Ski Trip

Thursday, January 24, 2008


I am the most humble of persons, but to tell the truth, I am a natural skier. I am being sarcastic (not the good skier part, thats true). That's not very humble is it? Well, you know that old saying, "humble is as humble does". I made that up, I think.

We went to Beech Mountain in North Carolina recently, very recently actually. I had never skied before. My name is Rob. I am 31 years of age and I had never skied. I don't know why. I stand before you, a man, transparent. Go ahead and judge me.

I digress. We get the skiis and lift tickets and with such arrangements taken care of, off we go. I strapped on the skiis and bent over to grab my ski pole. As I did, I started to fall, caught myself and felt like I dislocated my shoulder. No biggie, I am not a girl. "Suck it up Sally", I told myself.

I watched a few people falling on the low grade bunny slope. I shook my head in disapproval. "Losers", I thought.

My turn. I stepped out onto the snow and bam. I fell so fast and hard that I didn't know what happened. I stood up pointing in two different directions screaming, "who hit me?" No one noticed or cared for that matter.

I played around on the bunny slope for a while. I helped kids, showed off my skills and started giving tips on how to slow down and stop. Sure, I'd had absolutely no formal lessons or any lessons at all for that matter, but that didn't stop me from telling people where they zigged when they should have zagged.

Really and truly, I started to get the hang of this "skiing". Another member of our posse finally asked me if was ready to step up my game, to which I said, "Ready? I was born ready!" (yeah, I am that smooth, I know you were thinking it).

Up the chair lift I went. The first slope was a lesser difficult intermediate freestyle slope. It was fairly steep enough grade with one curve. "I got this!" And I did. "Not a bad job sailor", I said to myself.

I went down that slope a few more times and began to manipulate the downhill with the greatest of ease. Back and forth I went. I was infact, King of the Mountain.

Now that I was a professional skiier in just a few short hours, I went down with the posse again and watched Holly pick up too much speed towards the end of the slope. "Slow down Holly", I screamed. "No CRAP", she screamed back (I am fairly certain she didn't say crap, again I digress).

She fell and we were terrified. She laughed after the fact. I didn't see how. It wasn't a graceful tumble. She is a real trooper.

We stood around the entrance area for a few minutes. My poor old left knee started aching so I tried to pop it while standing on the aforementioned skiis. Yeah. I fell. DW's Uncle approached me with a smile. "Rob, they are having tryouts for the Olympic ski team right over there, behind us. They said you shouldn't waste your time thinking about 2010." I gave him the thumbs up.

Larry Paul who had skiied once before asked me if I was ready to take on the big mamma jamma slope, thats right, it had a sign that said "more difficult".

"Sure, (again not tryin to seem redundant) I was born ready!"

As I started to ski over to the chair lift I felt I needed to stretch out my tired bum knee. I fell. I lost a pole. My ski came off. I was embarassed. I ski down the hill so good, but I dont stand around so well. I stood back up, gathered my equipment and slipped into the lost ski. I turned to find Larry Paul and I fell again. Awesome!

As we took the lift to the top of the mountain, I began to entertain thoughts as to how crazy this was. We were skiing at night. It was almost ten p.m. and we started around six p.m. My knee was bothering me. And we could begin to see how high up the mountain we were going. These slopes were steep. People were flying down. They looked experienced enough and BOOM, they would wipe out.

As we hopped off the chair lift and I attempted to clean the icicles and fog away from my goggles, I wondered how I would make it down without dying. What would happen if I did? How long would it take someone to find me? This probably wasnt such a good idea, but it was too late. The only way down was, well, to go down.

I forgot to mention, but my beard was covered by real icicles. Right before I was seated on the chair lift the attendant asked me if I was cold. I replied with a no and asked why? "Because you have icicles all over your face, man" he laughed.

Anyway, as Larry Paul and I headed down the mountain I tried to maintain somewhat of a controlled speed. Unfortunately it didn't work out so well for me. My knee buckled and I came a crashing down.

I found myself alive and stood jubilant that I might not die. Larry Paul would surely be much farther down by now. As I redonned my skiis, I saw someone waving like a madman. I waved back thinking it had to be Larry Paul checking on me. It wasn't.

I started back down. I skied thirty five feet or so and fell again. The snow was really hard at this point and I couldn't slow down. The harder I tried to slow, the more my knee quit. Yeah, I fell again.

A small girl, probably a pre-teen, stopped to help me gather my poles and skiis. I think she had witnessed the back to back wipe outs and was a tad concerned. Almost as though she was a worried parent I pleaded with her to go ahead and not be troubled with me. She finally left. I am sure she sent the rescue team after me on a ski mobile when she arrived at the bottom. I know this because as soon as I actually made it down, I saw them rush off in a fury as though there was a body to recover. Those ski mobiles look like big fun.

Finished for the night, I turned in my equipment. I had stared death in the face. I conquered Ski Beech. I was my hero, surprised?

I have not had so much fun in a long long time. It was the best vacation of late that I can recall. I want to go back and ski once or twice more again this winter so let me know if you would like to come with.

While on the trip Jackson became the champion of sledders like his old man. He gives it that old college try. I couldn't be prouder. Several times he just closed his eyes and yelled at the top of his lungs, "make way!"

DW was so good at the sledding that she bounced right off the sled. I gave her style points for her landing. Ask her about it.

We also had to purchase snow chains. Why you ask? While the main roads were kept in impecible condition, the "other roads" were not. We almost slid off into oblivion. That of course was the first time during the trip that I stared at death and laughed, ha...ha, harumph. I turned my nose at it. I looked the other way and just ignored it. What a snob. Jackson didn't feel the same though. He had decided temporarily that this trip was a bad decision and that we needed to get on home. He did later change his mind.

In all honesty, this trip was a blast, one of the best ever. We really appreciated the invite and the hospitality shown to us. Thanks to Eddie and Sandra and Amber and LP and Lee and Holly and Rick and Jennie and all the kids. We can't wait til next year!