Growing up in Tahoe...

I read this evening about a blogger friend tell us about her ski day. I felt a kinship with her falling and thought I would stand...or rather fall in next to her so she didn't feel alone.

When you grow up in Lake Tahoe and your mother works at a ski area, chances are you will be skiing any free time you have. I can remember every weekend spending hour after hour speeding down the slopes and loving every minute of it. I remember practices with my coach after school and weekends. I remember setting the gates before a race. I remember dressing up as the Easter Bunny on Easter....ha! you thought I would say Christmas! Anyway. i also remember my friends chasing me down the...ahem...bunny hill as I joined all the little kids...of course they were trying to make me fall. I remember heading out on the cross country course to build stamina and end up being run over by my father...yes, the man that can be the body double for Santa...can we say OUCH!!!!! Needless to say I was never thrilled to go cross country again. My biggest memory was during one particular race we had set up the gates and found our course was getting icy as the day lingered on. I took my last run and was weaving in and out of the gate well ahead of the other girls. As I neared the bottom, three gates to go the tip of my ski hooks the evil bamboo gate that quite honestly jumped in front of me as I came through. In front of not only my teammates, competitors, local race fans and every other blooming fool on the slopes, I began tumbling. I don't remember the first impact or even the tumbling, which quite honestly lasted a fairly long time.

I don't remember my impression of a small avalanche. No, what I do remember is my coach bringing me a hot chocolate in the lodge, along with a few doaen ice packs and aspirin while my teammates played the crash over and over on the lodge's VCR. Oh yes, from then on in I rivaled the agony of defeat guy on ABC sports. The replays only lasted two hours. Boys are stupid!!!!