On the first weekend of January in Colorado, thousands of city-dwelling kids head up the two-lane highway into the mountains for the first day of their ski programs. The desire to get up to the slopes is so great that many parents pull their kids out of class early to beat the traffic. Priorities, right?
While we do not advocate the “early Ski Friday pull”, we were definitely excited for the season to officially begin. But Friday night, temperatures dropped below negative 10 in the mountains, sending our planned ski day into a tailspin.
As we approached the car Saturday morning, we heard an explosion like fireworks. Turns out, it was the rear window of our car shattering into a million pieces. My husband had turned the car on to warm it up, and as it heated up, the contrast between the inside and outside was too much for the glass. Ker-pow!
No problem. We hopped in the car anyway and brought the boys to the mountain. I started calling potential repair shops, and my husband and I left for Walmart to buy plastic and duct tape. The Walmart is at least 20 minutes away from where we had dropped the kids, and the very nice gentleman who assisted us was quite concerned that the color of the duct tape match the color of our car. We were in no rush…
…until the cell phone rang.
Our oldest was calling from ski patrol, where they were tending to his younger brother, who had passed out at the base of the gondola. Dehydration. Altitude. not enough bacon for breakfast? It has happened before, which is the only reason, ski patrol said, they hadn’t called an ambulance. Please come quickly.
So, we threw the plastic and our matching duct tape into the car, and raced back to the mountain, where all was well, but….
….on the way, my sister, who was dog-sitting for us, called. Did we know tree trimmers were at the house trimming our favorite walnut?
Nope. So with the now balmy negative 2 degree air coming in the rear window and our child woozy at ski patrol, I had to tell the tree trimmer to please desist until we could supervise.
Now, the one family member who we had not heard from all day, was our nine year old, who was in ski school. We assumed that his day, at least, had been normal.
Not so. His ski instructor arrived back at the base early and angry, due to the bad behavior of the kids. And while our son was happily (and somewhat surprisingly) not the perpetrator, he is not ready for black diamonds and is being moved to a less adventurous group. He looked absolutely defeated, as I am sure, did we.
So, when I bought the big red Gatorade to rehydrate the woozy one, I also bought a lottery ticket. We’re due, right?
jennswondering 