Ski Trips

Ben is currently out in Steamboat for a ski trip with the boys. I am bummed that I didn't get to go this year, but since you can't ski, drink or hot tub while pregnant I really couldn't justify going all the way out there. Next year, for sure! However, I was REALLY wanting to go back to Steamboat because of a little incident that occurred last year when we made the trip with Alison, Brian, Tara and Nando. Let me just set the scene.....I am not a great skier seeing as how I've only been a handful of times and Tara was on skis for the first time EVER. However, after a day of lessons for Tara followed by a day of mastering the greens and two days of me doing just fine on blues, Tara and I decided to set off on our own for the last run of the day. Ben told us to head all the way up to the top of the mountain to try Buddy's Run--a nice, long blue that would bring us all the way down to Gondola Square and Slopeside's bar where we could meet up with him and Nando for our requisite apres-ski Fat Tires. Tara and I hop on the lift and noticed that we were THE LAST CHAIR FOR THE DAY. Now, for skiers like Ben and his friends, this is the stuff dreams are made of. For Tara and me it was a little disconcerting. What if one of us falls and gets hurt? No one is around to save us! (We learned AFTER the fact that ski patrol makes final runs to make sure no one is left wounded on the mountain.....good to know). We get off the lift and are all alone at the very top of the mountain and we can only seem to find one way down: completely vertical chutes and black diamonds. OMG! We could see our flatter blue way off to our left but couldn't figure out how to get to it. So, after a few minutes of hesitating, we go for it.....down a freakin' black! Several terrifying moments later we decide that we have to get to our blue through whatever means necessary.......off the groomed run and through the trees. We cut through the trees and finally make it onto Buddy's Run, but not without Tara falling and tumbling and losing her cell phone and injuring her thumb ("skier's thumb"--it's a common injury, come to find out). Anyways, once on the blue we make it down the mountain no problem....and actually realize that the black we had been on intersected Buddy's Run about 50 yards from where we aborted the trail and headed for the trees). Unfortunately for Ben, we're furious at him for sending us down this run that forced us to negotiate a black diamond for several hundred yards. And Tara was mad at Nando for not going with us. Our husbands were baffled as we were yelling at them. Ben and Nando swore up and down that a big sign clearly marked where we needed to go to get to Buddy's Run while staying on a blue. Tara and I never saw the sign and we were convinced that the sign wasn't actually there. Alison and Brian missed all of this because they decided to have a spa day our last day in Steamboat. Anyways, Ben is back in Steamboat for the first time since the Buddy's Run debacle and made it a point to snap pictures of Bret Hightower in front of the big sign indicating where we needed to go last year. Even in goggles and a helmet, I can tell that Bret is making fun of us! Tara, I guess we both had a major blonde moment.....or we got so flustered by all the black diamond indicators and being all alone that we panicked! Live and learn.....I can't wait to go back next year and do this run again!

I have a feeling that Tara and I are never going to live this one down.

Ben claims that this picture is of two novice skiers who managed to read the sign just fine.....rub salt in a wound, why don't you!