Snow Boarding Part Four

I finally decided to do the smart thing and buy a brace for the knee that decides a front and center kneecap is just so cliche, and attempts a three sixty on me from time to time. This, of course, doesn't work, and causes tremendous amounts of pain. So I was all set for a super fun day at the mountain! I even got off the lift succesfully the first time! And completed a perfect changeover from my front edge to my back edge without falling! Oh man, it actually felt like (dare I say it) Improvement!

Then I biffed it right where the hill flattens out and requires all snow boarders who aren't sufficiently speedy to do the shuffle of shame. I hate that shuffle. You have to unbind one foot, and sort of push yourself along at this awkward pose that looks a little like a cross between a baby turtle and a retard. You also have to make sure the board doesn't go off down one side of the mountain while you're still trying to glide the opposite direction toward the ski lift. You can imagine my hate for those damn skiers and their clever poles. Yeah, I could get there easy too if I were a Cheat!

Anyway I failed the shuffle, and while my board went one way and my free foot went the other to stop it, the damn knee brace shifted my knee cap in a completely different direction and I dropped like a sack of potatoes. I could barely walk to the second lift. But I really didn't want to be rescued by ski patrol. Oh the shame. Also, Erik's sister was telling me about being taken down the mountain on a gurney through double black diamond runs and I was a little scared of being strapped to a board at the mercy of whoever picked up the handles. Eventually common sense won out though, and Erik asked the guy at the lift to call ski patrol for me. Because being unable to walk without wincing really isn't conducive to riding a stupid plank with straps down steep snow covered hills.

Actually, once I got over the claustrophobia, it was actually a lot of fun to go down the mountain like that. Kind of like luge, if you giggle continously through luge and are occasionally sprayed in the face with powder.

However, there are few things more mind numbing than sitting in a ski lodge for five and a half hours while the hits of the eighties play overhead.