FEBRUARY 2003
For Christmas, Drew gave me a ski-trip. So we bought new ski-gear, booked our accomodations, booked our flights and by February we were on our way to Park City, Utah home of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
While we actually stayed at The Canyons (a short, free, local bus ride away) we made a couple of trips into Park City for dinner and touring the main street. Park City was full of Olympic memorabillia and was such a quaint place to walk around in the evening.
Most of our time was spent learning to Snowboard at The Canyons. It was the first time for both of us and the first two days were as bad as I expected they would be. The first morning, we actually took a snowboarding lesson, which had us up and down the bunny slope a few times and we basically never left that area the first day. You definately use different muscles to board...muscles I certainly never knew I had. I seriously doubt we would have had any fun if we hadn't taken that lesson. My MAJOR fall came that first day when my board caught the snow and I came down with a thud landing on my tail bone. It sent sheer pain all through my body and it didn't go away anytime soon either. The rough part about it was that we were still in the lesson at the time so I didn't have time to sit and gather myself for long because everyone was beginning to ski on past me. But that shook me up and I seriously hurt that night from the fall.
The second day we did actually venture out from the bunny hill to a fabulous run that nearly no one else traversed. The reason for this seemed to be that mostly snowboarders rode that lift up to a half-pipe area to practice their jumps, and no one else took the lift or the other runs connected to it. Sadly, after only three or four runs down the mountain, I had had enough of dealing with my boots not fitting right and suffering severe shin splints with every move, that I told Drew I probably needed to stop. Luckily he quickly agreed and said he was completely exauhsted too so we headed back to the condo and called it quits for the day.
Luckily we alloted three days to snowboarding and despite our two days of trauma, by the third day we were pros. I managed to get a good fit with my boots and we were going strong. By noon we had been up and down the mountain nearly three times as much as we had combined the two days before. We got a full day and finally our money's worth out of the trip in that one day. Snowboarding was so much fun and almost effortless on that final day, though Drew's one big fall came just before noon on the third day and I could tell it really shook him up. It was the same thing that had happened to me, but he hadn't really understood what I went through until this fall. So we took a break and got some lunch, then he was ready to get back to it the rest of the day.
This vacation was so peaceful. It was absolutetly perfect, from the location and facilities of the condo we stayed in, to the perils of learning the snowboarding techniques. When we arrived in Salt Lake City, there was no snow to be found, but as we headed into the mountains, you could begin to see remnants of it. That first night, it started to snow ever so gently and by morning there were several new inches on the mountain. The snow was incredible! It continued to snow just on the mountain and not in the valley. When we were on the mountain the temperature was just right, the snow fell perfectly, and life was beautiful. Everything was so perfect.
Our location was equisite. Being just at the bottom of the mountain, we were within walking distance to the 7-eleven in case we needed any snacks or necesities. And an even shorter distance to the bus stop that picked us up to take us to Park City or wherever we neeeded to go and the stop for the Gondola that took us all the way up the mountain to the ski area was located between the two.
When it was time to leave, the roads were clear and the drive and flight were smooth. We had an incredible time just the two of us and I enjoyed snowboarding so much that I'm not sure if I'll ski or board the next time we go somewhere!
