Ski Day with the Kids!

Local: Big Bear Lake, CA

Saturday February 21, 2009

6:30am: Rise and shine. Wake up my fifteen year old Stewart and his friend. Wake up my eight year old Jacqueline. Start making egg sandwiches and turkey sandwiches. Stewart is loud and obnoxious because he’s excited. Wakes everyone up. Now we have grumpy people awake.
Get snow clothes on Jacqueline and I. Load car. Wife begs for Starbucks. I need coffee so I agree.

7:15am: Walk into Starbucks. 50 people ahead of me. Not good. Tell Stewart to walk across street to rental shop and get his buddy sized up and I’ll be over in a few minutes. I am in Starbucks hell, but I’m in too deep. Am I getting grumpy? Need caffeine.

7:45am: Walk into rental shop. They have not helped the boys because no adult present. We’re going backwards before we go forwards. Get Stewart’s buddy signed up. Now, it gets complicated. Stewart has bindings and boot, but no board. I have board, but no boots and bindings. It all gets sorted out. As I’m paying, I tell boys to load up the truck.

8:05am: Pull up in front of condo, wife runs out to grab coffee. We are finally on the road. Yeah! Oh no. Stewart left my snowboard in the rental shop. Turn around to pick up gear. Back on the road. What’s that ahead? Great, a car wreck. We are stopped going nowhere because it’s a two lane road. Good thing there are no weapons in the car.

8:40am: Arrive at resort. Dad says, “Be careful, it’s pretty icy in the parking lot.” Stewart steps out and does an immediate face plant. I can’t stop laughing. His face is red! The boys grab their gear and run off. I don’t know if I’ll see them again. Walk Jacqueline over to the ski school. It’s her first time ever. Now, we stand in line at ski school. Pay for the package deal. Gotta use their gear. Run Jacqueline over to rental. Stand in line. Run back over to ski school. Stand in line some more. She off and running with a smile on her face. What now?

9:14am: Walk to truck. I need to put the bindings on. Never done it before. This is easy. Okay, I’m ready to go. Grab cell phone. No service. Ask someone and they say that no cell service at the resort at all. Walk to pay phone. Five attempts at collect call before it goes through to tell mom to call technician if we get any calls from customers. Go to lift line. Go to strap foot into binding and realize I put it on backwards. Go back to truck. Redo bindings. Walk back to lift line. Finally!!! Hallelujah!!!

10:15am: Standing on the top of the mountain ready for first run. Off I go. The funny thing is that I feel that I’m going really fast, but everyone is passing me. I get going too fast and immediately heel or toe edge to slow down. I just can’t let myself fly. It hurts bad enough when I catch an edge cruising. How bad would it hurt if I’m bombing the hill? Oh well, I’m enjoying it. On my second run, I cruise by the school and watch Jacqueline. I can’t tell if she’s having a good time. Her face is intense and she’s concentrating. Very cute in all her pink and purple gear.

11:30am: Go pick Jacqueline up from school. We go to the truck and have a sandwich and some water. She says the boots hurt, so we both take our boots off and wiggle our toes. Gear back on, we head to the bunny slope. She’s a natural. She’s bombing the bunny slope. We go to a short intermediate run and she bombs it. We run into Stewart and his buddy and he asks her if she wants to go to the top. She says, “Yeah!” Alright, let’s do it.

1:00pm: All four of us go to the top. We decide to go down Bubble Gum which is a single lane road that curves around a hill. It’s a fun run. I stay behind Jacqueline to keep an eye on her. She gets going too fast. She’s trying to “pizza,” but she’s still going too fast. Her legs slowly start spreading further apart until she completely spins out and eats it. She sits up laughing. That’s a good sign. We continue on all afternoon. My elbows and my knees hurt. I’ve got shin splints, but she wants to keep going. I can’t have an eight year old outlast me. We continue on and have a great afternoon.

4:30pm: Liquor store. Tequila and margarita mix. I need something more than ibuprofen to take away these aches.

5:00pm: Margarita and jacuzzi tub. It doesn’t get any better than this. We had a great day.

The best part of the day: Up on the chair lift, I told Jacqueline that she was going to be my ski partner from now on. She gave me a quizzical look. I told her that Stewart was too fast for me and her mom didn’t want to ski, so she was now my partner. She looked up at me and said, “You’re never going again without me.”

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