I’m stashed away in Detroit for the next few hours indulging in copious amounts of food, champagne, and free internet access at the Northwest Elite Lounge before I catch a flight back to Boston. I’m still not entirely sure how I slid into this brilliant little establishment, but who cares. Free food just works.

The last few days have been a bit crazy. Our “simple, three hour drive to Madesimo, Italy” turned into an adventure when we ran into blizzard conditions navigating the open passes through Switzerland (we only arrived at one closed pass before turning around in pursuit of an alternative route). All seemed relatively well until we reached the final access road to Madesimo; it was too steep with too many switchbacks for our 8 passenger van. After getting stuck a number of times we spun a U-turn and rallied up the 3 mile access road backwards sliding all over the road until we turned a corner and were rear-ended by an out-of-control mini van. The damage wasn’t too bad, but we were forced to buy a pair of chains for 160 euros less than 400 yards from our hotel. Bruised and battered we finally crawled into our hotel room 6+ hours after we left Germany at damn near 10:00 PM. Moral to the story: always travel with chains. But it didn’t faze us; we’re used to a lot worse during the college carnival series.

I started 52 in the GS and had a good first run. It was really clean without any mistakes taking a relatively high line because the soft track demanded it. However, I missed the flip (top thirty start in reverse order in the second run) by two hundredths of a second. Second run went just like the first and I finished 34th on the day in my first Europa Cup.

The second day we raced slalom. Although no one on our team qualified for a second run (only the top 60 qualify), it was still a good day. I raced on yet another brand new pair of slalom skis and made a few mistakes so not qualify wasn’t disheartening. We were racing against a full World Cup field (I started 70th one worse than the World Cup in Beaver Creek). Anyway, the new skis are better and I can’t wait to get them up and running.

Take care, w