SKI TRIP - UTAH 2009

WOW!

What an amazing trip!

Several months ago, our friends Azure and Doug had talked about going skiing. We told them to let us know if they truly became serious about booking the trip. A few months ago they called! We were very lucky, because as good friends do, they booked the entire trip and outside of having to show up and write them a check, we were on our way to Utah.


We landed in Salt Lake City and FINALLY got Azure's luggage about 20 minutes before our ski rental store closed. We rushed to get the rental car and headed on to the ski store. We got there as they were closing, but they let us in! YEAH!





After getting fitted for skis, boots and poles, we headed down the street to our hotel. The next morning we headed on to Snowbasin. We got a little delayed and arrived AS my ski lesson was beginning. Jonathan, Azure and Doug all had skiied before, but I was the newbie. The two hour class was definitely helpful! The only scare was when Jonathan went to ski and left me without my lift ticket (yes...you need a lift ticket even for the bunny slopes :) To top the cake, I didn't bring my cell, so the ski lift operator let me use her phone and I called and called until J answered! Thank goodness that he did.

I started off good, only having fallen once during my 2 hour class. Afterwards, Jonathan came and got me and convinced me to try a "green" slope.....the beginner slopes. Yeah right! We soon found out that this was a difficult mountain and the green slopes were more like blue slopes (intermediate). After having fallen - I mean having really fallen facefirst and hard into the snow - over a dozen times, I was only about halfway down the mountain. Frustrated, mad and in tears, Jonathan and I took a breather ..... lo and behold, we had to have ski patrol come and get me .... how humiliating! What was worse, is this guy was not on a ski-doo, but on his own skis pulling a sled!! UGH! The rest of the afternoon (about an hour or so) was me sitting in the lodge by the fire till the rest of the crew finished skiing.



(This was at the top of the mess of a slope)

That night, we went to a great Mexican restaurant in downtown called the Blue Iguana....whether our waiter was female or male is still up for debate!

When we got back to our hotel, Azure and I did research on different mountains to see if there was one that might be better for me.

We ended up, the next day, in Alta, UT. Not only was it absolutely beautiful, but it was perfect!



I convinced myself that I would workout their bunny slopes all day long.....until I figured out how much the tows SUCK! My arms hurt so bad.


Sooo....Jonathan ran down a green to see if I could do it, but he was very unsure. In the meantime, I wanted to show him what I had achieved on the bunny slopes...and after he saw how steep that slope was, he was sure that I could do the "light greens" that they had there. Yes, they actually had easier than green slopes!

I was very very very nervous, but I knew that Jonathan would be there with me. And lo and behold, I did the light greens twice and a full green once!!! AND I only fell twice! The first time was simply because I hit ice and freaked and the second time was because I veered too far over and ended up in 5' worth of powder snow!




We skiied all day - it was GREAT!!!!! And what suprised us is that although the temps were in the single digits, how warm you actually stay!


That night we celebrated by going to a Brazilian restaurant that was incredible!


Coming back home was hard, but even so, we now have one ski trip under our belts together - our first......our first couples trip as well.

So all in all, no broken bones - our share of bruises - and an amazing trip together! What a great 1st year of marriage this has been!

Now we just have to prepare for the trip to West Palm Beach!

For a full album of ski and mountain pictures from the trip - click here - UTAH SKI TRIP PICS