Bill and Mary hoisting a glass
at the Jameson Irish Whiskey Factory
in Midleton Ireland.

Bill and Mary hoisting a glass
at the Jameson Irish Whiskey Factory
in Midleton Ireland.

Updated at 4:00 PM EDT-----American Ski Company has announced that the sale of the Killington/Pico Ski Resorts to SP Land LLC has completed. Total price for the resort quoted on ASC's posting with the Securities and Exchange Commission was $85.2M with $3M being held in indemnity escrow until June 30, 2008. Complete details of the sale are listed on the Security and Exchange Commissions Edgar website.

In related news, Powdr Corp and SP Land have entered into an agreement to have Powdr Corp manage mountain operations. According to the Rutland Herald, Powdr Corp has named Chris Nyberg as the president of the Killington and Pico Resort, replacing Allen Wilson. Nyberg formerly was a VP at Prinoth, a company that manufactures Snow Groomers. More developments and commentary to follow in the coming days ------end of 4:00 PM Update

Back to work... so it goes!

First, I would like to thank the dozens of people who have sent us email over the last 2 weeks. As some of you know by now, Mary and I went on holiday to Ireland this year. We did not bring a lap top with us, and had limited access to the internet during our visit, so I did not make any postings while we were gone. Personally, I was surprised at how many people noticed we were gone. Thank you for keeping in touch in our absence.

On our trip to Ireland, as many who have been to the inn over the last several months are aware, we called our trip this year the "Irish Whiskey Tour". It turns out Mary is allergic to hops, so she could not partake of the fine selection of Irish Beers available in all the pubs. So she had to settle for sampling the various other brown nectars available in the Emerald Isle. We are busy getting the inn ready for a group celebrating the graduation of a student from Green Mountain College this weekend, so I can't give you all of the details of our trip. Next week, I will spend a few days writing about our trip, and I will go through the hundreds of photos we took to create a photo gallery. The long and short of it is...we had a great time, Guinness is good, Jameson is good, Irish roads are interesting at best..scary at worst, and I am already missing our nights spent in the lovely Irish pubs we visited each evening.

At Killington on our return, little has changed. Most of the ski related businesses have closed their doors for the season. The ski season ended at Killington as planned. Snow is still present on Superstar. Some people are still "earning their turns" by hiking up. The sale of Killington by ASC to SP Land has not yet closed. It appears that the State of Vermont has approved the transfers of all of the leases from Killington LTD to SP Land. It also is rumored that the closing process began yesterday in some law offices in Boston. However, there is no official word yet on the completion of the sale.

In other news at Killington, both the Killington Resort and Green Mountain National golf courses are open. I am sure that we will get the clubs out next week after we catch up on things at the inn...Think Spring!