This whole global pandemic thing really put a wrench in the Go With Daddy plans. Our family went from spending an average of 10 weeks per year traveling the world taking advantage of the global travel required for my work and the travel reward points gained. Helping our kids to experience the world and develop an appreciation of culture and the magnitude of our world has become our favorite pastime for sure and we’ve developed a bit of withdrawal symptoms in the last two years…but that ends now!
With vaccinations complete and the world welcoming back a bit of normalcy, we are hitting the road…literally as SKI BUMS! Well, not in the literal “live in a van and work as a lifty” sort of way, but rather lets take my remote work on the road and homeschool the kids while getting in as many days skiing as is humanly possible sort of way. We’ve packed up our Expedition for what will be our longest, albeit domestic adventure and here’s the how, where and why of our Ski Bums 2022 story!
The most exciting part of this story is the places we are going and the mountains we will be skiing! We bought our whole family Ikon Passes thanks to the variety of mountains included and an awesome discount for kids. Our first stop for 4 weeks is in Fraser, CO which is situated right next to Winter Park Resort and centrally located in the Rockies to give us easy access to Steamboat, Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mountain to name a few. Our home will be a delightful 2 bedroom condo we found on VRBO.com! Winter Park is known for having one of the best ski schools in the country and Millie and the kids are signed up for lessons where they’ll brush up their skills and get ready for skiing the whole mountain. Then we are off to Jackson Hole for a week in the Tetons and the familiar comforts of a Marriott. Our longest stop is in Salt Lake City where we are less than 40 minutes from incredible mountains like Deer Valley, Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude which offer some of the best snow in the west…some get an average of more than 500” of snow per season!!! This time we ended up liking a little vintage home near downtown Salt Lake found on Airbnb.com…the ad said “Gig internet” and that may have been the deciding factor. To round out our trip, we are staying slopeside at Big Sky Resort in Montana for 2 weeks of final fun shredding the pow…as the cool kids say. That’s 13 weeks of powdery awesomeness where we are hoping to ski at least 4 days a week and we are honestly hoping the whole family builds the skills to ski just about anything on the mountain.
Now let’s talk about how we are pulling this off. First, the kids are 1st and 3rd grade and clearly need to continue their studies and thanks to my beautiful wife loving being a full-time Momma, she’s graciously taken on the burden of homeschooling the kids for the trip. With a lot of help from the amazing teachers and staff at Edgewood Elementary (and a grandmother who taught school for 20+ years), Millie is well prepared to keep them on track. We are also bringing along our 1 year old Golden Retriever named Tally. He’s a great little traveler and we cannot wait to see how he takes to the snow! My work is the other constant that needs to be addressed and candidly I’ve been a remote worker for most of my career. Thanks to modern technology and an amazing employer who values work life balance, I will be able to continue my work wherever we go! In the weeks ahead, I’ll document my mobile work setup…which includes a triple monitor, highly ergonomic environment with 4K cameras and studio quality audio powered by some pretty click Artificial Intelligence…stay tuned. Sure, I’ll probably be up a bit earlier in the mornings and work a bit later in the evenings than normal, but my hope is to squeeze in 3 days a week on the mountain from the mountain open to lunch each day…and I am guessing the occasional conference call will be taking from the ski lift!
Yes, this is a bit crazy and has taken A LOT of work to prepare for but it is worth it to us. These adventures create some of the most memorable experiences for a family. Not just in the big landmark sort of experience ways, but also and maybe more importantly in the small ways when we all are pulled out of our comfort zones and routines and truly connect. That is the draw, the reason WHY we pour so much effort into making adventures like this happen. We, as parents, want our kids to have a life full of experiences as they grow to adulthood in hopes that they are kinder, more compassionate and caring members of society based on their first hand knowledge of cultural differences. I’d be lying though if I didn’t admit a bit of selfishness in this too. I absolutely love to ski. Not just the experience of gliding down the mountain with the cool breeze swirling through my beard, but equally as much it’s the beauty of the places you ski and the experience of being on the mountain. When you slide off the lift and round the corner at the top of the slope and see the views that altitude provides, it’s hard not to lose your breath. Skiing connects me with the outdoors, it challenges me physically and it rewards me with apres ski. Experiencing that, over and over again for 3 straight months with my family is why we’ve embarked on this adventure to ski bum in 2022.
If you want to follow along on the adventure with us, you have a couple of ways to stay connected:
- You can sign up for email updates at the bottom of this page and you’ll get an email each time we post a new blog.
- We are also on Instagram and will be posting pictures of the adventures there pretty regularly.
Either way, wish us luck, safety and health in 2022 and we will be praying for the same for you!
The Bearded Big Guy,
Cory
Go With Daddy 