#112 Learn How to Snowboard

There are few action sports that I don't obsess over and dream that one day I could do what I see people in the X games do. Snowboarding is one sport that I have always wanted to try. Ever since Shawn White made his way on to the scene and made snowboarding the cool thing to do I have always wanted to try it. Every year for our guys weekend we head up to Utah to ski and that's a blast. Definitely makes me wish I lived somewhere near snow. Alas, being in Las Vegas we don't see a lot of the white stuff. Danielle and I decided last year that we were going to be brave and both try to learn how to snowboard in Brianhead. We have very generous in-law friends who own a condo there and they very very nice to offer us a bottom low rate to stay the weekend. We had a blast. Snowboarding it definitely not for the faint of heart or soft of bottom though. Upon arriving we assessed that before we got overwhelmed with going off of jumps or doing double blacks that we would first take on the daunting task of simply getting on the ski lift.

With skis that is a 0% big deal because you hop on and you go, skis attached and everything. Snowboarding, not so much. We learned that one foot stays in the binding of the board and the other hangs free (causing much tribulation in tripping repeatedly). Eventually we tackled that monster and made our way to the tip top of the bunny hill. We were among the elite and experienced 5-10 year olds learning for the first time themselves. Our first run down we learned that this was going to be ridiculously hard and that we needed to learn how to laugh at ourselves in order to get through the day. Our 2nd and 3rd run got smoother and smoother as we went. All day we got farther every time we tried. At the end of the long mess with our wrists practically broken and our tail bones bruised beyond belief we mustered up enough strength to take on a green run for our last run of the day. For those who are not familiar with the skiing vernacular, a black is the most difficult color of a run and represents "advanced" skiing. The color blue is for those who are more "intermediate" and the color green represents "beginner" or "for pansies" as I like to call it. It was sad that a green was what I was going to finish the day on but to be honest I don't think I would have been able to handle much more than the bunny hill anyway. We slowly progressed down the mountain managing only to get in a few tiffs with each other and eventually we made it out alive. At the end of the run/day we were both exhausted but were so happy that we had conquered a new thing that we had never learned before. I look forward to being able to go back someday and learn how to get better at snowboarding. By checking this item off my bucket list I learned that I can accomplish anything I put my mind and bruised up body too. Glad I got to do this with my best bud.