skiing sucks

For most people practice makes perfect. For me not so much.

I’ve probably been snow skiing 8 times. So not very many attempts in my (almost) 33 years. But I can honestly say…I get worse every time.

My last attempt will hopefully be just that…my LAST. I’m pretty sure I’ve never hated anything so badly in my life.

I’d rather pet a cat, while wearing vibrams, on a moped, on my way to take down wallpaper. That’s how much I hate it.

Here’s how this last trip went down. (literally)

I used to go on youth trips with Christ Community when jay was the youth pastor. I loved him & I love teenagers so it wasn’t ever much of a sacrifice. (and I’m pretty positive the adults had more fun on those trips than the students…here are a few examples:

One trip I won the award for fitting the most pretzels in my mouth at once. I think I got 28. Then I spit them out the window and it went all down the side of the church van. Nasty!

On another trip the chaperones ordered pizza while the kids ate crappy camp food.

And one time at souled out sweet paul stayed up ALL night praying for jay that he thought was having an intense conversation with one of our struggling youth. Only to find out jay had been in bed since 11pm. Awesome.

Back to skiing -

After a LONG day in the church van with rowdy kids, a million gas station stops and lots of laughs we finally pulled into our hotel in north Carolina. Our plan was to unpack our things and head to the slopes! jay didn’t want to waste a minute of our skiing time.

Well in typical jay style he locked the keys in the church van. Luckily (or skillfully) only HIS suitcase was still in the van. So faithful friend Paul said he’d stay at the hotel and work on getting in the van while jay took the rest of us in the other vans/cars to the slopes.

Keep in mind, jay doesn’t have his clothes so he’s not skiing. Just “supporting” the rest of us.

Reminder – I’m not good at sports. I can run but that’s it. I don’t like much else. I HATE to be cold & I hate to be wet (unless I’m swimming or showering.)

BUT I am on a ski trip so here I go. I put on my 12 layers of clothes, which is SO attractive, jump in the van that we still have keys for and put on my best fake smile.

We arrive. Wait in line. Get all of our gear on and head out. Here’s when I should’ve known I was in for it…

I would get one ski on and then repeatedly fall down trying to get the 2^nd one on. i fell twice just standing there…how does that even happen?

So several kids and me are standing there trying to figure out which slope is the easy one. We skipped the bunny slope (MISTAKE) but figured if we went for the easy one we’d be ok.

Here’s where jay came in to “save the day.”

He pointed me and these other poor souls who trusted this man towards this one lift convinced it was easy b/c it was marked green.

As we get settled in our lift, we look to the left and see a sign that says “THIS IS NOT AN EASY SLOPE.” I may have crapped my drawers. If not I certainly said a derogatory word for what could’ve been in my pants.

Up we go.

I couldn’t even enjoy the ride on the ski lift b/c I thought it might be the last few minutes of my life…

i’m bad at skiing and even WORSE at getting off the ski lift. After what felt like 30 minutes we made it to the top. My friend and I just sat there terrified. The lift guy started yelling, “you’ve got to jump, jump!” so we did. Then he yelled, “duck, the next one is going to hit you…get down!” so we laid face down on the ground.

We basically never made it up again. We crawled, literally, crawled around the corner and out of the way. 

After tearing up and praying a minute we stood and turned to see the ENORMOUS MOUNTAIN we had to get down.

I was mad, scared, shaking, confused, cussing and on the verge of not being a Christian.

We moved forward to begin our descent.

Just as we got up our nerves a young girl came flying from behind us and hit a fence, face first.

Yep, welcome to the slopes kaci.

We pushed ourselves to get things going. We made it probably 30 seconds and busted it (and repeat.) seriously, that’s what we did.

Ask sarah jane – we even had a 5 year old stop and ask if he could help. I’m not kidding.

After a few minutes I was so angry I was determined just to GO. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be down that freakin’ mountain.

So I started going FAST. I got really scared so I fell. One of my skis popped off in the fall. I could NOT get it back on.

FIVE people stopped and tried to help me get the ski back on. nope, it was messed up and not clicking back in place.

So….i had to SQUAT, holding one ski, 2 poles and “ski” down on one foot.

It took me a SOLID HOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I finally made it to the bottom, I ripped my other ski off and gathered my crap. I was so ready to be inside drinking coffee.

I stood up and FELL, slamming the back of my head on the ice. I was lit.

I got my goggles, skis, gloves, scarf, and bruised head together and dragged myself into the lodge.

i turned the corner and there was jay…

sitting warm & comfortably by the fire, eating chili cheese fries.

I’ve never been so annoyed.

I threw my stuff and swore to never ski again.

Worst. Hour. Of. My. Life.