My freshman year of college I bought a Subaru Outback explicitly to go skiing in.
I had a car that could get me to the mountains, and keep me entertained on the way.
I bought that car right at the tail end of the golden age of mix CDs.
What can I say?
I crashed a lot back then, trying to ski from the backseat with aggression.
I remember the trip a friend brought his own CD and introduced us to Odesza, and Phantogram.
Wed save the rap for the dry days when we sucked at park skiing.
It was a big deal when Odesza played my college campus.
He hit me up later on NS, asked me if I wanted to buy any psychedelics.
The music we listened to on the way to and from the ski hill helped define our ski experience.
If we couldnt ski well, we could at least listen to the same music good skiers were into.
That spring I embarked on what in retrospect might be the wildest driving and skiing adventure of my life.
Driggs to Cooke City, to Seattle, to Mt.
Olympus, to Portland, and back again.
By the time I got to Olympic National Park, I was haggard.
Id driven too many hours, and skied some of the scariest terrain of my life.
And I found myself trading hoarsely sung lines of Wildest Dreams with my similarly scruffy ski partner.
We got turned around off the line by my lack of fitness and crappy weather.
Apparently my taste in ski music had changed.
Our latest car, bought explicitly for skiing, is a Subaru Baja, an Outback with a bed.
It only has a CD player, no tape deck or Aux port.
The nice young man who sold it to us left his Lynyrd Skynyrd CD in it.
I immediately swapped in1989, because, tradition.
And it turns out that a specific brand of female vocalist driven pop does that for me very well.
I posted on social media that my new car only had a CD player and I needed more CDs.
I dont know who sent it, but theyre my hero.
So thats what were listening to as we break trail and plunder pillows.
Its not anything I ever would have chosen, but its perfect somehow.
I dont know whos sending me these CDs, but Im excessively thankful for them.
And theyre an amusing reminder how our taste in ski music can change.
