So the last time I checked in on this blog, I was in the middle of a three-month intensity block of journalism training in Manhattan at The Nation magazine.

NYC from the 68th floor of the Empire State Building. Thanks to Britt Harwood, who smuggled me up here as allegedly a participant in an LSAT prep class…

But to make a long story short, the internship ended on December 18th, and since winter is for skiing, not sitting around in an office, it was time to get in gear. I left New York the day after my job finished, on the 19th, got home, went to bed, got up, packed up all my stuff, and drove off in my sister’s car. No sooner than 2 miles into a 3100 mile journey (for the record, that’s less than one tenth of one percent), the dashboard starting flashing a big, red, all-caps light that said STOP! BRAKE FAULT! YOU’RE F—ED! (Okay, maybe not the last part). I pulled over and used the brakes to stop. They worked. I kept going and tried the brakes again. They still worked. The light turned off. I performed a quick cost-benefit analysis of continuing to Williamstown, Massachusetts, which resulted in me continuing to Williamstown, Massachusetts.

After a night at FasterSkier world headquarters (editor Topher Sabot’s house), I continued on to Ithaca, then Chicago and Minneapolis. Minneapolis was sweet–good skiing and really good food, courtesy of my friend and former teammate Jeff Bush and his family. When the fourth-largest snowstorm in North Dakota history decided to block my path for a few days, they graciously allowed me to celebrate Christmas with them, too (somewhat of a novelty for the EISA’s fastest Jewish skier [although--and I hope no Jewish Olympic Committee officials are reading this {something tells me there aren't}--I have celebrated Christmas before with my dad's Episcopalian wife]).

From Minneapolis, I spent my one night in a very cheap, only moderately dingy Motel Six in Fargo, North Dakota (no wood/body-part chipping, fortunately), then moved on to beautiful Glendive, Montana, where I spent the night at a friend’s house. Oh, wait, I raced in Minneapolis. And lost six minutes to Matt Liebsch in a 10k. Fortunately, there are no fitness requirements for being an xc ski journalists, and also fortunately, I have some room for improvement with my training, given the two hours per week that I got in New York.

Also before reaching Glendive, I got a chance to visit the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in Western North Dakota. For those of you who think there isn’t anything cool in North Dakota, you’re wrong. There are actually 16 cool things in North Dakota: Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the 15 elk inside it.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my biathlon rifle ready for the elk, but fortunately, my friend's dad shot one (in a different location), and I got to have elk lasagna in Missoula.

In the park, I drove about 10 miles down the plowed scenic road to where it became unplowed. Then I strapped on a pair of my classic rock skis, and headed out for a quick tour. There was one other person within a 10 mile radius, and he was about 250 yards down the trail. Once I passed him, there was absolutely nobody around, and the scenery was spectacular.  The road was unplowed, but most of the powder had blown off, leaving a 3-inch deep layer of packed snow on the road that was perfect for extra-blue classic skiing. I skied out for about an hour, climbed a hill, took some pictures, and skied back.

Some baller skiing. Theodore Roosevelt=the man.

After the park and eastern Montana, I drove to Missoula, and then to Seattle. This is a spectacular stretch of driving, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a lot of time on their hands and a fuel-efficient vehicle (there are a lot of uphills).

No, I do not condone shooting pictures while driving.

The only bad part about this section was that I’d finished my book on tape (John Krakauer’s “Where Men Win Glory”, about Pat Tillman–I really recommend it, except for the parts where he tries to tell the history of the Cold War) and there were no radio stations, except for one that had these really dumb, obnoxious DJ’s talking about the club that they were building (?) inside the radio station, and they would NOT shut up. I was very frustrated. In other places across the country, radio was actually very good–the public radio network across North Dakota and eastern Montana was great. Especially entertaining was the “Thomas Jefferson Radio Hour” in North Dakota, which features scholar Clay Jenkinson in character as the third president, talking about things like his relationship with his wife, and how it compared to John Adams’ relationship with his wife…for a whole hour. Okay, so actually, in this particular case, maybe the concept was better than the execution, but who cares? Two other choice (and/or shocking) quotes that I heard on the radio west of Minneapolis (and by repeating them, I certainly am not endorsing them):

1. “Those funbags of hers are really quite remarkable.” –Some DJ referring to the anatomy of Dog the Bounty Hunter’s partner.

2. “100 percent of the Islamic terrorists coming at us are Muslim.” –Some conservative commentator. Profound, and needing no further analysis.

In any case, I made it to Alaska, and I’m now chilling (literally) there, waiting for things to start happening. Hopefully the stories that come out of here in the next two weeks will be decidedly more professional and less inane than this blog post.