In my youth, I participated in my sports.  My first ambition in life was to be a star athlete of the Olympic sort and I worshipped them. I had a poster of Mary Lou Retton in my childhood bedroom.  Somewhere along the way, I lost my drive for athletics.  Maybe I started to think I wasn’t great at it or maybe teenagerhood hit and it was time to start wearing plaid and not doing anything that involved leaving the couch.  Well, nevertheless, my last few years haven’t been sports oriented.  Unless eating ice cream straight out of the carton is a sport.

However, recently and rather suddenly, the opportunity presented itself for me to go skiing.   I skied a little as a kid, just a little bit, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly and I was pretty good at it.  I mean we aren’t talking Olympics here, but I liked it and I guess that it all that counts.  I went last weekend and it wasn’t what I expected.

I expected not to stay upright on the skies at all.  OK, that part I might have had a problem with.  But there was something exhilarating about all of it.  Sliding down the mountain, have some kind of control over my body, doing an exercise that didn’t involve walking in a straight line on some kind of treadmill.

Today I hurt.  Today I have pain all over my body.  I used muscles yesterday I didn’t even know I had.  I got snow in places where snow doesn’t usually go.  I got a cut under my nose from rope burn.

I can’t wait to go again.

Let’s enjoy some photos from the sojourn, shall we.  First up, the colors, oh the colors:

Resting:

Funny little optical illusion.  No, this guy is not 50 feet taller than the mountain:

And finally a few views: