One of the highlights of the trip to Wisconsin was seeing the Birkebeiner ski race (or the Birkie, for those of you that don’t speak Norwegian). At 8:20 am 9000 skiers left from Cable, Wisconsin and skied 51 kilometers to Hayward, Wisconsin, my hometown (and if you want to be technical, not all 9000 skiers left at 8:20; only 200 left at 8:20 and then more started every ten minutes until 10:20… but that’s inconsequential).

A little after 10:20, my dad, Heather and I trekked from his house on the edge of town to Main Street. We were just in time to see the first two competitors to cross the finish line, both Italian. And for the first time in Birkie history, there was a tie. The skiers held hands as they crossed the finish line (insert Brokeback Mountain joke here). Except there wasn’t really a tie. The Birkie officials decided that there couldn’t be a tie, so they seemed to arbitrarily name one guy the winner. I would be pissed off if I were Italian guy number two.

We watched a few more racers cross the finish line, and then Heather decided that her stilettos just weren’t cutting it in the near below-zero, snowy weather so we went to Outdoor Ventures (do you like how I just name dropped a store than 99% of the people reading this blog have never heard of?) and she tried on a pair of socks and snow boots. She just brought the tags to the register and told them, “I’m wearing both of these.” They rang up her total. Turns out everyone in the store was immediately putting on socks and just bringing up the tags. We went outside and the new boots worked much better.

And now some pictures for all of you with fetishes for men in tights:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Grant County and Beyond. Both comments and pings are currently closed.