Four Letter Words Three Letters Long
Posted in We woke up very early Saturday morning and caught the 6:15 flight to Minneapolis. As best as we can tell, we got out just in time, since the snow had not started falling in Atlanta yet. Our Minneapolis to Salt Lake City was a little late, but we were able to avoid the Sundance traffic in Park City and hit the slopes at Deer Valley by 2:30. This was my wife’s first time skiing in six years, and she skied great. She was moving down the slopes with good form and a nice pattern to her turns. And then she fell.
I saw her fall and didn’t think that much of it, but then I saw her face. I wanted to believe that it wasn’t that bad. And for a little while none of us thought it was. She managed to get back on her skis and finish the run. She even got back on the lift and skied a short way over to the gondola. But she couldn’t walk up to the hill to the car. A few bags of snow and a night of icing her knee didn’t help, and we started our day at Alta in the medic’s office. And that’s when we heard it.
A. C. L.
After only four runs her ski trip was over. Worse, rather than preparing for a day on the slopes she had to begin thinking about how we were going to take care of the boys while she spends five days in bed recovering from knee surgery. This is not how our happy trip to Utah was supposed to turn out. If anyone was supposed to get hurt, it was me, and it was to happen while I was doing something stupid. The best wife in the world wasn’t supposed to get hurt on a fluke fall on an easy slope. The rest of the day was spent with her sitting in the pub while I half-heartedly made a few runs on the perfectly groomed slopes and muttered obscenities under my breath.
I might talk about the good parts of our trip later, but for now, really what else matters?
Update - it could have been much worse. As we were flying out a professional skier was making videos on the backside of the mountains we were skiing when he also fell. My friend and I were watching Warren Miller videos during our layover on the trip up. They’re cool as hell, but you never heard about the guys who die making them. I think we’ll stick to the beginner side of the mountain.
