The first time I ever tried snowboarding was about eight years ago. I wasn't able to do it then and remembered how incredibly difficult and frustrating it was just to get up onto the board. The most that I would 'snowboard' would be approximately two feet and then I would just eat it. Big poppa and I had been super excited and nervous at the same time about the big snowboarding trip. We're much older now. Our inactive bodies just aren't as capable as they once were. Our bodies mos def took a good beating. I fell over and over and over again. Overall, everyone in the group did really well and pretty much got the hang of it. More importantly, no one gave up! Although, I kinda sorta remember almost quitting. One thing that I didn't expect was Vail to be so freaking HIGH. I think our gondola dropped us off at some 12,000ft or so. It was crazy. Because of the lack of oxygen being that high up, we would move a few feet and everyone would already be breathing quite heavily. Like a bunch of asthmatic newbs. And my HEART! JEEZUS! It was beating hard and fast. Our group eventually got separated. The more advanced folks pretty much got restless and took off. If I were good, I wouldn't want to wait around either! Haha. Big poppa and I were intermediates and went off on our own. And then the super newbs took the anchor position. Somewhere along the way, big poppa and I made many wrong turns and eventually got lost. I became increasingly agitated as I realized that I completely sucked at this! I had flare-ups and threw temper tantrums while on the slopes. Whiny voice included for free. I felt horrible and terribly uncoordinated. My board had a mind of it's own. It turned when it wanted to. It slid down heel side when it wanted to. And it's mos favo thing to do was to go straight down. I hated that! I hate speed and so I would freak out and go crashing into the snow. Sometimes involuntary flips were involved. The altitude was also really getting to me. That along with the fact that my thigh muscles felt like they were burning. I seriously felt like giving up at times. I just wasn't getting it! I was wiped out and it took every ounce of energy I had to push up off the ground to get up. It was torture! At one point, we asked one of the ski patrol folks how much further it was until we reached the bottom. He grimly told us that we weren't even halfway down the mountain yet. WHAT?!? He suggested we board to the nearest ski lift and ride it down. I don't know how, but I found it in me to at least try to make it all the way down without taking the easy way out. So big poppa and I trudged along. Oh yeah, by the way, big poppa did just absolutely awesome! He picked it up so fast! I was so jealous that I couldn't do it. Eventually, we neared the bottom and alas! We saw people walking around at the base! I remember being at the top of this black diamond trail and was thisclose to just hopping onto to it. So what if I would practically fall and tumble all the way down. At least I would be back on regular land in seconds instead of minutes. I might of been delirious with hunger. Luckily, my level-headed big poppa was there to let me live to see another day. We took the dreadful and more friendly 'green' route. It was like another thirty minutes before we got down. Total time spent on the mountain from top to bottom? Frackin' FOUR hours!!! So yeah. That pretty much was the end of day 1 for us. Thinking back though, I might of did a lot of complaining but I think that I was actually a lot better than I thought or felt like I was at the time. And I do enjoy it. Really! I do! You should of seen us the next morning. Or even that night. Major soreness all around. I remember I had to pee really badly in the middle of the night and my arms were so sore from catching my falls that I couldn't even push up from bed to sit up and get up. I tried to will myself back to sleep but it wasn't gonna happen. I ended up just rolling over big poppa until I fell onto the floor. I rolled like I was freakin' whale! From there, it was much easier to get up. Haha. It hurt to move any part of the body. Like I said, our bodies took a pretty good beating. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to snowboard and take pictures at the same time so there aren't many action shots. It was a huge task in itself to have to remove the gloves to get the cammie out so it didn't happen much. My poor point-and-shoot cammie suffered some injuries though from the few times we did take it out.
Big poppa carrying both of our boards. What a man!
You can't tell from these pictures but it was snowing lightly.
Rice Boy giving us a pep talk and some tips. Of course, I'm always wandering around taking pictures instead of listening to what could be very important information.
The ubiquitous riding in gondola/ski lift couple pic.
Miss Flower Child giving her board lots of love so that her board will give her lots of love in return while attempting to carve that ice.
So once we got to the top, everyone strapped on their boards and off we went. About thirty feet to be exact. And from there, all we could do was lie down for a breather. So tiring!
As I mentioned before, it took big poppa and I like four hours to get down. Once we were there, we had no idears where we were. After asking around, we found out that we ended up about a mile away from where we started. So here we are waiting for the free shuttle that would take us back to our people's.
Reunited and it feels so good!
