prev # Saturday, Dec. 27, 2003 5:22 p.m. # next

Cold nose, warm heart

My family went skiing today, at Eldora, a ski area about an hour from their new home. The rest of them (mom, dad, Ginger) had never been skiing. I've been a couple times before, in high school, but the last time was almost 6 years ago. I was REALLY looking forward to this, and I had a fantastic time. It was frrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzing today - like 14 degrees at the bottom of the mountain, very windy and even colder at the top of course - but I managed to come away sans frostbite (for awhile I thought my pinky fingers were gonna be sacrificed). I spent the morning on the bunny slopes, and I was amazed by how quickly it came back to me. I never took any lessons, so I'm sure my technique is crap, but I make it down the mountain and I haven't been injured yet! (knock on wood) After my first few minutes I started to feel pretty confident, zipping through all the easy slopes, and after my ridiculously expensive lunch in the lodge I was ready to tackle the "real" mountain. Meanwhile, the rest of the fam had signed up for the full-day First-Timers lessons. I tried to convince them to take just a couple hours of lessons, since I personally learned best by throwing myself in there, but they aren't as reckless as I am. They wanted to know what they were doing - imagine that! hahaha So Mom and Ginger spent the morning shuffling along on a little patch of snow just outside the rental place. Now, I find going uphill or even trudging along on flat areas (what they were doing) MUCH harder than going down an easy slope, but they had to learn balance or something. In any case, it didn't look like much fun, and I felt bad. But they seemed to be having a decent time...

So - after lunch - off to the Blues on the big ol mountain. As I was getting on the lift, I saw I sign that said,

"High Wind Conditions - ride 2 or 3 to a lift"

or something along those lines. The two people behind me asked if I wanted to join them, so I did. They became my ski buddies: Peter (father) and Geoffrey (son, roughly my age). They were heading for the lift farther over that was a bit less windy, and I decided to join them since they were friendly and seemed to know what they were doing. Turns out Geoffrey (I'm guessing it's spelled like that cause his email address starts with GLC - that spelling always seemed a bit highbrow to me, but whatever, anyway...) is a student at NYU, getting his masters in computer science. So that was cool, always fun to talk about New York. Peter lives in Boston (land of terrible drivers), and is really into Irish music, which was pretty interesting. We skiied together all afternoon, and I totally rocked. Except for a couple bad dismounts from the lift - and I bit it once or twice on the slopes, but not bad at all. I had a grand ol' time, getting more and more comfortable on some tougher runs. Yay! I hope to be able to ski more now that the folks live in CO - maybe next Christmas at least.

When we were thoroughly frozen, the three of us headed down to the lodge for hot cocoa. It's funny, cause I really had no idea what they looked like, being all bundled up - it's interesting to get to know someone without having that image influence. I like it.

As we sat chatting, two scantily-clad young women (a strange sight in a ski lodge, where everyone's bulky and awkward-looking in their ski boots) in silver pants and silver Coors Light tube tops (ugh) approached us. Mega bimbotic, but not as bad as they could've been. They took a digital picture of us that's gonna be on the internet somewhere, some random promotion...so now there's a photo floating out there of me and these random guys. Pretty funny.

Geoffrey gave me his email address, saying "if you're ever in New York..." He was a nice guy, and it's always fun to have more NY acquaintances, so I was happy. I wouldn't have minded skiing alone, but it was great to have ski buddies. Lift rides went by quicker.

So now I'm trudging back to the rental area, thinking I should return my stuff and find the fam. It's about 3:30 and the lifts close at 4. I pause for a second by the building, then decide to head out to the bunny slopes again for a quick final run. Suddenly Ginger appears from inside and says,

"We need to leave - NOW. Come on!"

Whoa, I think. What's her problem. I figure they've been waiting awhile, so I head in. She tells me that Dad's been injured, and we have to go to the hospital! Yikes! It's not too bad - he sliced his leg with a ski and needed stitches - but they'd been looking for me for quite awhile, well over an hour. Oops.

I drive us back to Estes, not quite trusting Mom's snowy mountain driving, and feeling like I should make up for my absence somehow. They're at the emergency room now. He seemed fine, not in too much pain, but it makes me sad. Everyone else had somewhat less-than-satisfactory skiing experiences (though Ginger did say she's like to try it again sometime), so I feel kinda bad for making it happen. But *I* had a great time! And it was a new experience for them, at least.

My legs got quite a workout today! I'm gonna sleep well tonight (not a common occurrence these days - my sleep's been even more fitful lately than usual)...It feels good to have worked hard, and I actually feel a little healthier than I have lately, despite spending all day in the cold. The cough that will not die stayed away most of the day.

Random tidbit: saw 2 hitchhikers on the way there this morning. You just don't see them that often, and it was SO DAMN COLD I was pretty amazed.

Time for dinner, hot tea, and Scrabble. Yippee!

back in the day # onward and upward