To Ski Or Not To Ski

Before this weekend, I had only been skiing once. In December of 2003, I accompanied the hubs’ family on their annual ski trip with friends. We made the extremely long drive from north Arkansas to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. That trip was a lot of firsts for me: first time crossing the entire state of Kansas (& maybe even first time in KS – I can’t remember), first time seeing a tumbleweed, first time seeing the Rockies (I thought the terrain looked like we were in LOTR), first time riding in a car through a white-out, first time seeing legitimate amounts of snow, and, of course, first time skiing. We had prepared me with lots of warm gear, but I remember still being cold. The first day & a half I went to ski school while the rest of the group (about 9 or so of them) hit the slopes like pros. That second half day Sam’s dad somehow found the patience to teach me how to go from the pie-wedge to the parallel turn, so I could get out there with the rest of them. I remember being on my bum a lot. I survived though, and the next day I was out with the group. By the end of the week, I had been on a blue-black (scariest experience of my life possibly) and had tried doing little jumps with the rest of them to the amusement of all. I wish I could show you some pictures from this trip, but they have fallen into the unknown abyss that swallowed all of Sam’s pictures before he married me. They must be somewhere, but no one knows where. Now, all of his pictures are uploaded, categorized, backed-up, and facebooked for all to see. Anyway, it was a wonderful first experience.

Fast-forward to the present time: In the meantime, Sam has been on a handful of ski trips with friends in college, and I have not even been anywhere that cold & high again, much less skiing. We decide that we are going to ski again since we live less than an hour from some decent slopes. We purchase all new gear at REI (because any remnants of gear we may still have are on their merry way to England) and decide to hit the mountain ASAP, since we spent all that money. Hence, this Saturday, we dropped the pup off and drove up to Santa Fe as early as we could manage in the morning. It’s an easy drive of less than an hour but getting to the site adds about 30 minutes. We headed straight up to the ski area, geared up, bought lift tickets, and outfitted in rental skis for our day on the mountain. Sam was quite shocked at how little I remembered, like how to put on ski boots, so I’m not sure why he thought running me up the biggest lift first thing was the best idea. At the point of exiting the lift, I had only nudged my way up line thus far on my skis, so, naturally, when I have to slide down the steep little knoll that clears you from the lift exit, I fall … and hard! It was so bad even that the lift operator said, “Woah! Are you ok?” He may have stopped the lift, but I was too busy dragging myself off the ground to notice. In the meantime, Sam has glided his way far off the the left to peruse the trail map, not minding his wife who has no idea what she is doing. I somehow made my way over to him, and he is baffled by my lack of muscle memory and knowledge on how to safely and properly ski. I somehow make it down the death hill that you have to go down to get to any of the trails (who thought that was a good idea?!) but proceed to fall a handful of more times all the way down the green trail we take down the mountain. Also, I don’t really find it easy to get back up after falling. It is very disheartening. On our way down, we find the smaller lift with more appropriate sized runs for the novice I am, and Sam finds some of his patience to re-teach me how to ski. After that first trip down the mountain, I have a good enough grip on myself to not fall anymore, except for one more time exiting the quad lift. Does the time that I knocked Sam completely over coming off the lift count? By the end of about 5hours, we had skied most of the green & blue runs they had open (part of the mountain is not yet open), had lunch at the ski-in grill, and were completely exhausted.

Yep, lookin’ like a pro… from the shoulders up. I was as graceful as a newborn giraffe if you attached wooden sticks to its feet and slid it down a mountain. Anyway, we drove back into town & checked into our B&B, the Pueblo Bonito. The nice lady upgraded our room since a bigger one was available. The old adobe complex-made B&B was cute & southwest-y, complete with super-thick walls, pretty tiling, and a fireplace.

We walked to dinner at Andiamo for some Italian that honestly could have been awful, but I was so hungry I would never have known. I’m pretty sure it was yummy though. Then, we briskly made our way to the Second Street Brewery at the Railyard through the chill, so Sam could sample some local brews. By 7, yes, 7, I was so worn-out I was practically delirious. The hubs lit the fire, and we snuggled in front of it on the futon, sleeping a bit, before retiring to bed and sleeping about 10 hours. The next a.m., we explored Santa Fe a smidge (as much as one can at 9am on a Sunday), then made our way home to await the time we could pick up the sweet pup.

All-in-all, a pretty great trip. I’ve got some lift ticket souvenirs, a superbly sore backside, and one visible bruise on my right knee where I think it hit one of my skis during a tumble. I’ll let you know how it goes the next time we make it up a mountain. : )