A day of respite.

After a long, challenging weekend of teaching at Sideways, much of the teaching staff embarked on a trip to Mt. Rigi near Luzerne.

We enjoyed a beautiful boat trip…

The weather was quite clear, affording us stunning views of Luzerne's environs.

Along our way to the top, we got caught up in a snowball fight. It began with -topher and me lobbing snowballs from a really long distance, trying to hit each other. I won the contest. (Hah!) With the contest finished, we closed ground and descended into chaotic, closed-quarters snowball combat.

What a lovely gang! Once we summited (which wasn't particularly hard), we got to playing! Plastic shopping bags were brought along to serve as makeshift sleds. With the help of my scissors to split them open (again, you never know when you'll need a pair…), we started the races.

It didn't always go particularly well -- they were plastic bags, after all.

But, we all persevered.

A popular style was to go down two people at a time, in order to build momentum.

We eventually grew tired of that, and graduated to many other forms of sledding down the mountain. We got creative. Going down headfirst on your belly, holding your legs behind you. Going down on your back headfirst. Skiing down with a plastic bag under each foot. The group had tremendous fun coming up with new ways to slide down the mountainside.

We also made snow sculptures, such as an igloo.

Overall, a tremendously fun time. It was a relief to interact with people as friends, to play together, especially after spending so much time working together and being professional and serious all the time.