Ski it if you can – wherever you are

I wrote earlier this week about the Mad River Glen ski area, which has what I consider to be one of the more brilliant slogans I’ve ever seen: “Ski it if you can.” As you can imagine, the bumper stickers bearing this slogan are a hot item (my own car boasts one).

Now Mad River Skiers are a proud and tribal bunch; they also tend to travel all over the world. At some point one of them decided to take a picture of him- or herself with the sticker in one of those far-away places and to bring the picture back and hang it up over the bar at General Stark’s Pub in the base lodge. (And while we’re at it, this is the ski bar to end all ski bars – it has so much personality that it has its own blog where you can learn just who the heck General Stark actually was).

Since Mad River is also a place of traditions, this habit quickly took hold until the bar looked like this:

Tommy actually noticed the picture of my father and stepmother, intrepid independent travelers who could easily paper one entire wall of the pub with pictures of themselves in exotic locations, without me telling him it was there.

You can imagine his excitement. “They’re famous!” he exclaimed to me, beaming.

The not-to-be-outdone photo of the entire collection was taken on the space shuttle, with the Earth in the background. That’s fancy enough I suppose, but a particular favorite of mine demonstrates the usefulness of the stickers as  clothing.

Now that’s dedication! Just another thing that I love about Mad River.

If you happen to be lunching at General Stark’s, the Brisket in Paradise is aptly named, especially when enjoyed after a morning of skiing and in the company of a draft of Lawson’s Finest Liquids.

I share these pictures as part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby.

Note: I know that I promised a post yesterday offering tips for getting your kids (and spouse) started skiing. A sick child derailed my somewhat ambitious blogging plans for the week, and the post was not written to my satisfaction. I wanted to make sure I got it right, so I’m going to put it off for a future date, probably after we go skiing over the Presidents’ Day weekend.