For New Years this year, my girlfriend, Christine, and I decided to take trip up to Snowshoe, WV. I had been there once before in college and had a blast. I had only been snowboarding that one time before and Christine had never been skiing.
One of Christine's best friends Kerri and her friend Dave decided to join us. This would be both Kerri and Dave's first time snowboarding. The original plan was to fly to Philadelphia where Dave lived, rent a car and then drive to Snowshoe. After thinking about it, I decided I'd rather just drive the truck and make a road trip out of it.
We stopped in Jacksonville the first night, stopped in Charlotte on the second, and made it to Snowshoe on the third night. We had 3 full days on the mountain dedicated to shredding.
We took lessons the first day. Even though I had snowboarded once before I decided to take a lesson since it had been 5 years and it was all self taught last time. Christine was the only skier in our group and attended that beginner class.
It came back to me pretty quickly and I started taking a few runs down the mountain. After ski class, Christine jokingly said she was a "pro". I took this a little to literally and suggested we schralp a green run. This green run was very mellow in the beginning but she hadn't learned S turns and was plowing her way down. This became problematic as the slope began to steepen towards the bottom. She flew by me at mach speed when the mountain became to steep to plow. After eating it a couple times down the mountain we were finally at the bottom and in line for the lift. It was a very quiet ride back up the mountain.
That was it for her first day and I let her cool down back at the room while I gave her some space (continued to play). The following day's lesson proved very helpful for her. By our third day, she made it down a bunch of green runs with out falling once. Success!
We also did some tubing one of the nights which was a lot of fun. We got so close to hitting the balloon bumper at the bottom.
Hot chocolate makes it all better.
We just stayed in our room, Snowdale, for New Years and gorged ourselves on Taquitos and wine. At least Dave and myself gorged.
On the way home, we stayed in Savannah. Christine was adamant about eating at Paula Deen's restaurant the Lady and Sons. It gets packed, so we put our names on the list nice and early that next morning. I will just say it was the best southern cooking I've had. Fried chicken was amazing. Everything was definitely better with butter.
