A Flight, Snowboarding and A Ride with Ski Patrol
At some point in time everyone needs an escape…even full time travelers like us. We cook, eat, sleep, work, lounge and travel year round in 230 sq feet. We love it but every once in a while it’s nice to take a spontaneous break from it all and escape to something different.
So here we are in Lake Havasu City when Jason’s Brother Jacob called and asked if we could make it to Breckenridge, CO for some boarding…we went through our usual non-RV travel related thought process. Hmm we have to find somewhere to park the RV, find boarding for the cat’s, figure out how long we can be gone, how much it’s going to cost and where the closest airport is. It’s all a bit of a hassle and for a few minutes we always debate whether it’s worth it or not. Two days later we’re on the road at 3:30am on the 2.5 hour drive to the Vegas airport. Colorado, here we come!
The weather is perfect, the snow is decent and all is grand!
It’s been almost 2 years since we’ve been snowboarding but it’s just like riding a bike. Once you get going, it’s like you never stopped.
We’re doing great, having a good time and then someone had the brilliant idea of heading up to the top of the mountain on the T-Bar. The T-Bar is the worst idea for a lift ever, especially for a boarder. It’s uncomfortable, unstable, intimidating and just plain difficult!
So here I am, on the T-Bar, 15 ft from the end (the steepest part) and I start to lose it. I’m over correcting in every direction until finally I twist up like a pretzel and fall to the ground with all of my weight on my left ankle. I am in the way and completely frozen in pain. My friend Michael bails off to help….Jason is the next up, see’s that I’m motionless and yells out, “I will call ski patrol”.
That statement perked me right up. I am painfully stubborn! I don’t like going to doctors or hospitals and I most certainly don’t want to have ski patrol wrap me up like a burrito in a giant yellow plastic tarp and haul me down the mountain. Sure enough within seconds there he is…ski patrol man…staring me down. “I’m fine, I will just walk it off” I tell him. He isn’t looking convinced but I am determined. So, Michael takes my board and we walk (ok, limp) up.
Ski Patrol man talks me into putting some ice on my ankle for a few….ok fine.
After about 15 min of ice, the pain is still settling in. I’m not going to lie; I had a tear in my eye. It wasn’t the pain in my ankle but the pain my ego was now feeling after realizing I’m going to have to ask for help down.
Luckily, they didn’t wrap me up like a giant yellow burrito but instead the nice man let me ride sitting up! It was almost fun.
Now comes more fun…riding the lift down the mountain…watching everyone else going up. Oh Joy.
Meanwhile, the boys had no troubles finishing out the day on the mountain without me. They could’ve at least pretended not to have so much fun. Punks.
My pride had one heck of a day and it was seriously time for an adult beverage! Thankfully our friends already had a dinner party in the works.
There’s nothing better than good food, conversation and laughs to brighten up a day. We even had the chance to swap stories with fellow RV’ers Brent and Jenn of Newschool Nomads.
I sat out one day and kept ice on the ankle…then, I wrapped it up so tight my toes went numb and headed out for 2 glorious days of boarding.
There is nothing better than boarding during the middle of the week…no lines, less kids and more open mountain!
Succuess! What a trip; totally worth the money, the hassle, and the airline stuff that goes along with ‘normal’ non-RV travel. Speaking of, we have to give a big thanks and a shout out to our friends at Pan Am Travel for the flights and Mineralogie for keeping our skin un burned!
