Ski Trip 2006

I wrote this running diary back in February of this year and posted it on a friend's website. In lieu of a more recent life post, I thought I would repost it here. Enjoy!

SATURDAY 2/11

5:30am -- Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.

5:40 -- Alarm goes off. THIS IS NOT A DRILL! Shower, forget to shave, finish packing, and no time for breakfast (even though it is the most important meal of the day).

6:30 -- Arrive at church. A few people are already there. Three vans, three U-Haul trailers. It will be quite the big group. We ended up not needing the third trailer, so it was left behind.

Chad was the driver of the silver van and U-Haul with Kent (our soon to be stressed yet fearless, GPS wielding, Sirius satellite radio listening leader) riding shotgun. Jim and Adrienne, Brandon and April, Micah, Kyle, Jason, Melvin, and Bryan (me) round out the passenger list.

Rob was driving the second van and U-Haul with his family, Vicky and Wyatt. Also on board were Bethany and Andrew, Nathan, Julie, Andrew, Katie, Denise, Haley, Liz, and Rachel. Bethany and Andrew had a couple of their friends following us in a pickup.

David was the pilot of the third van. The passenger list included Shane, Leslie, Jenna, Wesley, Taylor, Chad, Kevin, Phillip, Jared, and Adam.

7:15 -- And they're off! It has been 10 years since I have been skiing, so hopefully, I won't break anything. I'm not even nervous...really...I'm not. The precipitation was rain and light snow, so Chad kept it around 65mph. Oh, and before I forget, we are heading to North Carolina. The Sugar Mountain Resort is the largest ski area in North Carolina and one of few resorts breaking a 1,000-foot vertical south of New England. Sugar boasts a 1,200 ft vertical and offers skiers and snowboarders 20 trails and 8 lifts spread over 115 skiable acres. Those interested can hit the SkiSugar website for more info.

8:23 -- Jason is creating finger drawings on the fogged windows. A snowboarder flying through the air, and various symbols of the upcoming apocalypse. Jason also seems to have an infatuation with the hanging seatbelts. In fact, I fully expect to see them hanging in random places around his house the next time I go over there. Meanwhile, the MP3 player that I picked up for the trip is working great so far. I haven't owned one up until now, just haven't had a good enough excuse to buy one.

10:00 -- Fuel stop. We invade a Tiger Market and hold their restrooms hostage for 25 minutes. Snow is on the ground and packs very well. Lunch in another hour and a half, I decide to wait to eat instead of getting a snack.

(Note: Somewhere around in here we change over to eastern time, but for the sake of this diary, I am keeping today on central time.)

11:30 -- It is lunchtime. Sonny's Bar-B-Q just ahead. I had never eaten there, but I will definitely go back. The lunch portion of ribs, fries and cornbread were fantastic (especially since I didn't eat breakfast). Meanwhile, Jim and Adrienne are absent for some reason, and Brandon and April are chatting on their cell phones (hopefully not to each other). Jim and Adrienne return, and I find out that since April and Adrienne aren't skiing, they picked up a rental car to do some shopping while the boys are on the slopes, so the silver van is now 4 passengers light. On our way out of Knoxville, we pick up Phillip, who is hitchhiking down I-40. He said that he could get people to stop, but when they would find out that he wasn't Shaun White, they would take off again.

1:30pm -- Rest stop. Still dreary, wet and cold. Kent couldn't have picked a better weekend to ski. Cows come to greet us at the fence as we pull out.

3:00 -- Welcome to Elizabethton. Carter County, TN. Geographic area is 9.5 sq. miles. Elevation 1530'. Population 14,017. SAAALUTE!!!

Some History: Settled in the late 1760s, Carter County's historical notability is among the most fascinating in the state. Home of the first permanent settlement outside the original 13 colonies and the first majority-rule system of American democracy, the Watauga Settlement at Sycamore Shoals (in what is now Elizabethton) was home to prominent military officials, legislators, and members of the Constitutional Convention. In 1796, the area became known officially as Carter County, named in honor of Landon Carter, son of John Carter and prominent statesman. Although Elizabethton was established in 1799 as the county seat of Carter County, the town did not have an organized form of government until the early twentieth century. Elizabethton was named in honor of Elizabeth MacLin Carter, wife of Landon, for whom the county had been named.

The Carter Mansion: The Carter Mansion was built between 1775 and 1780, by John Carter and his son Landon, on lands bought from the Cherokee Indians. It is the oldest frame house in Tennessee and the structure reveals a finely detailed interior. John Carter was elected as Chairman of the Court under the terms of the Articles of the Watauga Association.

The Covered Bridge: The Covered Bridge was built in 1882 by Dr. E.E. Hunter, contractor, with the help of George Lindamood and three carpenters. The cost was $3,000 for construction and $300 for approaches. This white clapboard bridge is believed to be the oldest covered bridge in the state still in use. It spans 134 feet across the Doe River and is surrounded by a park with walking paths, benches, picnic tables and plenty of ducks who enjoy the food provided by locals and out-of-towners.

(Note: Carter County is also the home of the Elizabethton Twins, Appalachian League minor league baseball affiliate of the Minnesota Twins since 1974. Last season, the Twins led the West division with a 48-19 record.)

Enough history for today. Let's just move on.

4:30 -- We arrive, snow-covered, at the Best Western. We have pizza on a shingle waiting for us in the restaurant of the hotel along with bottled fruit drinks that make my toes curl (must have been the Splenda - yuck). Jason and I sit with Nathan and Julie, who are studying each other at a Bible college, um, I mean, studying at the same Bible college. Just kidding! They are a very nice young couple. I mean, they are a couple, right? They looked like a couple to me. Can I get a ruling on this? Nathan also teaches a Wednesday night Bible study that Kent and a few others have been to.

5:00 -- Kent passes out. Um, wait. Kent passes out the room keys and we all head off to change for the slopes.

5:30 -- Everybody is back in the vans and we are heading to the outfitters to get skis, boards, and boots. Since I haven't been skiing in a while, I forget that I need to get a half to full size larger boot that I wear for shoes, so I write 10 on the sheet. I slipped on the boots, but I didn't strap them. Definitely the wrong move. The rental bibs run out and Chad is going to be cold tonight. Not good times.

6:15 -- The silver van is the first to the slopes, but we take a wrong turn and the guard won't let us unload. We go down to the parking at the bottom of the hill. There is a righteous amount of snow falling right now. Meanwhile, the other two vans go the right way and everyone unloads all of the gear. The night is starting to get interesting.

6:23 -- Chad parks our van, we unload, and everybody hops the shuttle bus except for me and Kent. We didn't know if our gear got unloaded with the rest or not, so we wait.

6:26 -- Still waiting.

6:30 -- We decide to walk up and happen to meet the other van en route and find out that our gear is safely with the group, who is waiting for us. Upon arrival, I change into the boots that I am finally strapping on for the first time and I realize that I am in trouble. Definitely too tight. My ankles are not happy right now, and for good reason.

6:50 -- Kent has lift tickets and 'wickets' in hand. The lift ticket is a sticker, and the wicket loops through a zipper hole and the lift ticket is applied around it. Oh, and a tip for you newbies to the slopes: attach the wicket FIRST before applying the lift ticket. You can thank me later.

6:55 -- Kent and I deposit our shoes in a locker and head to the slopes.

7:05 -- Kent: "Lets go to the lift on the left. We can then take the next lift up to the top."
Me: "Greaaaaaaat."

I get off of the lift without any problems, and as we approach the second lift, Kent wipes out. I can't believe it! He fell before I did! We hop on the second lift and go to the top and it sounds like we pass over a dozen jet engines on full power. They make snow any time they can and tonight is no exception.

7:13 -- We are ready to go down the hill. I didn't have too much of a problem staying up. But trying to keep the speed at a tolerable level for me was more difficult the farther I got down the hill.

7:16 -- Ummmmmm! Snow!!!!!

7:18 -- I almost make it down to where we hopped the second lift and I wipe out in front of a sign that says "SLOW". Thanks for the advice. "Slow" is the probable definition of my decision to come here this weekend. Actually, I really am having a ball. It is too bad that a ski trip is a three hour minimum drive from home or I would go more often. If I had any money, that is.

7:21 -- I make it down to where Kent is minus one pole. We run into Brandon and chat. Bethany and Andrew are behind us in the lift line. We take the lift back up and wait for Bethany and Andrew at the top. Andrew exits the lift textbook. Bethany falls off the lift and wipes out to the left of the landing area. Good times. Meanwhile, Kent almost gets run down by another skier. Just standing around is dangerous.

7:28 -- I have another spectacular wipe out that sees my remaining pole and one ski go flying. Kent cruises down the hill picking up the pieces.

7:30 -- Having trouble getting the one ski back on.

7:34 -- Heh, heh. It was locked. Silly me. I am feeling very white right now. And it isn't just because of the snow.

7:45 -- After a few more death defying wipe outs, I make it to the bottom of the hill. Kent is waiting. My ankles are screaming for me to get them out of the boots. It is time to comply. I bid adieu to Kent and head to the lodge.

8:00 -- I find Liz and David and we find some comfortable seating in the lodge. Members of our group come and go as we watch replays of the Olympic proceedings that happened earlier in the day.

8:55 -- I head down to the lockers to wait for Kent. Little did I know that Kent had already come and gone. I run into David and he says that Kent is waiting on me outside. Didn't have any luck finding him.

9:15 -- I am standing out in the snow looking for somebody that I recognize. Finally, one of our vans appears like a mirage in the load/unload area. Heading over, the van pulls forward and to the side. The night just became even more interesting...

9:30 - 11:30 -- After waiting at the top with some of the others in our group, we finally decide to walk down to where the other two vans are parked. Before we leave, Jared is in the process of making a small snowman on the side of the road. He attaches the head, stands up, and the snowman inexplicably jumps off the ledge and commits snow-icide! All of us howl with laughter!

Rob's van is still at the top in the parking area, and he is unsure about getting the van, U-Haul, and passengers back down safely. After some haggling in the lower parking lot, the riders in David's van get into Chad's van, and Melvin stays behind with David. And I have to put this on the record. Chad is one cool customer. He can drive anything anywhere anytime. Chains? He don't need no stinking chains! He got us to the hotel in one piece, and we were able to unload and get back to our rooms.

Meanwhile, back at the slopes, David and Melvin are sitting in the van and they observe a lone snowboarder flying down the road. A couple of minutes later, the rest of the group arrives and Kyle asks if they have seen Adam. Yep, he was the boarder that they had seen a couple of minutes earlier, and he is nowhere to be found.

David's van finally makes it back to the hotel safely, and Melvin comes in asking if we had seen Adam, and then relays the story. We hadn't seen him, and it would have been hard to anyway, since I was having difficulty seeing anything through the tears of laughter. We see David a few minutes later, and ask about Adam. He checks and says that he did indeed make it back to the hotel. He ran out of momentum at some point, got pulled to the road by a truck, and then they brought him to the hotel. One.Crazy.Cool.Dude.

(Note: Was it just me, or does Adam look suspiciously like Mark Whalberg from his post New Kids on the Block look and updated Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch look? All he needs is a Brooklyn accent and 20 more pounds. Who's with me on this?)

SUNDAY 2/12

(Note: today will start on EST and end on CST)

8:10am -- Wake up. Get up and look at my phone for the time.

8:23 -- I tell Melvin and Jason to get up and hear "ugnuhgnuh".
"Um, dudes, it is 8:23." Both are awake NOW.

9:00 -- We pack our gear in the U-Haul and ride the shuttle bus up to the slopes.

9:05 -- Before leaving on the trip, David had made a trip to an auto parts store to pick up a couple of sets of tire chains. They were rated more for a car than big passenger vehicles. After most of the group took the shuttle bus to the slopes, Kent, David, Chad, and Rob attempted to install the chains on David's van at the hotel. They ended up being a little too small. So, they piled in, and went down the road to a place that sells tire chains.

For $125 installed! (I am sure that ABSOLUTELY NO PRICE GOUGING took place - heh), they got the heavy duty chains that were required. Once the chains were installed, David opens the door to the van and asks Kent, Chad, and Melvin how much cash they have. Then they all started laughing and looking through their pockets for money. The catch was that the installer only took cash or checks. Since there were no checks available, the bill was paid in the collected cash. Since chains were needed for the other two vans, they found an ATM, grabbed more cash, went back to the chain place and bought two more sets. Chad's van was next on the do-it-yourself-install list, and then Rob's van at the top of the hill was taken care of and moved to the parking area at the bottom of the hill.

Also, something else weird happened the night before. We had some credit card issues at the slopes on Saturday night, and Sunday morning, we found out that two employees had been fired because they were short $4000! I don't know if it was mismanagement or a gross oversight.

9:10 -- Melvin, Jason and I are out for today's festivities due to mild back, pride and ankle injuries. We get to the lodge and stake out a corner with a couple of tables. The snow is still coming down and the machines have been on all night. Winter wonderland indeed!

10:45 -- Melvin and Jason leave to go outside. They come back with newly minted $20's and take their seats. Yes, ladies and gents, they have just scalped their all day lift tickets! Actually, it was a family of five going for the afternoon session, our all day group rate was $39 per ticket, so they got a pretty good deal I suppose.

11:00 - 2:00 -- We have been getting visited by members of our group all morning, and they are showing up for lunch and well deserved rest. This must be what it is like to be popular.

11:30 -- Shane gets a cheese burger, eats it, hangs out for a few minutes, and then takes off for the slopes.

11:45 -- Shane reappears, drops his gloves and hat off, heads to the facilities with a parting comment about the burger "going through him". Whatever that means. I reply with the classic line, "Mention my name and you'll get a good seat!"

11:55 -- Shane still isn't back, and we are thinking about calling the Ski Patrol to search for him.

12:00 -- Shane finally comes back. He had evidently thought he was done with his business, so he had reassembled his bib, but then thought the better of it and had to endure round two.

12:02 -- I am whole heartedly endorsing the burgers to anyone who will listen. Even to people I don't even know. Good times all around.

12:30 -- A 9" pepperoni pizza, small cup of fries, and a large Pepsi cost me $11.75, along with one of my organs of their choosing to be named later. The girl at the checkout actually made me sign a piece of paper that said I still owe them a major internal organ, dead or alive! I have the yellow copy to prove it. She had a nice, soft country accent though, which distracted me.

1:17 -- Jim comes in for a break. He actually ate two of the burgers with no ill effects. Bald guys have all the luck. I asked Jim what his and Brandon's wife did last night, and he said, "They went to a movie that a guy would never go to." 'Nuff said.

(Note: The movie in question is Nanny McPhee. Emma Thompson must be trying to duplicate the success of Charlize Theron in Monster...ugly makeup job = Best Actress Oscar. Yeah, like it could happen again...Charlize Theron movies that I have seen = 6, Emma Thompson movies that I have seen = 0. That pretty much sums it up.)

2:24 -- The college basketball game on the TV has finally finished. We are happily watching something else when this woman walks up to the TV and starts flipping channels. Doesn't ask anybody, just starts flipping like the lodge is empty. It is her world and we are just a bunch of ski punks. Down the channels, up the channels, back down, back up through ALL of the channels. Finally settles on women's college basketball, and sits down. While all of the channel surfing was going on, I say out loud to nobody in particular, "You're worse than my dad!" Yes, I can heckle with the best of them.

2:44 -- The Goddess of the TV gets up, leaves, and never comes back.

3:09 -- Brandon shows up and he is done. Tweaked knee.

3:23 -- Kent shows up at the tables to rest. I lament to him that I should have been doing a running diary of the weekend since so many crazy things have happened. He agreed. So, I decided to do one when the trip was through. Now you are wondering how much of this diary is true and how much I have made up.

Brandon and Jim had already departed the lodge to meet the wives in the rental car. They were debating returning the car and waiting on us to pick them up, but with the deal they got (unlimited mileage), they just headed home.

4:00 -- Those of us left at the lodge make the trek out of there to the vans. Walking down the road, Kent and Liz hitch a ride with David in his van. I walked on down to the lower parking lot where Chad's van was parked, but I didn't see it. He was actually there, I just couldn't see the van since it was five parking levels down the hill. Walking back through an upper lot, I see David pulling out, and even though the van was packed, he didn't offer a ride. So, I walked to the pickup area and waited. Minutes later, Rob's chariot arrives, I get picked up, and on the way to the lower parking lot, we pick up Chad's skis that were expertly stuck upright in the snow. I still don't know how in the world they got there in the first place.

4:40 -- We make it back to the outfitters to drop off the ski equipment. I guess all of the equipment was returned since Kent didn't get hassled by the outfitter guys. The group gets changed out of their snow gear and I wander the pro shop.

5:47 -- We make it to the point where we don't need the tire chains anymore, thank goodness. And since we were the lead van, we waited for the other vans while Kent and Chad were removing our chains. After the other vans showed up, 15 cars were behind them! The chains are only rated for 30mph and below; we were doing 20, and I thought that the van was going to break up at any moment.

7:00 -- Dinner in Elizabethton! KFC vs. Mickey D's. I head to KFC. After we were through eating, we were chatting with Haley who was sitting at another table. Kevin walks up behind her, opens her purse and starts putting things into it: ketchup packets, sauce packets, the salt shaker, etc. We tried to keep her talking as long as possible, but she turned around, and Kevin was busted! He took too long. If you are gonna do that kind of thing, you just have to do it and get out of there.

Also, while I was eating, I called Brandon to get a road report and find out where they were. They were 30 miles east of Knoxville, and it was snowing hard. They had also heard about a wreck near Crossville, and he would call back if they ran into any more trouble.

8:00 -- With dinner complete and the vans fully fueled, we are off again. The MP3 player has been flawless. Kyle picked up a mini flashlight that clips to stuff so that he can study on the way home.

9:45: Rest stop. It isn't quite time for the 9:00 news in Nashville, but I call mom anyway. She agrees to watch the news to see about the wreck and call me back. I am trying to not go to sleep, because I know if I do, I will be up for the rest of the night. Brandon calls and says that they are stopped at mile marker 309, and the wreck is at 305. TDOT is supposed to have the wreck cleared by 10pm CST.

10:00 -- Brandon calls and says that they have only moved a mile in the last 15 minutes.

10:07 -- Mom calls after watching the news. The wreck closed down the east bound lanes, but westbound should be open, which means that Brandon and Co are rubbernecking with everyone else.

(Note: The story now returns to CST.)

10:25 -- We get to the site of the wreck, and traffic is running smoothly again. Two tractor trailers were involved. The one that was behind ditched into the median and seemed to be intact. The one up front had more damage, was jackknifed in the median, and the now snow covered contents of the cracked open trailer were on display.

10:51 -- We arrive in Cookeville for the last fuel stop of the night before getting back to the church. At varying points along the way, members of our van had or were sleeping at this point. Phillip was on the first bench seat behind the driver, Jared was stretched out on the second seat, and earlier in the evening, Adam had found a spot on the floor. Well, I had forgotten about Adam, since it was dark in the van. As Chad was fueling up, Adam suddenly appears right in front of me, almost like Dracula. I completely freaked out since I had forgotten that he was down there on the floor!

12:06 -- We arrive at the church. I stow my gear in the Honda, and then decide to do my good deed for the day. I scraped the ice and snow off of a few windshields before taking off for home.