Last weekend, John and I went to Lake Tahoe with a group of friends. We headed out late Friday night and arrived in the mountains very early the next morning. It was snowing/icing/hailing, and “chain control” took a good hour to pass. The theme of the weekend was physical exertion. Seriously, I need some new friends– preferably ones who do not set personal goals of doing marathons, triathlons, and/or other ridiculously taxing activities.

Maybe I was just sleep-deprived. I don’t know, but Saturday we started the weekend off with a bang. Snowshoeing. Yes, sounds peaceful, relaxing, and slow-paced… Do not be deceived. We snowshoed for nearly FOUR hours. I thought I was going to faint. My fatal mistake was wearing those damned snowboarding boots to showshoe. They were fucking heavy as hell and the tongue dug into my shin the whole damn time. Oh man, I was exhausted. Sure, the view was awesome once we got to the ridge that is Angorra Falls. Lake Tahoe was to the right; Fallen Leaf Lake was to the left. It was a beautiful clear and sunny day. But 2 hours would have sufficed. Seriously. I’m not training to be Rocky or anything.

So fine. About 4 hours, we made it back to the house. Thank goodness there was a giant hot tub to ease away the aches and pains. Of course, I wanted to just chill in the tub, but no, there was no rest for the weary. Way too much social interaction going on in what I usually consider my sanctuary. Haha, I told you I’m an antisoc at heart. Anyway, I went to bed pretty early that night. A bunch of people showed up at the house later. John said it felt like a house party. Definitely way too many degrees of separation for me. So yeah, I retreated to the bedroom; unfortunately, I didn’t get much sleep.

The next day, we hit Sierra-at-Tahoe. I immediately put my skate helmet to good use: a couple belly flops (holy shit that hurt!), head hits, ass falls. On my way down Corkscrew Trail, a snowboarder chick plowed into me and PUSHED ME DOWN to preserve her own ass. Beotch! I felt like I was in a roller derby or something. But for my second time snowboarding, I guess I did ok. Meanwhile, John had a very relaxing day snowshoeing around Lake Tahoe.

On Monday, I was back on the slopes again– a true glutton for punishment. First trip down the bunny slope, I caught the front lip and belly flopped. It was a really bad crash. Face down, I felt my body give that guttural “ugh.” Sweet Dave, he was right there asking if I was ok. He fixed my sunglasses– the metal nosepads had basically warped flat from smashing into my face. The snowmobile medic even came by to ask if I needed medical attention. I thought to myself: this must be what it’s like to be body slammed in UFC. Seriously, after two days snowboarding, my body was the most beat up it had ever been, with bruised knees, butt, ribs. Ridiculous hurtlocker. But all in the name of good fun, right?

Nah really, I’m not yet convinced about these snow sports. They still seem like way too much effort considering the driving distance, the crazy amounts of gear, the expense… the good news is that John gave skiing another try. He took a lesson and again, his feet were KILLING him to the point of going numb. But I had him exchange his boots for a bigger size, and miraculously, that solved the problem. After that, he was riding the lift, going down the bunny slopes without any falls. He’s so cute. So maybe next year, we’ll hit the slopes again. I might even go back to skiing… snowboarding might just be too cool for me.