Not quite ready for moguls

Yesterday, I went skiing for the first time. To put it lightly, I am terrible.

But who expects to go skiing and be amazing, right? Sam, apparently.

Before I talk about all that other travel crap, let me touch on this man. Sam and I aren't the most active people in the world. We like to do things, yes, but we don't normally seek them out so much. That being said, anytime we do go do physical activities, I'm pretty terrible, and Sam's performance is of one who has done it a hundred times before. This was the same with ice skating (his second time, he started skating backwards) as well as skiing. For comparison's sake, I still skate very close to the wall while ice skating, and every time I tried to turn on skis, I fell over. Sigh.

Anyway, Snoqualmie Summit is just beautiful, and it was only something like 45 minutes away from Seattle- that is, if you don't leave and return during rush hour. Which we did. Anyway, it is right off interstate 90, which is a beautiful drive anyway.

Let me get something straight right now. I hate snow. I hate hate hate it. It snows every winter in Kentucky and it is awful and cold and sticks around way too long and turns gray and is ugly. Winter in Kentucky is bad enough anyway, since all the leaves fell off the trees in autumn and nothing has any color. Add a bunch of gray snow, and I'm ready to get the fuck out of there. The fact that it rarely snows in Seattle was a major part of me wanting to move here. Of course, I move here on the worst winter in 50 years (or best, according to all the winter sports fanatics), and it has snowed several times. Sigh again!

Now that I've clarified my hatred for snow, I feel free to declare how absolutely gorgeous snow on evergreen trees and mountains is. Holy shit. Especially since I got got ride by it in comfort and heat from the safety of Sam's car, I completely enjoyed seeing that sight.

We picked Snoqualmie mostly because my friend knew a really good deal. For $115 a person (including taxes and everything), we got three days of group lessons including lift tickets and rentals. I'm sure there are people who learn to ski without taking lessons, but like I said before, I am terrible at every sport. Lessons couldn't hurt, and this was a great deal. Plus, after taking the lessons, you can get a cheap season pass including rentals for a good deal.

We were going to try to take the 10 o'clock lesson, but due to leaving at rush hour (duh) we missed it, and arrived around 10:30. The next lesson didn't start until 1, so we had some time to fall over ourselves first. We played around on a "magic carpet" or a very slight hill with a people conveyor belt at the end to take you back up. (Think airports) Then Christie, the co-worker who started this whole thing in the first place, decided we needed to go down an actual slope. In retrospect, I think she was trying to kill me. But really, there's no point in trying to learn a skill if you're going to baby yourself through it the whole time, so off to the chair life we went. Slowly. Lesson 5 of the day: It is really hard to move across flat land on skis without ski poles. (Why didn't we have ski poles, you may wonder. Lesson 3: Beginners don't get ski poles because they stab themselves.)

I think it would be safe to say that I fell about 25 times on the way down that hill. Lesson 11: Getting back upright on skis on a hill is really difficult. I am now awesome at it. So we practiced and then it came time for the lesson. There were 4 people in the group, which was really nice. Everyone else had also never been skiing before, but they were awesome. I fell every time I tried to do anything. The entire lesson consisted of the instructor giving everyone else something to do, and then telling me what I was doing wrong so I could fix it. Sorry, everyone else in the lesson. :( Eventually, I got the hang of it, though my that point my upper body was so sore from picking myself back up that I just couldn't do it anymore.

Sam went and grabbed some poles so he could go faster down the mountain (UPRIGHT! How does he do that??) while I worked on not falling. Eventually, I gave up- or the muscles in my chest gave up for me- and I went to hang out with another friend in the ski lounge. Sam skiied on. I wish I had his abilities!

My arms and chest muscles are so sore today that it hurts to lift my arms up. I really hurts to push myself. Humph. They better be better by tomorrow, because we are going for round two!