Stories, stories everywhere!! It's podcast Tuesday, so we have stories from our weekend there and even more stories on the post below. I tried not to duplicate them so you could have double the fun!
If you visited here yesterday, you know that
we did a county tour over the weekend (Dearborn County in southern Indiana), and we spent the bulk of the day at
Perfect North Slopes. As I said yesterday, Ryan loves to ski, but I think we can all agree it would NOT be a good activity for this girl, so it was lodge day for me!
For the record, Ryan has skied at other resorts before and said this one is his favorite so far. He really liked it and has already toyed with making this an annual adventure. (My prayer life increased just hearing that news.)
Since I don't ski, we invited our friend Shawn to go along and hang out with Ryan for the day. Shawn had actually never gone skiing before, but that's nothing a few YouTube videos can't fix, I'm told. (Do you see why I have gray hair? I have to worry about these guys!)
Here are some views of the slopes as we approached:
I talk a bit more about my day in the lodge in today's podcast, so I'll try not to repeat too many stories! When we arrived, I grabbed this picture of the guys with their slopes behind them:
We went inside and tried to find a place to settle me for the day. The lodge was enormous! There was one smaller room that was already full (sadness, because it would have been SO PERFECT for a whole day of hanging out) and three ENORMOUS spaces for people to spend the day. I never saw a single couch in the entire lodge, which both surprised and saddened me. There were, however, rows and rows of tables with folding chairs. It actually felt very much like an airport in there. An airport at Christmas. LOL!
I started out downstairs, but it was so so cold there with all the doors constantly opening for people to go in and out. So I went upstairs, which was specifically earmarked for groups. When I arrived, it was pretty empty, but that didn't last long. Here's a terrible picture of me (it was so bright) that shows the tables behind me. (Mom requested a photo that showed where I spent the day, so that's why this thing even exists.)
The guys signed their lives away and suited up in warm clothes and rented boots before heading out for their adventure!
We had arrived early enough that I was able to get a table right by the window, so my view for the day was pretty spectacular. :) I could only see two of the slopes really well, and they only actually went down one of the two I could see, so my abilities to get action shots were pretty limited.
See? Not a bad view! The area right in front of me was private: no rentals allowed, so they didn't ever ski that one. The slope to the left was the biggest one, and it was icy, so they never did that one. The one to the right, which is actually just out of view of the above photo, was the one I could see them ski. They did it a few times at the very beginning and were done with that one for the day.
Ryan did a great job helping me document!
They're on the middle lift in this picture.
That's my Ryan!
Shawn did really well for a first-timer, Ryan said!
The view from the lift...
Ohhhh the things people do that create the need for signs. (Also, if you've not seen one before, the big cylinder at the top is part of the snow-making machine.)
My hands get cold just looking at this.
LOL! The sign! (Ryan did say he found the couches, though. They were in the trees!! No kidding!)
After a couple of hours of skiing, the guys came in to have lunch with me and give me a bathroom break. (No way would I have trusted walking away from our stuff, so I didn't leave my perch unless they were there.) I had a cup of hot chocolate because I felt like that's what I should do in a ski lodge.
Things really picked up at lunchtime and throughout the afternoon. a HUGE youth group showed up and descended upon my space. The lines to the lifts grew long, and I had to resort to prayer and Stress Away oil a few times to keep from having a full blown panic attack. (I'm not kidding - the teens didn't really know about personal space and were hovering all over me as I tried to read and write.)
Whew! The lodge had WiFi, but it was so overloaded that I couldn't actually access anything online. So by the end of the day (when the above photo was taken) I was out of activities. I'd read my novel, written as much as I could, and I moved to people watching. :)
The guys, though, were still having a blast!
They went to the top of the big hill - see them up there?
But the top of the slope was so icy, so they decided not to risk it. I was grateful for their moment of clarity. (I'd been listening to intercom calls all day for people to report to the medical area and did NOT want my name attached to any such call.) Ryan took this picture from the top of the slope. See the little itty bitty lodge at the bottom? That's where I was!
They stayed out until their pass expired. They could have purchased an additional four hours, but that would have had them skiing until ten, and then we would have had our 2.5 hour drive home, so I was grateful they stopped at 6:30.
They turned in their gear and limped toward the car, but not before one final picture:
Pretty sure they were both sore the next day, but they both adored the day, and I was so glad! We stopped for dinner at Skyline Chili on the way home and got home about 11:00. (Felt more like 3:00 in the morning, though, when the alarm went off for church and we felt like we'd barely slept!)
Fun day, fun slopes, fun memory. :)
6 comments:
So glad he had fun!!!
Me too! And stayed in one piece!
Did you guys all like Skyline? I can't stand it but three members of my family love it :). Glad Ryan enjoyed it.
Oh yes, we love it!! Should I just eat your share? LOL!
So here comes a story about why they have to post signs like "Don't jump from lift!" Before my hubby and I started dating (a week before, actually), we went on a skiing trip with our college group from church. Neither of us had been skiing before but he is super buff and athletic (played sports in college) and I don't have an ounce of coordination/athleticism in my body. I went on the trip because he was going on the trip. :) But I was scared out of my mind!!! The things you do for love! Lol!! Anyway, it only took me putting on the gear to realize that skiing was not for me but I persevered because I wasn't going to miss an opportunity to impress my guy with my willingness to be adventuresome and try new things. I couldn't even walk in the stuff!! It was horribly awkward and I was fumbling all over the place. The bunny hill was where I was headed and he was sweet and hung back with me while the rest of the guys skipped to the real slopes. And let me just tell you, there is nothing "bunny" about a bunny hill...it was terrifying! So terrifying, in fact, that the first time I went down this "bunny" hill, I intentionally fell down over and over just to slow myself down. I felt like I was out of control and going 500 mph! I seriously thought I was going to die!!! Once I finally made it to the bottom (which took forever and a day!), I was done!! But, to get back up to the top where the hotel/lodge was, you had to ride the ski lift. I thought going down the hill was the worst part but I was about to be proven very very wrong. Getting on the lift while wearing the awkward gear and skis that I could barely even walk in was the first challenge. The second was riding up the hill with my heart in my throat because I do not do heights well and especially in an open air swing with nothing holding me in. Jeremy was in the lift with me so at least I was slightly distracted. And now for the worst part of the entire trip....getting OFF the ski lift! Enter: reason for the sign! So when you get to the top of the hill (mountain), you are SUPPOSE to slip right off the lift with your skis pointed "just right" and slide right down the bit of a hill in front of you. Sounds easy, right? NO PROBLEM! Except I panicked!! And instead of getting off when I was suppose to because it seemed too tricky, I stayed on and the lift continued to go up and away from the ground before it turns and heads back down the mountain. And when my feet reached about 10 feet off of the ground, I jumped!!!! And I fell into a tangled heap! And when I looked up to see what Jeremy's reaction was, his was suddenly the least of my concerns. There were about a hundred people standing around watching everyone get off of the lift and right before me was the lodge with many, many, many other people on the other side of the windows laughing (I'm sure) at the klutz who just jumped from the ski lift. And the guy working was hollering at me about not jumping off the ski lift but riding it back down. I didn't know you could ride it back down if you missed your exit! How in the world I didn't break a leg I'll never know!!! And that was the first and last time I've ever skied!!! After Jeremy made certain I was okay, he laughed and laughed!!! I was mortified!! And despite my embarrassing attempt at being athletic in front of the ultra-athletic guy I had only met 1 month before, we began dating a week later and were married 5 1/2 months after that. That was 16 years ago. And we haven't been skiing since! Haha!!!!
Tia - 1. That was my favorite story today. 2. THIS WOULD TOTALLY HAPPEN TO ME!!!!! 3. I am so glad you were okay!!! Wow! This is the best. Thank you for telling me this story!
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