On cold nights in a prayer for dawn, but the daylight isn’t what she wants.

Whew. What a year. I have to admit, it’s already shaping up to be a good one. One worth blogging about. One worth remembering.

My main reason for posting(although I have many) was due in part to cross a partial item off my Bucket List! Item #9 was to learn to snowboard, so I’m going to have to amend the list. I didn’t learn to snowboard, but I DID go skiing! 6 Years of living in the Rockies I figured it was about time, and the opportunity arose. My goal is if it’s on my list, regardless of how daunting, to say yes and cross it off.

We headed up to Copper early Saturday morning and truth be told it was a pretty decent drive. The whole morning I was pretty sick to my stomach. Not due to the flue or cold, but I was pretty nervous. Everybody I had talked to in regards to hitting the slopes basically painted a nightmare of a picture. Broken ribs, a chance for my femur to be shoved through my nose, legs wrapped around my head. “Your going to hate it the first few times” everybody said, “Don’t buy any gear for a while until you get the hang of it”. In all my years of living here, I’ve heard the same ole same ole and it confused me. Why would anybody WANT to ski? If it sucks so bad the first few times, who’d be stupid enough to continue through with it? Plus, how expensive it is! All the gear needed, gloves, socks, pants, a good coat, and that’s just to be allowed onto the mountain. It’s a really expensive hobby to say the least.

From the highway you could see the mountain tops, and these specks that I later realized were ski lifts making their way to the tip top of the mountain. Oey. I’m afraid of heights too, did I mention that? Ok, perhaps I did, but did I mention that the “safety bar” is optional? Yes, no typo, optional. Insane. Coupled with the the thought that I’d have a yardsale or two in front of an entire ski resort. Well, sign me up! Sounds like an awesome time! Even better that I have to pay for it!

Fast forward a few hours and as tired as I was, I was enjoying myself. Tired? Skiing? Lets just say I snowplowed down copper mountain twice If you’ve never snowplowed, the best way I can describe it is if somebody is trying to push your legs together, and it’s up to you to push twice as hard against it, or you’ll rocket down the side of a mountain. Still not making sense? Imagine a thighmaster on it’s highest setting and you have to keep you thighs squeezed …. all the way down a mountain side. How long is a mountain side you ask? It took about 20 minutes to get to the very top going at a pretty steady speed.

At first I was a bit ballsy. I’d go wrecklessly try to stop, wipe, rinse and repeat. That of course changed over the course of time. Your body, I found out, can’t wipe too many times until it becomes painful. Another reason that changed my wrecklessness was going down in a pretty steep hill. I gained too much speed, became a bit wobbly, and headed straight for the tree line. I probably was only going 2 miles an hour, but it felt like I was going a hundred. I knew the concept of stopping, but putting a concept into practice is well, it’s useless it’s first time. Heading straight for the trees, I had no choice but to bail. Skii’s, poles, arms and legs scattered in all directions. It was a fall that made me just lay sprawled out in the snow, not wanting to move a muscle knowing I was but a minute away from the top of the mountain, with a bigger majority still left ahead of me.

I took it pretty easily from there on out.

I was asked by some co-workers if I’d do it again. It’s not a matter of if, but when. I’m thinking in two weeks or so when my limbs reattach themselves to my body properly, my muscles stop burning and my injuries obtained through my countless face plants wear off.

Skiing is a ton of fun, and the views despite my fear of heights were absolutely breathtaking. As for skiing, I’m not that good at it yet, but I do want to be “decent”. Then I’ll try snowboarding …. not because it’s cooler, or it’s hip, or anything like that. Primarily because I want to punch the inventor of the ski boot in the face and because carrying 2 poles, 2 ski’s and ski boots is fuggin ridiculous. I basically dragged my ski’s over the asphalt I was so exhausted. &^%$ them, they were rentals

I’m lazy. What can I say?