Skiing

Instead of going to work and earning some much-needed money this last week of winter break, I decided to drive up to the mountains and ski instead. I didn't manage to get up to ski at all during last semester, and mom got me new ski boots and a cheap pass this year, so I figured it was a good move.

I drove up Tuesday evening in clear skies and clear roads, no traffic; pretty much optimal driving to Edwards conditions. I skied in Vail on Wednesday, but the snow wasn't very good and it was cold and cloudy so I quit a little bit early and went home for a nap.

that night it snowed a bunch and I went to Beaver Creek on Thursday and wore myself out trying to ski through all the fresh powder (for those who don't know, skiing through a bunch of powder is a lot of work and it really can wear you out). It was a fun day but the powder wore me out and I had to quit a little bit early and go home for a nap.

Then after Mom got off work, we drove to Crested Butte. It was an OK drive, but she doesn't like the way I drive and then that is frustrating for me too sometimes. We got to the hostel at about 10 and were pleased to discover that we each had our rooms to ourselves (for those that might not know, hostels have bunk beds in the rooms and there are usually other strangers of the same sex in the same room with you.)

Friday morning we got up early, drove up to the ski mountain, had breakfast because we were famished, and then went and got ready for a day on the slopes. Having skied almost exclusively at Vail and Beaver Creek for the past 7 years or so, we had become quite spoiled and it didn't take us long to realize that we weren't in Kansas anymore (well, actually we were never in Kansas to begin with, but I think you get it). Since we had never skied there before, we decided to go on a free guided tour of the mountain. Al, a retiree from Shreveport Louisiana with a strong suthun drawwl showed us around the mountain until lunch time. At lunch we just happened to run into one of the Ski School supervisors from Beaver Creek that Mom has worked with for several years now. Crested Butte is a neat little mountain with some neat terrain and is a cute town too, so it was a nice trip.

We took our time driving back on Saturday, stopping at two other ski hills to check them out (Monarch and Ski Cooper). Then once we got home we spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing.

Today I met Grant and Casey (college buds) and some of Grant's friends at Vail. The snow wasn't good in the morning and the light was really flat so we had a hard time seeing where we were going. But we toughed it out and headed way back to Blue Sky Basin where the snow was a little better. Then after lunch time a storm rolled in and it got a lot colder, it started snowing a bunch, and the snow got a lot better for skiing but the light was even flatter and it was even harder for us to see where we were going. At one point we were practically skiing blind because we could not distinguish the terrain that we were skiing on, so we wouldn't know we were about to hit a bump until we actually hit it. It was not very fun.

Another not so fun part of today is that my skis kept coming off and inopportune times. The first two times they came off I just fell and was able to retrieve them and put them back on with little drama, but the third time a ski came off, it launched me forward onto my belly and I went skidding across the cat-track face first on my belly, over the edge of the trail, and tumbling down an embankment about 15 feet, which I then had to climb back up in several feet of snow. I'm sure it was a very comical crash for those who witnessed it, but it was kind of scary for a second. Anyway, I guess I'll have to take my skis in to see why they were popping off my feet today and get that fixed.

Anyway, tomorrow is my las day to ski and then classes start on Tuesday. I am mostly excited about my classes this semester. I will be taking 3 linguistics courses; Intro to Linguistics, Study of Words, and Language Sound Structures. Then I have to take some other classes for International Affairs too, but I'm not as excited about those. So that's what I've been up to lately, The End.

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On a completely un-related note, I had a weird dream the other night. It was a very long dream that I think went on for several hours, but the only part I can still remember is that I was at some big celebrity party with a bunch of famous people there. We were all eating hot dogs and I was sitting next to Brittany Spears, but for some reason she wouldn't talk to me, like she was really mad at me or something. And then we went outside to look at the stars, but it was the middle of the day and so none of us could see any stars, but we kept looking for them anyway. Brittany was still giving me the cold shoulder for some reason, maybe it was something I said.