Winter. Cold and snowy. Isn't that Winter? Well, apparantly, we are getting a special treat this year. According to the local news, we've had more snow this year than the last 6 years total. There is a run on snow shovels at the hardware store. We now own snow boots, tire chains, hats, gloves, and have anti-freezing window wiper fluid. I find it fun though to wake up and see the new snow scene. And, the ski season has been terrific!
Today we were glad to see that Bogus Basin Road was open for business. Yesterday, they closed it at 1pm due to an accident pile-up and strong winds blowing snow across the road. But, all was well today, and we were there plenty early to get familiar with the new routine of renting snowboards. I like the boots! In fact, we were all more comfortable with the snowboard boots instead of the lean forward hard and tight ski boots. They are so much easier to walk in too, especially on the stairs.
There were 17 of us for the class, so they split us up into a young class and the older "kid" class. It started off really slow, since most of us didn't even know what "foot" we were in order to determine wether we were "goofy" or "regular". Say what? I've been called Tigger before, but never Goofy. Alas, I found out I'm goofy. So was Dave and Zach. Josh rode "regular". This all simply means that we "goofy's" naturally use our right foot forward instead of the left. After we all got our feet in the right place and learned how to fasten our feet in, we were ready for the lesson. A first lesson in snowboarding is usually alot of one foot in and one foot out pushing ourselves along. Yes, we did this back and forth. Then, we progressed to pushing ourselves up a tiny incline and learning how to skate down turning to the left or right. Apparantly we all did well, because we all got to take the "magic carpet" up to the bunny hill.
Beginning snowboarders spend alot of time on their butts. We fall, of course. But, we also sit and wait for everyone to get up the conveyor belt (Magic Carpet), and then we need to sit to strap in our second foot. In some amazing way, the kids can bounce up from sitting to a standing position. I guess I don't have the stomach muscles, or maybe I don't have the flexibilty, but I cannot be sitting on my bum, reach my hand to the bottom of the board under my feet, and stand up. Out of our class of 9, I was the only one that couldn't just stand up, however, I learned really fast how to roll over and stand up from my knees.
After the second or third time up and down, our instructor informed us that we were the fastest moving class he ever had! Well, I don't think I was able to go 3 feet before I was back on the ground again on the first run, but somehow on the second run, it clicked and it was much easier.
After class, we all decided to be brave and took the chair lift up and tackled the big hill. We all survived, and all of us but Dave thought we did better than we thought we would. Dave figured because he was such a confident skier that he would master this fairly quickly. He found it harder than he expected. I guess the rest of us had less expectation.
Forecast for this week says 40 degrees. I guess our snow will melt quickly. After all this, Zach is sad to see the snow melting. He spends most of his available time building snow piles, as big and tall as he can make them.
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