Steamboat: another try at snowboarding

   Well, Snowboard, you didn't scare me away: I'm back out for Round Two! Chris's friend Julianne had a free ticket for the Steamboat Ski School, so I took a 2.5 hour group lesson. My instructor was Neill Redfern, who apparently used to be quite the expert Lacrosse player in North Carolina. He had been teaching snowboarding in Steamboat for 9 years, so I knew I was in good hands. There were 4 others in the lesson, and we were all about equally bad, save the one guy who was an avid skateboarder as a kid.

   The lesson was a good overview of the skills (same things Chris was showing me the day before), but in the end I only got to try to go downhill twice, as we had to take turns so Neill could help us. So I was sorry to admit that I wasn't going to learn snowboarding on this trip. Chris and I met up with Julianne and Cody at the Truffle Pig for apres-ski, then left and met up again soon after to cook a quick dinner together, then see True Grit.

Enjoying the alpine glow:

   Too soon, it was time to head back home from Fantasyland. I packed and we returned my gear to Powder Pursuits, Chris showed me where he works and introduced me to his coworkers, then took me to the airport. There was some trouble with Frontier's computers, and for a few minutes I was thinking I wasn't going to be able to leave (YAY!) but they eventually figured it out (BOO!)

   It was nice to get away for a few days to a place that actually had snow, because between LA & KC, it hardly felt like winter! Can't wait for my next excursion to Colorado. Going to have to work on the snowboarding thing before then!