Well, I suppose I owe you all an apology...
It's taken me longer than planned to get this post down, but it's finally here.
This post is actually doubling as a paper for school, so excuse me if it's a bit long.
That said, enjoy our favorite stories from skiing!
“It’s strange,” I said,
“In a weird way I don’t want to get back, because that means the trip is over.”
My friend and I exchanged knowing smiles
as we climbed back into the car. It was
a bittersweet moment. As we continued
our journey home, I thought back fondly over our trip. From 6am on Saturday to 11 pm on Tuesday, it
had been a memorable experience to say the least.
“We need to be in
the car by 6:30 am tomorrow, guys,” my dad said the night before takeoff. I admired my father’s optimism. We had sort of adopted the Duggar family’s tendency
to run on “Duggar Time”, which meant that we were often out of the door a bit
later than we had planned. This trip was
no exception, but thankfully we were only fashionable late.
By 8:30am everyone
was finally in-tow and we had finally hit the road. We had brought several things to do in the
car – books, movies, laptops, iPods, games, etc., but Grace and I just kind of
crashed. We were out-cold until Grace’s
homemade cookies were brought out, reviving us.
“Brittany, you and Grace were passed out back there!” Michael said with a friendly smirk which I
sheepishly returned.
6 hours later the
North Carolinians in us marveled at the real-live snow that had fallen generously
all winter at the ski resort as we unpacked the car and headed up to organize
our ski gear. We soon found out that
there was no Wi-Fi or cell phone service.
Yikes. Reviewing plans for the
coming day also had a surprise in store for us.
“So Brittany,” my dad remarked, “The boys and I are heading up to Snow
Shoe tomorrow, but you and Grace should probably stick to the slopes here at
first. We’ll meet back here at the room
at 5pm.”
“Oh, ok…” I took a
moment to think it over. Me, the girl
who get anxious when she can’t find her mom in the grocery store, will be with
her friend at a separate skiing resort than the rest of the group with
absolutely no way to contact anyone should tragedy strike while skiing. Ok… Well, let the fun begin!
The next morning we set
out for the slopes. I ran through in my
mind all the things I would teach Grace.
I looked around for the bunny slope, figuring we’d take it slow to start
out with. Suddenly I hear a “Common,
Brittany!” and I look up to see Grace
sliding down the mountain.
“Grace, slow down!” I yelled, as I hurried to catch up to
her. I started to get worried as I tried
to catch up. But then I stopped for a
minute and looked at her. “Wow,” I think
to myself, “she’s a natural skier.” I
laughed a little and then pushed off to catch up to Grace. We were going to have quite a day!
I tried to teach
skiing techniques to Grace, but I was pretty bad at it. We skied and fell a few too many times, and then
may or may not have decided that lessons would probably be helpful. On the way up the ski lift during the lesson,
I ended up dropping my pole at the unloading area. I turned around to get it when I heard, “Hey! Watch out!”
as the chair on the lift swung around and knocked me down. I was much more embarrassed then hurt, and I like
to think that the man in charge of the lift was much more concerned than angry,
although it felt like it was the other way around. My face was beet red as I apologized, but my
pole was a rental and I needed to retrieve it.
As I asked about it, the man whirled around, grabbed the pole, and flung
it towards me. Grace and I tried to hold
back laughs as I thanked him and hurried off.
This was just the start of our adventure.
That night during
dinner, David had a story to tell us that completely made my day. His nearly word-for-word explanation of what
happened was this: “I was, om, following
Brandon really fast on some jumps, and was recovering from a really big jump. I was going too fast, so I cut really hard,
and ended up cutting too hard which made me start to go backwards. And I didn’t really know where I was going, until
I slid into a big pit of bubbly, grassy mud.”
At this point we were laughing so hard we couldn’t hear the ending, but
it got even better. David was completely
covered with mud, so much so that it was dripping off him. My dad couldn’t think of anything else to do
to get the mud off, so he told David to roll around in the snow. The skiers in the lift above them were smirking
sympathetically while they watched David roll around in the snow. That was an experience we’ll never
forget!
The next day Grace
and I were promoted to joining the rest of the group at Snow Shoe, the resort
with the larger slopes. I watched in awe
(and with a smile) as she masterfully flew down each slope. We ended up splitting ways with the boys
again, and found ourselves at a very busy and crowded lift at the bottom of the
mountain. Finally making it to the top
of the line, I noticed an older man motioning us to ride up with the younger
man ahead of us. Grace and I wanted to
go alone, so I looked away, pretending I hadn’t seen the man. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him shake
his head in frustration and mutter under his breath before yelling out, “Double
up!” and then, seeing he had miscounted, “No, triple up! Get up there!” He started jabbing me with his ski poles, but
I continued to ignore him. I was
relieved when the younger man’s lift went off, and thought I had gotten out of
it. As Grace and I quickly scooted towards
our lift as I heard the man say,
“Well alrighty, then.” I turned around
to see him and his buddy following us, and it hit me that they intended to ride
up the ski lift with us. In fact, they
squeezed themselves in between Grace and me.
As the lift went up, the man turned towards me, nudging me with his
elbow. “You didn’t want to ride with
him, huh?” He motioned to the young man ahead of us. “Well,” he continued, “Now you’ll to ride
with me!” He smiled satisfied, and let
out a little laugh as I stared straight ahead as I began to calmly freak out.
I’d like to say that
that was the end of our encounter with Mr. Freaky Man, but it wasn’t. On our way to the car on our last day, Grace
and I were standing in the bottom floor of the hotel which acted as the ski
lodge as we waited for the rest of the group to get ready to go. We had been there a few minutes when a
familiar red jacket caught my eye. I
turned around to see a guy who looked a lot like Mr. Freaky Man coming down the
stairs. I froze as he spotted me and
gave me the look before turning to go on his way. He had just sent the loudest inaudible threat
I’d ever received. I didn’t know whether
to laugh or call the police, but ended up just quickly making my way to safety outside.
24 hours later I
stood in the Field’s home as Grace and I sharing stories with her family of our
trip. We couldn’t stop smiling. We’d had such an amazing weekend, with many
funny stories to remember it by.
Needless to say, we’ve already made plans to return next year. But maybe this time I’ll work up enough
courage to throw my poles back at people in the situation calls for it, and
bring pepper spray, should I see Mr. Freaky Man again.
