2 February 2017 — That little marmot in the order Rodentia really doesn’t know how to predict the weather, let’s get that out of the way. But the movie was cool…hard to talk about “throwback” areas in the mid-Atlantic — let’s face it, they’re all kind of quirky. One that comes to mind is Virginia’s small but mighty Homestead Resort. It’s really only suitable for beginners and lower intermediates, and only open Thursday to Sunday, and the pace is definitely nothing like the better known areas in the region. Reason I include it here is, based on its clunky double and genteel setting, it really is a throwback to another era. Dig back far enough and you find that Homestead once operated a “snowmobile” lift akin the historic snowmobile built at Mount Cranmore in New Hampshire. Sniff around a bit and you can retrace the track of this lost artifact, which is pretty cool…another oddball in the region, really kind of a lower midwest place is Oglebay Resort near Wheeling, West Virginia. I mention this one because it’s a ski area built on a golf course, a driving range to be precise, serviced by a short but sweet triple chair. Considering that a lot of skiers once started on golf course rope tows back in the day, Oglebay qualifies as throwback for certain. And you wondered what you were gonna do on that next business trip that put you in Wheeling!