1 month into life here (By Ash)

The 2 week school holidays are finally over and thank god for it! The past 2 weeks have been filled with long busy days, and lots and lots of people visiting the mountain. We've finally had a few more snow dumps so we've been able to open more of the mountain up and it's finally starting to look more like a ski resort than just a rocky mountain with just a little bit of snow! Last Tuesday, our first day back after our 2 days off, brang in a mib snow storm. All day it had been rain/sleet/snow and finally around 2pm the big, fat flakes started to fall and so did the temperature. So the snow started to stick on the roads and got icy and we told people to start headind down, especially all 2 wheel drive cars---but did they listen? NO! People go to the snow and leave their brains at home. Within a span of 5 minutes we had 5 car wrecks, a few single car slide but a few were 3, 4 and 5 car pile ups!! It's a steep mountain road and, since Mt. Ruapehu is the only mountain that gets snow in the North Island, people don't know what they're doing. Especially since a lot of them are asians and a lot of Indians from Fiji. So, we started a road evacuation 3pm and got done by 10. Luckily the snow was pretty light and there wasn't wind. We, the lift operations staff, turn into roadies when things like this happen and we turn into chain crews. "Workin on the chain gang"! As fast as we could get the accidents cleared and start getting all 4 wheel drive cars out, we got them going then brought out the chains for everyone else. Our of the 75 2-wheel drive vehicles Daniel and I had to chain up in the 2 parking lots we were dealing with, only 2 had their own chains! And one of those was a big bus/van thing and they had no idea how to put them on!

It may sound like it was hell, but it was actually pretty fun. It was a good feeling to be so useful and helpful for people. The next day, which was a beautiful day, I had people coming up to me and remembering me by name and tahnking me. Even some young kids remembered and now they say hi to me and are excited every time they come through my line. It's funny because I think back to all the times I skied at the same places back in Cali and I never got to know any of the employees....maybe it's just me and my sunny disposition ;-)

Most of you will never believe this, but I get up before 6am every day (escept our days off--then we get up at 7 for breakfast)! Daniel has to be up at 5:30 to be with the de-icing crew first up the mountain, so I get up and have a nice, long hot shower (which you can't get after work since everyone uses the hot water) then I hop online to chat with friends and catch up on the news and stuff before breakfast. I even have time to make coffee and enjoy it! Which I'm doing right now :-D

It's just about 7am and I have to eat breakfast and get going. Hopefully this had helped you all see a little into our lives here. (There's more to it, but I'll get Daniel to write more later) We miss you all back home--just like we miss real Diet Pepsi, BBQ sauce and fried chicken! Write us and send pictures and let us know what's going on back in the good ol' US of A.

(The pictures are of a fun sled ride after work, sunset from our 'back porch' and few sunrise pics from riding up a chairlift at work)