I'd be coming from Aspen (Glenwood Springs is where the state highway leading to Aspen connects to I-70), but that ended up changing when I was offered the chance to go to a Denver Nuggets game with my friend Margaux! More on that in my post to come about the non-train portions of the trip.

Anyways, I ended up leaving from Denver. Their station is a bit bigger than Salt Lake's, but in need of some updating. There's construction all around the area, so it looks like that may be happening. I managed to snag yet another bulkhead seat (upon reading about train seating, apparently bulkheads aren't as highly valued as I thought, but they do indeed have more legroom and you always have a full window!) and promptly set it up as my home for the next fifteen hours.

Again, I got two seats to myself for the full duration of the trip. This trip made me very grateful for my height, as I was able to perfectly curl up into a ball on the two seats with the leg rests propped out. I wish I had remembered a pillow, though, although having two blankets made that a little better.

The highlight of this train trip was going through the canyons of western Colorado during sunset. The red rocks looked absolutely stunning in light! So, me being me, I snapped about half a million photos.

All of Colorado was very beautiful. There wasn't much snow, which was a bit surprising for this time of year, but it was still great to see. I highly recommend a trip on the California Zephyr if you're interested in the scenic route between Salt Lake and Denver! And now, I leave you with some Instagram photos...

Lone truck in western Colorado

Glenwood Springs

Colorado River in the mountains

The Great(ish) Amtrak Journey: Part 1

Greetings from Grand Junction, Colorado!

So far, the Amtrak journey from Salt Lake City to Denver is going well. It started this morning very early (or last night very late depending on how you look at it). I got to the station at 2:30am, mainly because it said online that you had to check bags more than 45 minutes prior to departure (departure time was listed at 3:30am) and I didn't want to lug my massive suitcase around. But, when I went to check in, they said the train would be arriving in ten minutes! 

The train did indeed arrive about ten minutes later, but it took 15-20 minutes for them to unload all of the passengers who were completing their journey at Salt Lake. The train still stayed at the station until about 3:30am, but I was glad to be there earlier so I could get a good seat. And I definitely did! I am in the bulkhead, so I have a TON of room. If you think bulkheads have a lot of legroom on airplanes, just wait til you see it on a train. I have a good foot and a half of space between my feet and the wall and I'm all sprawled out! I read that some people aren't fans of the bulkhead because the doors between train cars can be noisy, but I just popped in my in-ear headphones and played some Mumford and Sons and barely noticed the noise at all. I also had an eye mask (thanks, Gap Outlet clearance sale), so that blocked out any light.

I managed to sleep until about 8am. I didn't have anyone in the seat next to me, so I put both the leg rests all the way up and turned it into a little bed. Fortunately, since I am vertically challenged, that worked out well for me. I slept wonderfully, much to my surprise.

When I woke up, they were serving breakfast in the dining car, but I opted against that and watched some TV on my new iPad Mini. I think I'll go to the dining car for lunch, but right now, I am nice and cozy in my seat.

The desert scenery has been pretty cool...check out some of my Instagram pics below!

Colorado River

Utah desert

Shantytown in the desert

More desert

So that's part one. We'll call it the desert portion. Next up are the mountains...I'm definitely looking forward to the scenery for that part!!

Not Your Average Thanksgiving

This year, my Thanksgiving is not going to be like it usually is.

Typically, I have a pretty normal Thanksgiving. I brave the ridiculous airport crowds to fly back to Indianapolis, where I have three Thanksgivings (usually) with about 100ish family members (probably an exaggeration, but oh well). I usually talk my sister or mom into going Black Friday shopping with me (although that was slightly delayed last year by a hangover), even though neither of them really want to.

My Thanksgiving this year starts tonight (technically tomorrow) at 2:30am, when I get to the Amtrak station in Salt Lake City. I'll be taking the California Zephyr train through the mountains to Denver, where I'll be spending two days with my former roommate and dear friend Karen. After two days in Denver, we're driving up to the mountains for the Nature Valley Aspen Winternational, a women's alpine skiing World Cup. After two days there, it's back on the train and back to Utah!

It'll be interesting. I'll definitely miss my normal, chaotic holiday that I love despite its craziness. I'll miss my family and our traditions, both old and new.

But stay tuned for an update on my 15-hour train trip and the ensuing Colorado adventure!

Holidays and Getaways

Long time, no talk!

Well, I'm back.  Life has been keeping me pretty busy! Since I last wrote, I've been back to Indiana, Colorado Springs, back to Indiana, down to Florida and back to Indiana again!  Of  course, now I'm back home in sunny San Diego, where I could not ask for more amazing weather.  It would be nice to be in Indy to see all the Super Bowl festivities, though!

Thanksgiving 2011 - Indianapolis

I was reunited with my baby Lolers! It took a few days, but she went right back to following me around and being my little cuddler!  It was tough to say bye to her again.

I also got to see my whole extended family for the first time in quite awhile (the last time I'd been home was 4th of July).  My grandma has been having some serious health problems since then, so I was most excited to see her!  We all went out to dinner before I left at McCormick and Schmick's downtown so that she could get out and see the lights around downtown.  It was a lovely quick trip home!

Weekend Trip - Colorado Springs

I made a random trip back to Colorado to visit with Margaux.  We had a fun-filled weekend of Christmas celebrations, charity events and cooking!  It was great to see her and to exchange gifts and just hang out.  As usual, the weekend ended much too soon!

Christmas/New Year's 2011/2012 - Indiana/Florida/Indiana

I flew to Indiana on Christmas Eve, had a whirlwind Christmas Day filled with family, then loaded up the car and headed south with my brother, sister and their respective significant others, Mike and Aly (my parents drove separately).  Our car ride was filled with letter games, AWOLNATION, me not sleeping (and thus keeping Jordan awake since he was driving) and old school music.  

When we got to Florida, it was a true vacation.  We slept in, stayed out late and spent the days on the beach. It was total relaxation!  I have no complaints...quality time with family and got to know Mike and Aly better!

Two weekends ago, I had my first visitor here in San Diego.  My dad came out for the Carlsbad Half Marathon and I got to show him around!  It was so much fun!  We went to the USS Midway (since there was a rare rainy day one of the days he was here), experienced the best of San Diego cuisine (including In 'N Out Burger, which Dad just HAD to have!) and explored.  We got a taste of theater at the Old Globe in Balboa Park and enjoyed the beautiful oceanside run in Carlsbad.  It was sad to say bye to him!  I wish I could bring all my family out here!!

That's the update for now...I'll try to be better about updating in the future!