I'm back from a long weekend in the Alps with Filippo. We left on Thursday morning, and spent three very nice days skiing in Padola and San Candido. The weather was marvelous, not a cloud, if only a bit cold (minus six celsius was the average daytime temperature).
On Thursday we arrived at noon in Padola, and were able to profit of the afternoon using the ski pistes there. Filippo was a bit rusty but I soon convinced him to try the big piste, where he had never ventured before. He did great, and on the following day we went to San Candido, where we met some friends - his schoolmate Emma and her parents, my friends Pietro and Elena. By then, Filippo was skiing faster than me, and I had a hard time convincing him to be careful.
On Saturday I wanted to take Filippo to the pistes in Padola, but he had had too much fun in San Candido, and forced me to bring him there again - it's a 30km drive in the mountains to reach it from where we live. But we had fun again.
On that evening, I made a blunder. I had opened the ski carrier on top of my mazda 6 (see pic) with the idea of putting back the skis in the garage, but then forgot to do it. We left at 7PM to have dinner at a very good restaurant on top of the Passo di Montecroce. The road unwinds up a mountain for 12 km from Padola, and there are no lights whatsoever. Upon making the first hairpin bend, I heard the sound of something hefty moving - I thought in the trunk. I shrugged my shoulders, but when, on the second bend, I heard another one, Filippo was quicker than me to shout "WE LOST A SKI!"
It was real luck that we did not cause any accident. There were very few cars going down the road at that time, since the lack of any lighting could have caused an accident. We were quick to get back down the road to collect our harvest of loose skis. Fortunately, no damage to anything, but a bit of embarassment when a car stopped to ask whether things were okay, and could we explain what the hell was going on ?
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