新技能get√，这个新技能不是滑雪……

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.

提起圣诞节，你会想到什么？

回想去年圣诞节，对我来说，就是冷！雪！大雪！

当然，还有我的家人。

也许你听说了，新英格兰就已经够冷了。

但我当时还是决定把自己彻底丢进大雪里，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是个小镇，在the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests旁。

我说Ludlow是个小 ▪ 镇，因为它真的是小……只有几家酒吧、一家pizza店和几家滑雪店。

但这里是新英格兰最顶级的滑雪所在地。

Okeme度假区一共有121条滑道，还有8个花式场地，吸引着来自世界各地的滑雪爱好者。

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.

随着新年的到来，新英格兰的大部分地区又刷新了低温纪录。

Okemo的大雪让我激动地把滑板装备丢进车里，在2018年的第一天，冲向Ludlow！

没有滑雪板的圣诞和新年，对我来说，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点半的时候，我就一刻也不能等的起床了！

好像上次能够起来这么早……还是去年九月的皮划艇之旅……

当我已经整装待发的时候，上山吊椅还都没开始工作，所以我们决定先去市中心的滑雪用品商店买些东西。

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，事实上没我们计划的那么完美。

车刚开出去三分钟，就缓缓地停住了，然后开始发出刺耳的噪音。

我假装很懂的样子，仿佛波澜不惊地检查了所有装置，再发动了汽车。

当我还内心有点小窃喜的时候，车又熄了……

这次开出去大概三分钟还不到。

我再次发动，它完全无动于衷。

再次。

再次。

车晃荡了一下，开始动了起来。

的确是动了，然后它稳稳地停在了一个交叉路的路口！

我的内心……是崩溃的。

早前的所有兴奋和期盼，现在只剩下焦躁。

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.

在大约一个小时的不断地发动、熄火、发动、熄火中，我们慢慢地把车开到雪佛兰汽车经销店。

在那里我们知道了，因为低于零下15度，所有的柴油都被冻住了。