On the road again

I have been bad about keeping up here, so I will attempt to catch up over the next few days. I seem to be too busy doing outdoor stuff and hanging with friends/family to ever make time to write.

So, I quit my job, donated six carloads of unnecessary items to goodwill, loaded my car with the essentials (camping, climbing, skiing gear), and headed East. Well, after locking my keys in my car (this never happens!) and going the wrong way on the freeway (stupid new GPS)...it felt like California was not going to let me leave, like that Eagles song.

My car while waiting for the road assistance to get my keys out. The Wing-ged Jesus was carefully affixed to the front of my car by my roommate Christian to ensure a safe journey.

First stop was Truckee to visit Natalie who is now on ski patrol at Northstar. She had to work every day that I was there, but I managed to find fun things to do during the day, and we would meet up at night. My roommate Christian gave me a pair of K2 skies as I was leaving Oakland, so I needed boots, pants, goggles, and poles. I went to a consignment shop in Truckee and got all of these items for just over $200. I figure I will easily spend over that in rentals over the next two months. There happened to be a bouldering room at the shop, so while they adjusted my bindings, I climbed for two hours. The next day (Jan 4th), I went skiing for the first time in about 10 years. I was anxious about it because I have a torn PCL in my right knee, and if I tear another ligament, I will be down and out for a long time. It was awesome though! It really is like riding a bike. I skied 7000 vert feet that day until I couldn't ski any more. I met up with Natalie at one point and she took me alongside the terrain park. She went way ahead to watch jumpers, and I thought it would be funny to go off a small side jump, but I wiped out and ended up on the lip of the jump with a ski shooting off into the woods. So much for showing off.