Advancing through aging and accidents

On Friday, I stepped into my skis again, following a long hiatus since the accident that left me badly battered on December 18. 

My upper body still hurts, especially when I get off the bed in the morning and when I rotate laterally, but during the day hours and especially when I’m standing, I don’t feel a thing anymore. Returning to the slopes, created a fear of seeing my advancing age and another ski accident take another bit out of my ski proficiency. 

It also amplified the awareness of the remnant of my injury, particularly when I had to put on and take off my horribly stiff ski boots, carry my skis on my shoulder and do awkward movements that we end up doing when we ski, but nothing too bad or alarming happened.

I skied my usual ski slopes and found that their conditions had not improved a bit over my eleven days absence, I should say they had worsened some more and the December afternoon shade didn’t help either nor did the deteriorating conditions of my “rock ski”. 

That said, I made it safely back home and am now ready for much. I just need to remember “quality over quantity...”

Tesla and Citroën 2cv…

The Citroën 2cv, was the first car I ever owned. I still have fond memories about that automobile and not just about it’s funky look and usability, but also about the way it had to be driven. 

Its curb weight was around 1,100 lbs (500 kg) and its 425 cc twin-flat engine developed an anemic 18 horsepower, so one had to be driving it with a strong sense of momentum and a keen awareness of ups and downs. My Tesla in contrast weighs 4,555 lbs (2 000 kg), but just like me 2cv tells me how much I suck on the battery when I climb a hill, or how much it recharges on the way down.

With both cars, I’ve paid strong attention to the ups and downs of roadways and how to save as much energy as possible regardless of where it comes from, sun or fossil fuels. I don’t speed for the sake of speeding, only to enter a freeway, pass a slow car, a wobbling double-tandem truck or a slow Porsche stuck in the fast lane, but by and large, I don’t drive faster with that car, in fact, quite the opposite. 

This said, both cars were innovative in their time: The Citroën 2CV, introduced in the 1940s, was remarkable for its simplicity, practical utility and affordability. Tesla, on the other hand, has been a paragon of innovation in electric vehicle technology for its electric power-trains, advanced software, and features like Autopilot. 

Culturally, the Citroën 2CV is an iconic symbol of French automotive history, while Tesla became a trailblazer in the modern electric vehicle movement. From a design standpoint, the 2CV had a unique, unconventional appearance and quirky features, while Teslas have been known for their sleek and minimalist designs. 

This said, these comparisons are somewhat abstract, as the two cars belong to different automotive eras and serve different purposes, but at least you can now understand while I like to bring them together.

Electric driving (continued...)

For years, I’ve heard many times that a Tesla is a “computer on wheels” due to the significant amount of computing power and advanced technology integrated into its design. The sophisticated onboard computer system controls many aspects of the vehicle, like navigation, autopilot features, energy management, and more. 

If we stay on the subject of navigation and “range anxiety”, which happened to yesterday’s themes, each time a destination is picked on the GPS, it tells with great accuracy – I’ve found – how much energy will be left in the battery at destination (see illustration).

That’s a big deal, because if one has to travel another 100 miles, a 14% reserve may look skimpy and unreliable, yet, as I have experienced it, if the amount of reserve goes down, a warning flashes on the screen, admonishing the driver to stay below a certain speed. 

Likewise, when that margin is low, I stick to the speed limit instead of setting my cruise control slightly above it as I normally do. So, when I reach my destination I not only equal, but do better than the forecast reserve. This alone does much more in reassuring me about driving an electric car than any other consideration. 

Tomorrow we’ll compared driving a Tesla and a Citroën 2cv…

Electric driving

Our recent trip to southern Utah confirmed that driving long-distance with an electric car isn’t as difficult or bad as we might have feared. It’s true that in the second year we’ve owned such a vehicle it’s only the only such trip we’ve taken, and the less one does something different, the less they’ll learn about it and get familiarized and tranquilized with the process. 

It’s also true that winter isn’t the best season to hit the road with an EV. It’s cold and the battery doesn’t keep the charge as well, and the snow tires are way more stickier on the road than regular, summer tires, not to mention the need to heat the cabin and add two adult passengers and going from a very low altitude, up to 7,000 feet! 

We stayed 5 days at our desert destination and recharged the car with the 110 V outlet in the garage, a forever lasting process but that gave us enough “juice” to roam around town and go visit nearby Zion National Park.

On the freeway, there are enough Tesla superchargers to take the worry out of the driving and the car computer is always there to tell the driver to stop at such and such charger location to recharge the battery, so it’s fair to say that the process is truly worry-free and works perfectly well. 

The short time taken to recharge is masked by all elements of a normal “pit stop”: toilets, cup of coffee or snack and a brisk wall to get blood circulating again. In fact, all the apprehension is woefully unwarranted and a product of our brains that don’t want to change, but I’ll add an even more reassuring element in tomorrow’s blog!

Is skiing quality going downhill?

For years, skiing quality was excellent in what is today Park City Mountain. Ski visitations were well within the size and the infrastructure available on the mountain, parking was easy, and we never suffered from lines at the lifts and congestion on the slopes. 

Then following Vail Resorts’ acquisition of the resort, the upheaval caused by Covid and the sudden realization that the place was so easy to get to as Epic passholders began to sample the cornucopia of resorts available to them, everything began to unravel and go downhill.

Parking became impossible, then skiers had to start paying for it, popular runs got too crowded and danger began lurking from all angles, uphill, right, left and even downhill. We do realize that life is an evolving adventure with one inescapable rule: adapt or perish. 

For my part, I have decided to embrace skiing’s downhill path and do my very best to adapt…

A providential break?

After my fall and slide out of control just over a week ago, I haven’t been back on my skis yet. Instead, today, I’m still in southern Utah, right in the middle of the desert, nursing an upper body that can’t seem to keep up with my vivacious limbs. 

This is the first time in many years that I haven’t experienced a white Christmas in the mountains, but it couldn’t be more propitious as I needed the break to rest, plus heal my body, and keep it away from any temptation to go skiing before all is back in shape.

So, it’s been a blessing in disguise, in spite of the fact that my recovery is limping a bit and taking more time than I had thought it would. Did I mention the fact that skiing sucks at the moment? This said, I remain stoic as well as patient and remain confident that someday, when the time is right, I’ll be back on the skis, so nothing is irremediably lost!

Merry Christmas, really?

Merry and Christmas are two words joined at the hip and can’t sound well if they’re separated. Yet, with what’s going on in today’s world, it’s hard to say “Merry Christmas” with keeping a straight face and believing that we mean what we say.

The world, in fact, is a state of chaos and disarray with wars raging in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine and people being torn apart because of demented heads of state. We, the rest of the world, seem to be - for the most part, at least - reasonably well-behaved while a handful of crazies are advancing insane agendas that wreak havoc on the planet. 

So how can the world population tolerate that when a majority of nations are part of the so-called democratic community? We may have lost the sense of outrage or revolt and are now ready to accept the unacceptable for the sake of our own comfort and tranquility. 

Unless we get more interested about what goes on with Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. Sounds pretty pathetic to me! So in spite of our own numbness and lack of resolve, I wish all of my reaéders a Merry Christmas, at least within the confines of their homes, family and friends. 

We’ll have to forget the suffering of the rest of the world, because we seem and we are in fact, incapable of doing better than that!