Skiing at Afton Alps

Skiing at Afton Alps

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for January 29, 2017

The  week started with a band concert at Prior Lake High School.  The music was quite uplifting.

Luke intensely played various percussion parts.  I always enjoy hearing him bang his drums.

On Friday night, Krazy Kory and Ron "Sugarman" Myers came up to spend the weekend with me.  We had lots of fun.

We had a good time at the casino and dinner at the Meadows sports bar downstairs.  Mmmm.  Sweet Potato Fries.

No matter how well I think we're getting along, though, somehow things always get out of control and we find ourselves at midnight out on the middle of frozen Prior Lake having fistfights.

We woke up bright and early and went to Charlie's on Prior before heading out to the slopes.  They have a great breakfast menu.

  

It's been a few years since we've actually made it to the resort and we found things have changed quite a bit at Afton Alps since they were acquired by Vail.  Not shocking, but the prices have jumped up quite a bit and the facilities have been upgraded.  They also use wireless card readers to go on the ski lifts now instead of just wearing a tag on the outside of your coat.  We're being tracked everywhere we go!

It took us awhile to get back in the groove of skiing since we're all a lot older since the last time we went and are probably quite a bit more fragile as well.  The three of us got off a chairlift together and I ended up wiping both of them out so we all fell to the ground and the chairlift operator had to stop the lift until we could recover.  I'm still feeling the pain from that one right in my coccyx!

I don't remember ever seeing this  reservoir at Afton Alps before, but maybe it's always been there.  This is what they use to make snow when Mother Nature isn't cooperating.  I'm guessing it's not great for fishing though.

After several hours of skiing, we went back to our hotel and then headed over to the Mall of America to see what kind of fun we could find.

It's always fun at Benihana!  We had a good meal and then hung out at the mall for awhile.  All in all, it was a pretty darned good weekend!