We are surely getting a white Christmas here in Idaho, in more ways than one. There’s lots of snow; and lots of white people. Heh. Welcome to the ‘real’ America, surrounded by split level houses, K-Mart, Target, Safeway, McDonald’s, Sizzler’s, Olive Garden, etc etc.
It feels good to be here, spending time with my new 2-month old sister-in-law, Tamsin, my father-in-law and stepmom-in-law. We spent all of today in pyjamas, talking, cuddling the baby, surfing the web, talking, watching TV…just the kinda family-time rest we were looking for.
Tomorrow we go snowboarding at Schweitzer. I had my first snowboard experience on Tuesday at Sierra at Tahoe. It was SO fun! I guess I had my expectations down so low. The lessons were ok…I struggled with the beginner steps on the flat surface, but once we got up the bunny hill and I slid down for the first time, I felt an ease I had always wanted to feel, but never felt, on rollar-skates/blades, ice-skates, or skis. It was that fun. I fell a few times, but it didn’t hurt. What were all the warnings about a very painful and frustrating first-day on snowboards they warned me of?
But on day 2, we went to Kirkwood and suddenly it wasn’t that easy. Because I went with 3 avid and very excellent snowboarders (Pat, Brendan, Eric), they took me up the blue (intermediate) trail without telling me. I haven’t even graduated from the bunny slope! Merely standing up was a major energy-drainer. Lucky I had the very patient Eric to teach me. Tacit rule is that significant others should never try to teach their significant others because it almost always leads to fights…tried and tested with many other couples, so Pat stayed away as I learnt the basics with Eric. After about 45min, I finally got down, but was adament learning some more, so I went up the green trail by myself. It was harder than I thought. Simple things like going down a slope and speeding up when you see a flat part coming up so you can go by the flat part was not part of my skill-set, so I’d slide down and stop and wonder how I’d start moving again. Finally, I got the gist of it, and was just starting to feel proud of myself…glide down, speed up when there’s a flat part ahead, go past flat part, glide down again….easy-peasy…then in the next bump, I sped up and was just thinking how good I was when BAAAAM!!! I fly up and land right on my tailbone…..gaaaahhhhh…..for two whole minutes I just lay there and I seriously could not move. People were whizzing by me and I was going “help! help!” but I guess I wasn’t loud enough. By some miracle, as I was laying there for a good 5 min in complete pain, the boys whizzed near me and yelled “kellykelly!”. Angels! I finally managed to get up, gasping in pain, and slowly got back down the mountain. That was it for me on day 2.
The car ride back was painful. I could barely sit up, let alone bend down and carry things. But I’m two days into it now and my tailbone is significantly better, so we’ll try Schweitzer tomorrow and see how it goes. I’m adament about getting this right, but I’m definitely sticking with the bunny slope for now. I really like this snowboarding thing, much more than I thought I would…that I’d even desire to go again after that very very painful hit on the tailbone is testament to how much I’m enjoying it. Plus, seeing my husband looking all hot, all geared up and schwooping down the slopes like the expert he is, is an incentive too. He used to be a ski instructor. So I can blush and say, I’m with the ski instructor. Tee hee.
