Vacation Vocabulary

I am making the blog a priority in my life because well because I like it and I have found that it's just as satisfying for me to chronicle my life as it is for me to attempt to share with the ones I love and possibly some other randoms. Making it a priority is important because otherwise I wouldn't do it and my life is a touch ADHD, I have been in a different place between 5 states every weekend since November 1st. I'm starting to think that it's not ok, in my mind I'm in the settling mood but unfortunately my life doesn't reflect it - another blog for another day.



Pre-Denver I went to Vail (technically Edwards) to visit one of those grown-up-together-life friends that we all have, though I have found that South Carolinians, in particular, cling to theirs like a guilty habit - yet another blog for another day. As I am packing for Vail, Oxford gets a respite from the 10 degree, bonechilling, get under your skin and settle in cold - a few forty degree days. Despite the fact that I know I am going to one of the most beautiful places in the world I couldn't get excited about going somewhere colder than the quasi-Artic I was currently functioning in. My brain could not wrap itself around freezing though while in Vail freezing did wrap itself around my brain - you do not have to drink a slushee ridiculously fast to get a brain freeze, in fact you can get one without drinking anything at all. You must be doing something fast (ie: drinking, skiing, tumbling) with the element of cold temperature involved (slushee, Vail) and that is all, I got one flying down the face of a mountain in Beaver Creek.



Get to Vail, meet friends of life friend, eat sushi, go for drinks, get up the next morning go to Vail to ski. We pull up to a house, jump out, walk 100 hundred yards, put our skis on, and ski. There is something exceedingly luxurious about not having to huff and puff and then shuttle in a smelly bus and then climb stadium stairs and then bustle through a lodge heated to sauna temperatures to get to the slopes of a mountain, I know all of my east coast friends can commiserate we all did the annual church youth group ski trip to West Virginia and North Carolina - here's to you MLKjr. and all of you dead Presidents high five from the mountain thanks for being born so we could have enough time to drive to ski for two days! So we ski let me share with you the vocabulary needed to ski with true Colorado skiers:



shreddin' the gnar: skiing your ass off and looking like the hot X-game guys while doing so

pow-pow: fresh snow; a delicacy in those parts of the world

dumping: snow is falling really hard

puking: snow is falling so hard your visibility is nothing beyond 50 feet

apre- adult beverages after skiing (akin to pulling the boat up to the bar after you've been out all day)

skooch leg- an oversized muscular thigh from not changing feet in your snowboard

I shredded the gnar in the powpow for sure! I learned alot of life lessons and had some self-realizations.

We did Vail Mountain the first day, apparently the holy grail of mountains in the area. There were tons of people, at first it was dumping snow and then it was puking. I made it to the end of the day without falling. Then a mound of pow pow took me down. I realized I was falling and as I went down I was thinking ok brace yourself for pain you are going to eat snow and your body is going to crash into a hard mountain while you're going 30 mph - This is going to hurt. But it didn't hurt, until the next day. Falling in fresh pow pow actually feels like bouncing on a cloud. No pain you just bounce from soft snow patch to soft snow patch until your momentum fades and then you eat snow.
Self-realization from Vail Mountain 1: I am severely claustrophobic. If no part of my body is exposed I am going to freak out. Too many clothes and no breathing room is a no go in my life. I mean this in no way negatively towards Vail but give me a bathing suit and sundress with some airflow any day over the kid from the Christmas story get up! So as I am shreddin' the gnar down the mountain my face starts getting cold from the snow that is puking on me... logical move: use your neck warmer to cover your entire face... reality: panic attack as I'm going down the face of the mountain - can't breathe, trees are closing in, resisting the urge to rip my clothes off because my skin is crawling... quick fix to panic attack: expose my nose and nothing else - true story that's all it took. "I'm just a summer girl, I wear my flip flops..."

Self-realization from Vail Mountain 2: I am an adrenaline junky. Ledge after ledge, run after run, I wanted more. More of that feeling of soaring, of here goes nothing, of I hope to hell I make it down on my skis and not on my ass- there's a strong possibility that it's going to be my ass but what the hell here goes nothing, I'm only on this earth once. I pushed it and pushed it until of course I couldn't mind over matter the cold and my happy spot of skiing behind a boat didn't warm me up anymore!

Sunday was Beaver Creek. I preferred Beaver Creek over Vail minus the beginning stages of frostbite that my nose experienced. Beaver Creek was smaller, not nearly as crowded and the runs were a good mixture between Sunday stroll and shreddin' the gnar. I skied all three mountains at Beaver Creek twice. There is something infinitely serene about snow on the branches of evergreens and I was able to soak up the solitude by myself on many of these runs. I had the best guide, Dan, he would go ahead of me wait for me and then give me a conditions report of what was ahead! He never once seemed frustrated that I was always a good five minutes behind him and seemed to genuinely enjoy showing me a place he loved so much! Love him and I am so grateful that he shared that day with me!

Life lesson learned during weekend: You can be alive in the cold. You don't have to hibernate. People do function. You can have fun, you can be active, and you can live a full life. I know these thoughts seem basic and simple but sometimes simple isn't easy and in my case cold is simple but not easy. As I face the future it is good for me to know that, to know that if my next stop is up north or out west that I don't have to become a hermit and live a life of wintery solitude waiting for the sun's warmth.