What did I get myself into? All of the sudden, I come to and I am in the middle of a blizzard, on a diamond, on Venice's SNOWBOARD and the ski patrol are holding my hands guiding me down the mountain... how did I get here?

Well... I guess we could begin to blame it on the late start this morning. First... my car got stuck. In the stupid driveway (thanks for the 2WD daddio :). So after pushing... and PUSHING and asking people on the street to help us push, we finally got little Tay Tay out of the driveway and safetly to the Von's parking lot, where she will sit for the remainder of the weekend. After making about an hour and half trip to Von's to pick up groceries, beer and pizza for the frat house (the name I've coined for Nick, Andrew, Josh, John, Chris and Jason's place - clever eh?) we cooked up some pizzas, pounded some brews and headed to the bars. Well... bar - singular, I guess is more appropriate. I'm actually not sure where we were, but there were a lot of people, something about New Zealand day? Lots of singing, beer, accents. Not really sure. Anyway... next thing, it's about 3:30 and we're finally getting to sleep after one of the longest days in history. Or so I thought.

We woke up this morning at about 10. We ate some breakfast, packed up our gear and headed to Main Lodge. Venice and Tim were going to get a head start on runs while I went and visited Andrew in the demo shop. Nick was impatient and headed down to Eagle Lodge or somewhere else far away without us (which turned out to be a big mistake considering the hour long lift line he got stuck in). By the time we got it all sorted out, we just decided to head to June. We packed up Brian, Tim and my stuff in the sube and Venice and Nick piled into his PO.. I mean... his really awesome nice car :) and we headed to June!

Early afternoon conditions were great. It was cold, a little cloudy, but overall, amazing. No crowds, no lines, no snow. Our biggest problem was big patches of powder (which proved to be quite an issue with me and my new "powder" skis Andrew set me up with - I am not a fan). I've decided that I am an excellent skier, when I like the conditions... and I did not like them today. I took a big spill in some deep stuff near the edge and lost my glove somehow (it's white) but then we found it about an hour later... miraculously. I also took a nose dive down a double black when I hit a mogul too fast and one of my feet went forward while the other stayed behind. Rough stuff.

So, what do you do when you're sucking the most? Put yourself in a situation to suck even more!! Right?

No... bad idea. So after Nick left for work (about 3:30), Venice and I get this bright idea to switch modes of transportation for our last run. AKA she wears my skis and I wear her snowboard (even though neither of us had been on the other before). After about a 20 minute crash course from the ski patrol (and lessons on how to put the darn boots on), we set off. Veeeeeeeeery slowly. Then... it started to blizzard. We knew we were going down, but we didn't really know how, or where we were going exactly. Then... we're on a black. Venice, is handling it like a champ. Me, on the other hand... wow. It was bad. I am clearly meant to face forward.

At about 4:30, the ski patrol mountain combers catch up to us to try and help us down. They determine that we should probably just switch back. So... we do. In the middle of a mountain, in a blizzard, using one of the patrolmen's boards as a table, me and Venice switch boots and ski/boards back and proceed down to checkpoint 1. Amazing race style, there is a snowmobile waiting for each of us. We hop on with our respective ski patrolmen and ride down to the main lodge. It's nearly dark, there is about 10 feet visability at best, and we're a little sore... but hey, we've got a story right?

So, here I am... soaking my broken pride, drinking a Tecate (eww) and preparing for our very exciting evening of hot springs and house parties. Hopefully, we won't party too hard and will actually be able to ski a full day tomorrow... oh who am I kidding...

XOXO