#71 - Surf and Ski on the Same Day

Me & Jules after
killin' it on the Bay

Living in Southern California, one of the few places in the world where it's possible to hit up water sports and snow sports in the same day, this has been on my list since I moved to San Diego.  It took my student office coworkers to make it happen though.

 It also took some editing.  Ocean conditions and my desire to be cool turned "Surf and Ski on the Same Day" into "Wakeboard and Snowboard on the Same Day."  Both fit the ocean-to-snow concept, so it counts.

So pumped for tubing

A couple weeks back I signed up to take a wakeboarding class at Mission Bay Aquatic Center *(where I took my advanced sailing lessons this past summer) with Juliana Spina, one of my favorite student office assistants.  This past Friday was week 2 for me and although we had some pretty choppy water, I managed to land one jump, which made me pretty happy.  Then, since it was so choppy, we traded our boards for tubes.  Tubing was way scarier than wakeboarding but was also a ton of fun.  It was definitely a great start to the Best. Friday. Ever.

Then I headed to work, went to a meeting, washed some jerseys, printed some scoresheets, and waited for Jenn Hayes and Corry Vogel, my other two favorite student office assistants.  

Corry is way better than me
at snowboarding.  Like,
way better.

We packed up the car with all of our gear, -- and by "our gear," I mean Jenn's, Corry's, and Tara Edberg's gear as Tara lent me her snow gear as I somehow don't have any anymore -- and I couldn't get over that the car was filled with snow gear for use in 3 hours time, yet I was still comfortable in shorts, a t-shirt, and sunglasses.  (Side note: I should have changed before arriving as I was not so comfortable when we arrived and it was 40 degrees.)

We had a delightful road trip with music, stories, gambling, and a fantastically beautiful highway wall sighting.

Bonus: Mountain High Ski Resort is in Angeles National Forest, so I managed to fit in 2 list items on the Best. Friday. Ever!

I was so pumped to pull into the resort.  We parked.  I gazed up excitedly at the mountain... and saw a mix of mud and ice.  Uh oh.  All this time I'd been fed stories about how inferior Midwest ski conditions are to west coast conditions that I hadn't considered that "Southern California's Closest Winter Resort" was probably a carefully chosen slogan.  I'd certainly skiied bigger and snowier mountains.

We bought our $20 College Night lift tickets, I got my rentals, and we headed out to the snowiest-looking slopes.  

Jenn: "Please don't drop your phone."

I fell a lot.  And laughed a lot.  And had a fantastically fun evening with Jenn & Corry.  While the conditions left a lot to be desired, they were totally fine for a couple hours of fun and warming back up to boarding.  

By the end of the night, the muscles in my legs were sore from all of the day's boarding and the muscles in my cheeks were sore from all of the day's smiling.

Dang, what a great day.

Cheeks so sore from the smiles

#85 - Visit a New National Park

Yay for surprise list items!

ROAD TRIP!

When I agreed to go snowboarding with Corry Vogel & Jenn Hayes, I had no idea we'd be heading into the Angeles National Forest.  In fact, there were a few things that surprised me during our road trip to the mountains.

1.  We were in the desert for all except maybe the last 20-30 minutes of the 2-3 hour drive.  Like, we were 10 minutes away and still hadn't seen snow yet.  That was weird.

2.  Corry's favorite wall.

3.  Mountain High Ski Resort is in the Angeles National Forest.

Ideally, we would have gotten out and taken a picture at one of the park areas, the park areas were all closed, so we kept going so we wouldn't break any laws and be prosecuted in another county.  Instead, here's a picture of us driving.  For more pics of us snowboarding, see the next post!

My arm looks super weird in this picture.

UPDATE

Another surprise list item!  On my drive across the country with my dad, we found ourselves in the Petrified Forest and made a few stops in the Painted Desert in Arizona.  It was incredibly beautiful the way the light rolled across the desert with the clouds.  It was also cool to see the layers of sediment and all of the colors.  Fantastic.  I would love to go back there when it's not so hot.  Haha.

Painted Desert