新技能get√，這個新技能不是滑雪……

I’m not sure what are the words that come up in your mind first when I mention Christmas, but the keywords for my Christmas this year were COLD, SNOW, and MORE SNOW, (of course,and family)

Maybe you’ve heard, but it’s been really really cold in New England recently.

And, I decided to throw myself further into the cold.

I went up to Vermont.

提起圣誕節，你會想到什么？

回想去年圣誕節，對我來說，就是冷！雪！大雪！

當然，還有我的家人。

也許你聽說了，新英格蘭就已經夠冷了。

但我當時還是決定把自己徹底丟進大雪里，我奔向了佛蒙特。

Ludlow is a small town just outside the Green Mountainand Finger Lakes National Forests.

When I say small, I mean it literally just has a few pubs, a pizzeria, and a couple of ski shops, but this town is home to one of the topski and snowboard destination in New England — the Okemo Mountain.

With its 121 trails of all levels and 8 terrain parks, Okemo attracts skiers and snowboarders from all over the world.

Ludlow是個小鎮，在the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests旁。

我說Ludlow是個小?▪?鎮，因為它真的是小……只有幾家酒吧、一家pizza店和幾家滑雪店。

但這里是新英格蘭最頂級的滑雪所在地。

Okeme度假區一共有121條滑道，還有8個花式場地，吸引著來自世界各地的滑雪愛好者。

As the New Yea rbrings record cold for much of the New England, it also brought inches of fresh powder to Okemo,

so, without any hesitation, I threw my board and boots intothe back of my car and headed toward Ludlow on the first day of 2018.

Christmas and New Year seem incomplete without some skiing or snowboarding.

隨著新年的到來，新英格蘭的大部分地區又刷新了低溫紀錄。

Okemo的大雪讓我激動地把滑板裝備丟進車里，在2018年的第一天，沖向Ludlow！

沒有滑雪板的圣誕和新年，對我來說，是不完整的！

Mountain Lodge at Okemo at 7:30 AM

The excitement for some fresh powder dragged me out of bed at 7:30.

I doubt I’ve been up this early since my kayaking trip this past September.

I was all dressed up ready to hit the slope before the lift seven started running, so we decided to grab a few things from the ski shop downtown first.

7點半的時候，我就一刻也不能等的起床了！

好像上次能夠起來這么早……還是去年九月的皮劃艇之旅……

當我已經整裝待發的時候，上山吊椅還都沒開始工作，所以我們決定先去市中心的滑雪用品商店買些東西。

Well, that morning didn’t go quite as well as we planned.

About three minutes out, our car came to a gradual stop itself and started to scream in a shrill voice.

Pretending to know the car really well, I calmly checked all the settings and started the engine again.

When I was still fully absorbed in “my accomplishment”, the engine turned itself off again.

This time, it didn’t even get to three minutes.

I hit the start button again.

Nothing happened.

And, again.

And, again.

The car shook a bit and started moving.

It did move far, but far enough to get us to the middle of an intersection where it stopped again.

At this point, all my previous excitement had become anxiety and frustration.

呃……然而，事實上沒我們計劃的那么完美。

車剛開出去三分鐘，就緩緩地停住了，然后開始發出刺耳的噪音。

我假裝很懂的樣子，仿佛波瀾不驚地檢查了所有裝置，再發動了汽車。

當我還內心有點小竊喜的時候，車又熄了……

這次開出去大概三分鐘還不到。

我再次發動，它完全無動于衷。

再次。

再次。

車晃蕩了一下，開始動了起來。

的確是動了，然后它穩穩地停在了一個交叉路的路口！

我的內心……是崩潰的。

早前的所有興奮和期盼，現在只剩下焦躁。

After about an hour of constantly hitting the START button we slowly pulled the car into Chevy dealership where we learned that all the diesel had frozen and gelled because of the -15.

(Just a tip, not buying a diesel car would save you a lot trouble.)

Eventually, I got on the lift around noon after a morning full of struggles.

The snow was but finally being able to on the slope was definitely satisfying.

在大約一個小時的不斷地發動、熄火、發動、熄火中，我們慢慢地把車開到雪佛蘭汽車經銷店。

在那里我們知道了，因為低于零下15度，所有的柴油都被凍住了。