Knock, knock... don’t mean to interrupt the genius at work, but I have an inquiry. I was wondering two things - 1. How did you come up with the name Skadi for the resort in Outside Chance? and 2. Are your descriptions based upon personal experience at one of the resorts in the Grand Tetons? I’m so into this universe I was about to try to look up Skadi for their rates 😆
Wrong house! No genius here! ;)
Lol, Skadi is a completely fictitious resort, sorry. It is loosely based on/inspired by the many places to stay and ski in the area, though. So confession time, I’ve actually never been to the Jackson, Wyoming area. I spent a lot of time reading up, searching through pictures, web cam feeds, talking to people I know who have been there, etc etc to familiarize myself with the area as much as possible without getting on a plane. Example of random things I found out: did you know Harrison Ford apparently has a house somewhere around there and has this reputation as being like a total cryptid almost mythological figure? I saw several stories of people talking about him like oh yeah, he just came out of the woods, conversed with us a minute or two and then vanished.
Anywho…Do I want to go there one day? Hell yeah I do!
I have, however, spent a fair amount of time in Colorado and New Mexico, and the Rockies in general. My personal experiences of the area (lol I say area like it’s small, its fucking huge Tracy) range from Denver down to Taos, New Mexico. Fun note, the Grand Tetons are a subset of mountains within the whole chain of the Rockies, and the Sangre de Christo’s in Taos is the southernmost subset that is considered to be part of the Rockies. So in describing it, I kind of extrapolated based on what I do know along with what I gleaned from research, make sense? I had to do this for a few of the locations the story is set in. Salt Lake City is another example of places I’ve never been and had to do some serious research and brain picking of people I know who have been there. Also never been to New Zealand. Ugh really I just need to plan myself an Outside Chance vacation and hit all the places along the way, add it to the bucket list!
I would like to take this time to say that if any of ya’ll go to the places in this universe, I would be over the moon if you post pictures, stories about your time there, etc and tag me in it. This includes my commenter who is going to the Winter Olympics in Italy in a few years, I didn’t want to tag you here in case you didn’t want that info advertised, but don’t think I’ll be forgetting you. ;)
As for the name Skadi, that comes from the anglicized version of Skaði(SKAHD-ee) the name for a Norse goddess of winter, skiing, mountains, and…wait for it…bow hunting. It seemed to fit, in my humble opinion. ;) Here are a few artistic depictions of her, sources [X] [X] [X] :
Artist on that last one is named Anna Novikova
