My husband and I decided to take a week long vacation in Colorado. I was looking forward to spending time with my parents, re-connecting with some old friends and visiting Boettcher Mansion, where we got married just a little over a year ago. My husband, on the other hand, was looking forward to one thing…Snowboarding on the mountains.
I spent the beginning part of our trip shopping for cute snowboarding gear. I needed to make sure that I looked like a pro snowboarder in the event that I might run into someone I know on a mountain hundreds of miles away from home.
My husband, on the other hand, did a couple of lower-body workouts to make sure that his legs were in tip-top shape for boarding, and he went to bed early the day before we drove up to the mountain while I stayed up late watching re-runs of Roseanne with my mom.
So my mom, my husband and I went “up the hill” (as my mom says) yesterday, and I was feeling good the whole ride up. We ran into a minor snafu when we rented our snowboard equipment…They couldn’t find bindings and a board small enough for my itsy-bitsy feet, so it took a little longer than expected for us to get out on the slopes, but we finally got on the ski lift an hour after we had arrived.
Let me backtrack a bit and tell you all about my impeccable boarding skills. At the tender age of 27, I’ve gone snowboarding four times in Ohio…twice in high school and twice after college. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a snowboarding prodigy because after those four times (with only one lesson, mind you), I had already mastered the sport of snowboarding. OK, so I know the hills in Ohio don’t quite compare to the Rocky Mountains, but I was able to go down the bunny hill at Boston Mills-Brandywine two times in a row without falling once. (Getting off the chair lift without falling was the only technique that I hadn’t quite been able to get down, but I heard that all the pros have a hard time with that one, so I’m not too bothered by it.)
Back to the story at hand…Because my husband was a little rusty on his snowboard (NOT because I was scared to death when we got on the chair lift), my mom navigated us over the the green runs (aka the bunny hill).
After falling down (two or three or ten times), I made it to the bottom of the mountain with my husband and my mom close behind me. We went inside to warm up and drop off some things in the locker, then with some coaxing, we headed back out again. (Let’s just say that I may have been a little apprehensive about going back up the mountain again…You know, I didn’t want to make my husband look bad because I had mad snowboarding skills.)
So we went back up, and I fell back down again…and again…and again…and again…Wait, did I say I fell down? What I meant to say was that my husband fell down. Yeah, that’s what I meant to say. It was cute how he kept giving me instructions to turn my board parallel with the mountain to gain speed, which was the exact opposite of what I was really trying to do. I know he felt embarrassed because he fell a couple of times (NOT because I ran into him when I couldn’t stop), so I humored him and “pretended” like I needed his help. Ya know, to help his manly ego and all.
In fact, I even had a pretty convincing (fake) wipeout right in front of him. That’s right. I gained some speed, flailed my arms helplessly, screamed and tumbled down the mountain a bit. I did such a good job “pretending” to be hurt that I completed my performance by sitting motionless, holding my head, which I had slammed against the mountain during my “fake” fall, and I cried for a good five minutes. (Again, it’s not like this was a real wipeout, and I did not secretly start panicking because I thought I had a concussion.)
We actually only had time for one more run after that, and I…er…my husband proceeded to fall down about another three…no, six…no, 15 times before we made it down the mountain again.
We were all pretty pooped when we got home. I took a long, hot shower to help me relax for the evening. I counted 15 new purple bruises across my legs and arms. Every part of my body ached. I had difficulty getting in and out of chairs, and my husband literally had to hold an ice pack on my bum because it hurt so bad from falling. I swear I broke my butt on that mountain. Who was I kidding?!?! I didn’t know how to snowboard. I just made a fool out myself that whole day. I honestly think I spent more time down on my butt than up on my board! I can’t believe that I agreed to go out and do this again tomorrow!
(Um…That last paragraph was written in the first person from my husband’s perspective. Yeah…We’ll go with that.)
Follow me on Twitter @NikkiFlores to find out how tomorrow goes…I’ll be tweeting (aka giving updates) all day long. (And if you’re not familiar with Twitter, then shame on you! Just kidding.)
Me literally breaking my butt on the mountain.
