I'm alone at the top of a snowy mountain, playing my mandolin, which I apparently carried all the way up there. It is dark and cold, and the snow is blowing around me. I begin to descend, but turning to a different way than I came up, I find a nicely plowed path, like a road, extending flat and straight right across the side of the mountain, and at the end of it, lights and a ski lift, with a lot of people milling about like tourists. Here I climbed all the way up on one side of the mountain, and right around the corner was a lift.

I think I take the lift back down to the city, though I don't remember the journey. I'm apparently visiting this city as a tourist, and down there the weather is pleasant and neutral, overcast but not raining, and it still appears to be daytime, perhaps early evening. I have a travel companion, I believe my colleague Ken (with whom I have traveled a few times for work), and we regroup at the hotel and set about to tour the city.

We take a short bus ride, and as we disembark, I remember that I left my mandolin up on the mountain. I think I should go back up and get it - it's probably still ok, after just a few hours, but I imagine its wrecked and washed-out form, as it will be after being buried in the snow all winter, being a curiosity to passers-by in the spring. I consider whether I even care about the mandolin, I mean I've had it a long time, and I didn't mean to lose it, but maybe I should just leave it there and get a new one. It seems I also left my ukulele up there, a little higher on the mountain, but it seems like this was intentional, whereas the mandolin was accidental. Anyway it seems like my decision is that since there is a lift going up there, I should go up and see if I can find it.

So I tell my traveling companion about it and we decide we should head up there, but then I realize that my footwear won't work up on the snowy mountain. I'm wearing some sort of sandals that won't survive two minutes in the snow. So first we have to get back on the bus and go back to the hotel and find some boots or at least proper shoes.