Mountain time

They say time flies. I say it whistles through the air like lightning. WSHKAAHHH!

You know how I know that? Because Shawn and I's Big Sky trip has already came and went.

I distinctly remember the day I called Shawn to tell him that our trip was only 3 weeks away.

I wish I could call that Jill of that past up and say, "Girl, you gotta another thing comin." With my finger in the air and a little horizontal head weave.

So, yeah, back to the old grind. Nothing but a memory now. But boy oh boy, what a memory it is!! Let me illustrate:

We got there on the eve of little Alli's 21st. We were all rip-roaring to go... at 9:30 PM. But as the weariness of the 12 hour drive started to take its toll, midnight seemed pretty far away. So we moseyed to the nearby bar to see if they'd serve Alli while she was still 20, but only technically. Hey, it's Montana. The bartender hesitated for a moment before conceding. We kicked off Alli's adult life with a night of Big Buck Hunter and lemon drop shots. Oh what a night.

The next was our first day of boarding. Let's just note that neither Shawn nor I had boarded since March last spring, and we decide to open the season on Lone Mountain. We knew we were in for it. We packed ibuprofin. 'Twas a grrrrrreat first day. The snow was pow and the runs were gnar. We enjoyed homemade lunch of turkey sandwiches and Montana mountain mix.

We roomed with Alli and her New Zealand roommate. Shawn described being around her perfectly as, "like living with a ghost." Creepy, smelly, quiet, and a non-smiley. She neither evokes nor emits smiles or any smile-like emotions. Weird. Alli and Shawn will agree that my Big Sky blog wouldn't have been complete without mentioning plain Sarah Jane.

Anyway, Monday Shawn and I adventured Lone Mountain with out Alli. Whiskey Jacks took her hostage and made her carry food and beverages around all day, pure torture. Anyway, Shawn and I decided we'd try the Challenger lift, but it's more like an elevator. STRAIGHT UP. I consider Shawn to be a pretty awesome, good looking, brave, handsome, talented, pretty, snowboarder and even he was nervous. There was a point at which we both looked at eachother through our goggles and airholes and said, via mind waves, "I don't think I'm going to be able to do this." That's how *NSYNC we are. It took us near an hour from the top to the villa down below. Thinking back it was probably one of the funnest runs of the trip.

Alli had this ingenious idea of doing a picture for the Where's the Post segment in our Ashby paper. So I brought one out and we spent our 3rd day taking pictures of us catching up on our hometown happenings while on the mountain. It was good fun, for Alli and I anyways. Shawn might have froze off a finger or two manning the camera for so long. He's a keeper. We ended up with some terrific shots. I like how, even surrounded by the incomparable surroundings, we are revited by what seems to be the obituary section. If you don't LOL at this, that's plain sad.

Wednesday was our last day of boarding. We still hadn't recovered from the soreness of the first day. We recieved a large amount of brand new snow and enjoyed wonderful, sunny weather. We tried to cram all we could into Wednesday, but we were pretty exhausted from the grueling pace. We're a couple of sissys, perhaps. Anyway, we found a run with a few jumps that Shawn and I tried about 30 times. Both of us ended up bruising our ribs pretty bad when the landing didn't happen. But hey, we're learning... that 360s don't come so easily on your first few days of boarding...and that carrying a flask on your chest won't soften the blow in any way whatsoever....and that sneezing hurts.