I'm Glued to the Olympics

The Winter Olympics are my favorite Olympics, even though I dislike the cold and snow in real life. Nonetheless, the sports are far more interesting for me. I was an ice skater, and a horrible skier - most definitely NOT my sport. I suspect if I had better equipment, I would have enjoyed the experience much more. But, at least I learned how to ski on decent mountains - the mountains around the Aspen/Snowmass area - some of the best slopes in the world. 

Aspen Highlands Mountain actually is the 
Southern border of the town. At the very 
bottom of this image, you can see a speckled 
semi-circle - that's houses. That's Aspen, at 
least the Southern edge.  

I'd rather have a sheet of solid ice, however, and a set of blades strapped to my feet. I've always enjoyed ice skating, and with DH and my larger family all being ice hockey people, it's a good thing I was on skates from the time I was a small child. Most people spending the summer in Aspen, Colorado would be hiking the mountains or kayaking down the rivers. I went to the ice arena on the Western side of the town and learned how to skate for ice dancing while one of the professional ice show tours summered over in the town. 

The Ice Capades summered over in Aspen for 
several years in the late 1960's and early 1970's. 
I took skating lessons in ice dancing from a lovely 
man who had a Great Pyrenees dog named 
Charlie. It's typical of me that I remember the dog 
and forget the teacher's name - LOL. This was in 
the day of school figures too, so I spent a lot of 
hours going around circles on one edge or another. 

But, I'm totally addicted to the Olympics in general, and to the Winter Olympics specifically. I remember watching the broadcast of Jean Claude Killy ski down the slopes at the Grenoble games in 1968. No color broadcasting at that time, and the TV my parents had at the time wasn't the greatest, but I was totally glued to it for those Olympic games. I've been a fan ever since, and the Winter games really appeal to me. I suppose growing up in an area with skiing, skating and other winter sports available every winter didn't hurt, but I wasn't a super athletic person as a kid, so I didn't actually participate in any winter sports. LOL 

Jean Claude Killy was my first crush as a kid. He 
was a very good looking young man, and he won 
three gold medals in the Grenoble games - for 
Downhill, Slalom and Giant Slalom. A wonderful 
skier throughout his life. 

But, I'm getting ready to head off to the shop. We have SO much to do before we close. I spent several hours working on the latest items to pass onward to Travis and got that taken care of while watching speed skating yesterday, so I've done the next step, and I'm onward to the next one now. One step at a time - that's the only way to make it these days. Have an excellent Monday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini.