Getting there...

June 30, 2011
My family dropped me off at the Portland Jetport around noontime. I end up checking even my carry-on bag because the ski and boot bags are considered one, so I get another free bag to check. This leaves me with only my laptop bag to carry and more leg room on the flights. The goodbyes are awkward. There is some possible resentment that I am taking advantage of this opportunity. The trip is the culmination of some recent life changes and the coming together of several of my passions. Toward the end of twenty years of practicing chiropractic in Bridgton, ME, I had decided to ramp up my Spanish language skills, originally earned in 1972-3 in Barcelona, and apply them toward a teaching position I hoped to obtain in our home town. It was just another way to contribute to the edification of the community, working with youth and sharing my enthusiasm for language, culture, art, history, anthropology, archeology, food...in a nutshell: Travel. Having put in my first year as a half-time teacher, the question of what to do with my first summer off was answered when all the pieces fell into place with an invitation to teach skiing at Portillo. Thanks to Barbara Schneider and others who wrote me positive recommendations, the deal was spend a month in Portillo, teaching at least a couple of group lessons a day, six days a week. Room and board is included and a paycheck a the end of about $800. More can be earned with private lessons. Just get my butt down there... and I just happened to have enough miles on a credit card to take care of that for nothing!

On my first plane out of Portland, I sit next to a young man from near Bath, Me. We discover we are both going to be on the Santiago flight out of Atlanta. But no, he is going to teach surfing in Valparaiso. Winter, he says, is when the surf is the best. He has surfed all around the world. We have a six hour layover in Atlanta, and I meet some other skiers as I wait. They can be spotted by boot bags, stickers and hats. Two of them are going to Portillo. Two others are race coaches from Utah going to La Parva. All are very highly credentialled. As I get off the plane I meet Tim Thompson, an examiner from Killington. The flight had been 9.5 hours and the air is brisk. It's 7:35 am, but it is still dark. Yes it is winter and the days are short all of a sudden!