Oh my aching legs!!

Yesterday was our first day skiing and it was wonderful, but oh my legs are sore. It's amazing how out of shape I feel and the muscles you use skiing that you don't in your daily life! We had a loooong day yesterday. Here's what our schedule was like:

5:30 a.m. beep, beep, beep our alarm goes off followed by lots of grumbling and cursing. A quick cuddle with Ally, then stumbling out of bed we grope around in the darkness trying to find our clothes until one of us had enough sense to turn on a light.

5:45 a.m. get Picasso out of "the cave" and take him and Ally on a walk (our neighbors are away AGAIN this weekend).

6:15 a.m. make some coffee and shovel down some food

6:30 a.m. try to find the ski clothes we left out last night, but now can't seem to remember where we put them. Brush hair and teeth...you know regular morning rituals

6:45 a.m. realize we're already behind our planned schedule and try to pick up the pace while we throw together a backpack with some snacks, water, extra hats, gloves, etc...

7:00 a.m. load skis and selves into car and take off for CERN Prevessin site (the site in France)

7:10 ish arrive find a parking spot, figure out by observing others what we're supposed to do - mainly shove our skiing equipment under the bus and find an empty seat.

After this we sat around in our seats waiting for everyone else to arrive. We were supposed to leave at 7:30 a.m. sharp. If you weren't there you would be left behind. This wasn't so much the case on our first trip. People were late, there seemed to be mass confusion about finding seats for the late comers - why the ski instructors thought they could keep an entire seat for their bag is beyond me. I mean, don't these people do this every year? You'd think they'd know that every seat needs to be filled with a butt, not a bag.

7:40/45 a.m. the bus pulls out. fully loaded with half asleep people

We drive for about an hour when we stop and people from the bus in front of us get out and use the restrooms. Ah perfect, it's about time for me to get rid of my morning coffee before my eyes start swimming, mais non, I am told it is not normal to stop and it is better if people don't go - 2 bathrooms + 200 people = disaster in the way of putting us WAY behind schedule. Sadly, I retake my seat without arguing and endure a long and near the end semi-painful bus ride. Nearly another hour till we get to the resort. I swear it felt more like 2 hours plus, but Josh swears we got there before 10 a.m. Once closer to the destination our ski instructors discovered the bus PA system and delivered a slew of very fast French instructions and apparently jokes - I couldn't quite follow it all, but judging from the outbursts of laughter and shouts something in the speech was highly amusing! We had arrived at Avoriaz!

We unloaded from the bus and from that point on I lost track of time. I didn't have my watch with me and they don't exactly have a huge clock hanging over the ski slopes....might be helpful if they did though. So, we collected our ski equipment from the bus (first thing I did was make a beeline for the ladies room, as did about 50 percent of my fellow skiers). After claiming our equipment and putting on those terribly uncomfortable ski boots, we lugged our stuff across the street to find the instructor for our respective classes. DH is in level 1.0 and I am in level 2.0. Ha, ha I am in a higher level than he is! wooohooo for once in my life I am better at a sport than he is. Granted I started skiing when I was 10 and he's only been about 5 times in his whole life, but still I will not let the glow of pride at such an accomplishment be tarnished by facts. Sadly, I have little doubt that in a season or two, if we keep it up, that he'll be better than me but that day is still far off, thank god.

I had a few small anxiety attacks after we split up to be with our groups. Especially since our instructors didn't really seem to be paying attention to what their pupils were doing. Our instructor said follow me. then took off back across the road at good clip and got onto the telecabin. I immediately fell behind not being used to lugging skis around anymore and finding it awkward to tromp around in ski boots - they are never easy to walk in. Of course, by the time I made it to the telecabine it was full and I had to wait for the next one. I kept glancing nervously around trying to figure out if anyone around me was in my class. I caught a glimpse of one guy I was sure had been standing around when we had given our names to our instructor. "Whew, " I thought, "at least that guys here. If I can't find the instructor I'll attach myself to him...or cry...whatever." I made it off the telecabine and out to slopes and with relief located my group. Then off we went again. to the lifts. So, just to give you an idea of how big this place is you first have to take a telecabine or telepherique. Here's a picture of a small telepherique/telecabine to give you an idea of what I'm talking about - the ones at the resort were much bigger and had no seats. You packed as many people as possible in standing up and with your skis or snowboards. Once you get off the telecabine you are at the ski lifts. Yep, you have to take another lift up to get to the actual slopes! It was pretty darn cool. So, on with the skiing. My group split up into two smaller groups. I had a great group of 9 people, plus 2 instructors and everyone was so nice. I had a wonderful time. I felt very comfortable with my group, we all bit the dust at one point or another, which made us all feel good. Not falling, but that everyone else fell too. To make things short, we skied awhile then ate a great lunch. I didn't feel like going back out after lunch! I was so relaxed and it felt so good to get my feet out of those blasted boots. But, back into our wet, cold weather gear and back to the slopes we went. Our last run we went to the very tippy top of the mountain. The view was AMAZING!!! It was a fairly clear day with a few low hanging clouds, but it was gorgeous.
We started off down the slope and this damned slope owned me. Seriously, it was steep, I was tired, the lovely powdery snow had been pushed into tons of big bumps all across the mountain. Yeah, that first portion of our descent bitch slapped me good. If I had any delusions about being a wonderful skier they were soon wiped away. I fell about 5 times on that particular slope. One time I even skied straight into a snow bank! It was pretty funny. I just lay on the ground laughing. My classmates skied over and asked if I was alright, then they burst out laughing telling me I looked like a cartoon character skiing straight into the snow like that. I picked myself up and continued on only to crash a few more times. My legs were killing me and we still had a LONG way to go. I'm proud of myself for holding it together and persevering - well, what else could I do? Sit down in the middle of the ski slope and cry? Not really. I took lots of breaks to "enjoy the beautiful scenery" yeah right I was just trying to catch my breath and stop my legs from shaking.
I don't know how everyone else did it. They didn't seem to have nearly as much trouble as I had. I just felt like my legs were going to collapse at any moment. I think part of my problem was that I would start going very fast and feel out of control so I started skiing across the entire hill and making big loops, which is good to slow you down, but I think it just wore my legs out more. I probably should have just sucked it up and took a more direct route down the mountain as my classmates did. I finally started doing this near the end and it worked much better for me. I'll have to remember that for the future.


ok i'm sure there is more to write. but dinner is ready and I promised DH I'd watch a little football with him - Colts vs. Chargers. I'm rooting for the Colts. I think Peyton Manning is great!