"The sport of skiing consists of wearing three thousand dollars' worth of clothes and equipment and driving two hundred miles in the snow in order to stand around at a bar and get drunk." - P.J. O'Rourke

This weekend B and I went to Hunter Mountain in NY for a ski weekend.  We made great time on the way up Friday night and got to the mountain early enough to enjoy a late dinner at Curran's.  After sharing a nice wedge salad, we split the burger and the beer mussels.

The burger was juicy, perfectly cooked (medium), and served with tasty steak fries.

The mussels were good, but a little heavy as the broth was made with beer, taragon, and blue cheese.  The coffee porter I had with dinner was also more of a dessert than a drink, but vacations aren't for counting calories, right?

Saturday, after a good night's sleep in our adorable cabin in the woods at Hotel Mountain Brooke we had a nice morning on the slopes.

The good news was that it was notably less crowded than last MLK weekend, presumably because the weather lately has been unseasonably warm with little significant snow to speak up.  The bad news was that because the weather lately has been unseasonably warm many of the slopes were on the icy side and got snowed off by lunchtime.  Once we got the lay of the land we were able to avoid most trouble spots and, with the exception of one run where B accidentally took me on a double black diamond (that I managed to tackle without falling once!), had a really good time working up an appetite for a delicious lunch of chili and corn bread.

[happy after a good lunch and time to thaw out]

A few more runs in the afternoon and then we went back to the hotel for showers, a few Guinness, and an afternoon screening of Cliffhanger.

[view of the mountain]

Cleaned up and refreshed we went out for a couple of drinks to watch the 49ers/Saints game.  After a stop at a local dive bar we ended up at Last Chance Tavern for some wings and Duvel, and then headed to Pancho Villa's for nachos and chicken flautas.

[keeping B away from the chips and salsa while we waited for the food]

Everything was pretty much what you'd expect, nothing fancy but it really hit the spot.

I fell asleep while we were watching Wanted back at the cabin (but from what I did see it pretty much sucked), and we had another good night of sleep.  The next morning we decided not to brave the crowds and the icy terrain but before heading home we had a great breakfast in the lodge at Hunter Mountain Brooke.  I had the blueberry pancakes and B got the fried egg platter with bacon and home fries.

The pancakes were light and fluffy, the home fries were perfectly seasoned, and the thick-cut bacon was salty and delicious, almost like country ham.

When we got back we had a wonderful lazy Sunday watching football and enjoyed some Indian takeout from Ekta for dinner.

This was my first time trying takeout Indian food.  Although samosas are really the only Indian food I've ever had before, I actually liked the vegetable samosas the least of all of the food we got from Ekta.  In addition to the vegetable samosas, we had the garlic naan, Masaladar Chola (chick peas cooked with onion and tomato sauce and pomegranate seeds and roasted cumin seed), and the Chicken Saagwala.  Everything was great but my favorite was the Masaladar Chola on the garlic naan.

After a great weekend I'm off to work - no MLK day off for me :(