Let it snow!

The next morning was COLD…and it was snowing! We decided to head up to Mount Rose (if I remember correctly) to go snowboarding. Jack and April were at work so the remaining four of us geared up and headed out. Who am I kidding? Like I’ve ever snowboarded before. *laughs* April was nice enough to lend me all her snowboarding clothes and other miscellaneous gear but I rented the boots and board when we got up top. Christine was actually snowblading and poor Jeff decided to snooze in the car because he was still recovering from strep throat. *shakes head in disbelief* Luckily for me, there was fourteen inches of new snow so the hope was my crash landings wouldn’t do too much damage to my body.

It took FOREVER to finally get everything on and fitted and snapped and buckled. Then Arlene and Christine quickly ran through the basics of how to maneuver the board and we stepped outside. Into snow that was blowing sideways. I couldn’t see a thing! Luckily, I had the goggle things on. Then came the truly challenging part: the ski lift. ACK! It is some difficult business trying to slide forward in somewhat of a straight line with only one foot buckled in at some semblance of speed without knocking over the other people who were going up with you and getting there before the lift you were trying to get on clips you in the backside. *hyperventilating*

Getting off the ski lift was…an adventure. I think I took down Arlene with me the first time. Ahhh, the feel of plowing snow with my face is one that I will always treasure. Once I got up, I tried to copy Arlene when she stuck her other foot on the board to buckle in. I have no idea how she managed NOT to shoot down the hill which is what almost happened to me. Well, it would have had I not fallen on my butt yet again. At least it wasn’t my face this time. *laughs*

I think my favorite part was hopping with my board to try and get on top of the snow, especially when I managed to do it without falling down or finding myself flying down the hill at some supersonic speed. Oh, yes. When I actually got going on the snowboard, it was super scary but exciting…for a whole MINUTE before I would find myself flat on my back with my head pointing downhill and my snowboard trying to drag half a mountain’s worth of snow along with me. Fun, I’m telling you, FUN! Really though, I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time.

Oh, and then I got stranded in a drift. Poor Christine! I thought she was going to fall over and get herself stuck because she was laughing so hard. I had made the mistake of trying to take a shortcut, not realizing that if other people hadn’t been over that part of the snow it wasn’t going to be packed down. * hmm, apparently Logic was out sick today…* I was stuck with snow clear up past my boots. The only reason Christine was mobile was because she had her snowblades on. She tried pulling me out, she tried pushing me out, I would try to jump up to get on top of the snow and fall over, I would sit down to pick my snowboard out of the snow then I couldn’t get up. We were in hysterics!

‘Leave! Go on without me!! Come back in the spring and send my body back to my mother. The people down at the rental place should have my address on the rental form…’

Finally, I gave up trying to snowboard out of the drift. I ended up on my stomach with my feet up in the air to keep the board out of the snow and combat crawled out of that hole. I think it took me about ten minutes to reach the main drag. Thinking back on it, I guess I could have just unbuckled the whole contraption and walked out. *blush* Oh, well. As long as someone got a laugh out of it, it wasn’t a complete waste. And I would definitely, definitely go snowboarding again. I LOVED it.

The rest of the day was pretty much done. We returned all of our equipment, loaded back into Jeff’s truck and headed home to Arlene’s. There was the mandatory stop for ice cream at Baskin Robins on the way. At the house, I hopped in the shower because I had to get ready for my flight home. Then we were off to the airport. It was sad to have to say goodbye after such a short time together but I’m sure I’ll see them soon. Until next time!