I have never been skiing before, and have only been in actual snow a handful of times. After my first visit to Denver, I learned that a LOT goes into winter sports, and it can be very expensive. I was nervous about this, and the fact that I had never done it before. So I could potentially go, try to learn, hate it, and be out loads of cash. Rachel told me that John (her husband) is super patient and would teach me, and that she had two of everything except for pants, so that's all I would need to buy.
I flew into Denver on Tuesday afternoon, and Rachel was not on Spring Break that week. She picked me up and we had to go back to her school as she had to be there pretty late that night for conferences. It was good to see her new school in person after seeing pictures and hearing about it. It was also nice to meet her team. We did some organizing to finally finish off the cleaning of the music classroom she inherited. It is very very interesting to hear about how different things are in Colorado with education and fine arts as opposed to Texas.
Since Rachel had to work on Wednesday and Thursday, I did what I would have done at home in Texas on spring Break during the day. I slept in, and walked to Orange Theory to get my sweat on. I also knocked out all of the papers I needed to grade, and some other school business that I needed to take care of. Even though it was Spring Break, it felt awesome to get so caught up.
Wednesday night dinner and happy hour with Rachel was at Cuba Cuba and hanging out at the house, and Thursday night was "Fancy Dinner." A fun tradition I share with the Severes. We use their wedding china (they are the only people my age I know that actually have wedding china), silver, crystal, and cook and eat a multi-course meal. Consisting of Charcuteries, Salad, Steak/Risotto/Asparagus, ice cream with berries, and 5 bottles of champs/wines. Always fun and delicious.
Friday Rachel took the day off so that we could have a Megan and Rachel day. We slept in and packed up the things we needed for skiing. We then went to have Brunch with bottomless Mimosas at Root Down. We obviously stayed there for awhile to get the most out of our bottomless mimosas, and by the time we got back home, John was coming back from work to load up the car and start our drive to the mountains.
I have to give a major shout out to the Severe duo for taking amazing care of me and guiding me through everything for skiing. If it weren't for them, I probably never would have tried it.
We stopped on the way at this discount ski rental shop. Since I was a beginner, I was able to get my skis, boots, and poles for $22.50. That was way cheaper than I was planning for, so I was pumped about that. John and Rachel got a room in Beaver Creek so we wouldn't have to wake up ridiculously early to go ski. We ate Pizza in the room and had some hot tub and drinks in the mountains. We then went out to two bars in Vail and had a freaking blast dancing.
Saturday morning we got up at a decent hour and got all ready to ski. I was feeling really really nervous. All the people we talked to and told that this would be my first time skiing kept saying, "well if you aren't falling you aren't trying!" Awesome. Got to the Vail resort, and thank god for John and Rachel having Season passes which provided Buddy Pass options for skiing. If I hadn't had the buddy pass, it would have cost me $189 to ski for ONE day. With the buddy pass it cost $116, so I saved a pretty penny there.
We spent about 2 hours on the gopher hill, and John was very patient. I had to be taught every little thing such as how to hold a pair of skis, walk in ski boots, put skis on, get on a lift, etc. I fell about 6 times in the first 2 hours, but it wasn't that bad. Super padded with the clothing, and it is snow. The first time I fell I was able to pull myself up without taking my skis off, but couldn't do it again after that. I would have to take my skis off every time. Every time I fell John and Rachel were right there to support and encourage me and help me up. They would bring me my ski if it popped off, or my pole if it flew far away.
My favorite time was skiing down the catwalk to our lunch location. I felt like I really had the hang of maneuvering myself on flat land haha. We had lunch, and since I was only there for a day, John said we were going to take the gondola up to the top of the mountain and ski some greens. This is some accelerated ski instruction people. I had 2 hours to learn! If I had the chance to do it again, I would do a half-day to learn how to ski, and then go back for a full day to have fun with it. Nevertheless, we went up and it was "learn through doing." I fell on the mountain some more of course, and would freak out when I started going fast. I was very anxious about running into people or other people running into me. I also had a mental block when it came to skiing straight across the mountain toward a run as opposed to down the mountain, because I didn't want to fall down a blue! At the end of the day I was totally exhausted and felt like my body wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. In the end though, I came a long way in the one day I had to learn to ski, and after having some time to reflect, I would totally go again. (I mean, I bought ski pants). Next winter I will prepare financially for 2 days of skiing and hope that Rachel will loan me her gear again! More importantly I hope that John has the patience to take me again and give up several hours of "big boy" skiing to take care of me.
Ski Pants: $162.38
Boots/Skis/Pole Rental: $22.50
Jacket, Socks, Gaiter, gloves, helmet: $0 Borrowed from Rachel
Day of Skiing Vail: $116
Lessons: $0 John taught me
Total Cost to Ski: $300.88
I know this doesn't include the room and transportation, but now I have pants and can do other winter sports!
We hit up Frisco, CO for Apres Ski, and then headed back to their house for my last night in Colorado. We had another yummy dinner using John's birthday Raclette, and more hot tub time. I had an early flight on Sunday morning, plus it was Daylight Savings time. (Note-to-Self: Don't schedule early flights on Daylight Savings time)
Once I can figure out how to join snapchat videos into one video I can upload some lol content on here.
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