Conversation on the lift #3055. Participating: yours truly and a lovely lady in her prime. It starts after we've already exchanged the views on trails, weather and disappointing snow conditions.

So, where are your from? she asks.
Where do you think I am from? I do get this question a lot and I have a list of rotating answers. She gets to play name this country game - mostly because I am a bit bored. And a bit evil.

On the lift

Oh, I am not good with accents. Apparently, neither am I or we would not have this conversation.
Why don’t you ask me a few questions, you’ll figure it out soon enough. I smile saying that and now she can’t refuse. Natives are so predictable.

Europe? I can tell it’s going to be good.
Yes.
Germany? Which, as everybody knows, is the Europe’s default country.
No.
Am I getting close?
Yes, you are. Very close. The country I am from actually borders Germany. Am I giving up too much? We'll see.
Switzerland?
No.
Austria? We are skiing after all. So staying in the Alps seems understandable.
No.
France?
No.
OK, I give up. I don’t really know any other European countries. Those who now start to suspect that Americans are ignorant should know that this is below average. Most people here are perfectly capable of naming more than 4 European countries. Great Britain, Spain and Italy have a good chance to end up on the short list.

Wow, really?
Yugoslavia? That’s new.
It does not exist any more. You know that, right? Should I add that when it did exist, Germany was not among its neighbors?
Oh, I am old. Are you Scandinavian? I am assuming here she knows Scandinavia is actually not a country either.
No. But I can give you some clues. I am from Gdansk.
?
You know - the Solidarity. 1989. The fall of communism. If I was in more charitable mood I would have mentioned Lech Wałęsa. That usually does the trick. Chopin and Marie Curie are way more sinister clues.
???
There are almost 40 million people in my country
Really? Now she is surprised. I don’t think she realized until now there are that many people in the entire Europe.

Off the lift

It’s an EU member. The 6th biggest EU member to be exact.
EU? I start to wonder if we even live on the same planet.
And until recently one of the best allies of the United States. We went to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Although why I haven’t got a slightest idea.
Oh - I should know that. My husband is a Marine. She seems genuinely distressed now. For some reason women who pull out their husbands out of ski helmets bring the worst in me.

Great. Ask him.
Oh, come on - tell me.
I am not telling. Look it up. Am I making a leap of faith here? They do have Internet in California, right? Or libraries?

OK then. Just tell me where you live in the States.
Boston, mostly. No more games for today. I don't want to push my luck.
Boston! I went to high school there.
Really, that’s surprising?
Why?
I always thought they had decent high schools in Boston. And I time this perfectly to be able to slide off the chair and just ski away avoiding an offended look.

I choose a steep slope full of icy moguls to punish myself properly. Life is good.

It is a beautiful morning, you get up, look around and decide to hit the road. And just like that you are off heading toward endless string of adventures, one of a kind attractions, magnificent vistas, local restaurants serving tasty food, and comfortable motels offering clean sheets. A dream road trip, where you can be your spontaneous self yet every minute of it is fun, every road interesting, every place unique.

According to their website skiing and snowboarding at Heavenly presents you with a number of different choices. At the moment this number is limited to bare rocks and man made snow, falling a tad short of Experience of a Lifetime trademarked by Vail Resorts that owns Heavenly since 2002. No amount of grooming and reverse tiling can hide wind-polished sheets of ice covering ski runs.

Have you ever wondered what happens to the Colorado river? If you look at a map it's pretty clear where it begins, but not so obvious where it ends. There is a good reason for that: Colorado is pumped out dry and disappears long before it has a chance to reach its delta in the Sea of Cortez.

Internment. I suspect I know this word longer than people my age born here. One winter morning almost 30 years ago my family TV set flatly refused to play the usual portion of Sunday cartoons and was showing somber people inexplicably wearing uniforms.

We plunge underwater to observe habits of juvenile Zalophus californianus. Or, in the words of Ivan, our dive master extraordinaire, to play with youngsters. And play is what we try to do. The result is, to be honest, that we are being played with. Sea lions treat us as clumsy companions who cannot swim fast enough and have to be jolted into action by deftly applied bites. We develop various techniques to keep them from nibbling on our wet-suited bodies. It's a good thing they seem to have preference for yellow, which means that our snorkels, fins and secondary regulators are in greater danger than our fingers.

You don a full body wetsuit, the thickest you can find. A hood, thick neoprene gloves, booties. You go in, shiver for half an hour and come back up to pour hot water into your suit to warm yourself up. If you see more then two body-lengths you consider the visibility outstanding.

We spent last spring and a good chunk of summer wandering through the deserts in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Almost each trail welcomed us with a familiar snake warning, but we saw just one rattlesnake. It was quite well hidden and tolerated us soundlessly while we were having our lunch admiring the Hovenweep ruins. It only got agitated when we suddenly stood up. Its angry rattle was more surprising than scary, but for a couple of days we took our time choosing a place to picnic. And then we started to hike in California where it seems we come acress a snake or two every day.

We arrive at the Bunny Flat trailhead at the bottom of Mount Shasta. There is a flurry of activity as a small group of 40-something women are trying to make sense of self-issued permits to climb the summit. At $20 dollars per person it may seem expensive but it comes with a large plastic zip-lock bag containing a brown bag, a scoop of kitty litter and a page long instruction. Yes, it is a poop bag - the latest invention in the portable human waste removal technology. The replacement of an outdated small shovel required to dig 6 inch hole to burry your feces (with or without toilet papper depending on a government agency in charge). I always suspected that there are too many people on the planet, but knowing that the forest service removes more than 2 tons of human waste from Mount Shasta trailheads every year drives the message home.

The guy opens his backpack and rather promptly starts removing its content and placing it in the pockets of his cargo pants. What are you doing, I ask. I am taking out all the valuables, so that I can feed my backpack to the bear, he continues his pocket stuffing unfazed. And I am pretty sure that he did actually say: feed. Does he think bears eat backpacks? I wonder. The state of the primary schooling in US is allegedly atrocious nowadays, but he looks like his days of no child left behind were over before 60's kicked in for good.

They want comfort... [and] they have to be taken care of when they go to the Grand Canyon. There must be some sort of a program for those people; there must be something conventional for them to do. The sentiment expressed 100 years ago by Fred Harvey), the founder and owner of the famous El Tovar hotel on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, seems to belong to the past when one visits American national parks. The Grand Canyon may still offer mule rides but conventional entertainment is relentlessly squeezed out by the park service. No more driving cars through giant sequoias, fishing or boat renting on Mount Rainier's Reflection Lake, snarfing hamburgers in Snowball Room of the Mammoth Cave.

One of the precious few ways to offend your Canadian friends is to suggest that their country is a paler and colder version of its southern neighbor. And there are indeed many ways in which Canadians are different. Food seems to be more edible here and cities actually resemble places to live in and not abandoned movie sets. But in some cases Canadians are just dead set on repeating American mistakes. The ever present foreclosure signs and empty subdivisions disappear when you cross the border. Instead props that we begin to forget show up: real estate agents are shamelessly peddling their trade on every inch of promotional space, houses are getting bought, demolished and reconstructed apparently overtime, your bartender is giving you free buy vs. rent advice with a pint of local brew.

You are using the wrong weather service Natalia’s Canadian cousin tells us. Apparently Americans have no idea how to predict weather in British Columbia and weather.com, accuweather.com and my personal favorite wund.com need not apply when it comes to forecasting atmospheric events north of 49th parallel. There must be something to it: while all American sites are full of rainy icons, we manage to squeeze a sizable bike ride along the Vancouver seawall.

As far as licence plate slogans go most states don't strive for modesty. Oregon is Pacific Wonderland, New Mexico - Land of Enchantment, Massachusetts claims - inexplicably to the rest of the country - The Spirit of America. Put on this background Idaho's Famous Potatoes seems very down to earth. It sounds like a no nonsense state. So we do not expect much. Apart from potatoes in every shape, form and color.

It looked for a moment as if the long winter of our discontent ended in May with the last fresh tracks we left in Arapahoe Basin skiing area. We drove south and spent some time in New Mexico and Arizona getting progressively warmer.