Weekend Ski Trip

I was looking at the calendar and saw we had things going on for a while so we decided to come up to Eagar this weekend. Sophie had a ½ day on Friday so we left Thursday night after her dance class. Matt and I went skiing all day on Friday at Sunrise (ski resort on Apache reservation) while Jo and Sam watched the kids. It was a perfect day for skiing. There is more snow than there’s been in 15 years and it was sunny and warm. Since it was a Friday, it was not crowded at all. There were several runs with no tracks.

On Saturday, we went on a drive looking for Elk. We didn’t see any because there were hunters out but we did see a large herd of Antelope.

At about 10, I took Sophie to rent skis and we headed up to the slopes. The parking lot was full so the parking guy told us to park in an overflow parking a few miles away and that a bus would bring us back. We parked and hiked quite a while with no idea where a bus would come. It was so hot and Sophie was exhausted and frustrated—she really wanted to go home. After almost being hit by a car and wandering too long, we finally found the bus stop. When the bus pulled up I thought it was a joke—it looked like it was on the way to a greatful dead concert—the driver had long hair, was blaring the music and kept on yelling—“Alright” as if it was a party. I swear I could smell pot on the bus and there was a box in the front where the first aiid kits usually goes that said “bodily fluid clean up kit”. Anyway, when we finally made it to the main lifts, Sophie really wanted to go home. We went to the bunny hill and I tried to help her go down little slopes. I kept my skiis off and carried her up the hill a few times. She was not putting any effort into it though and kept saying she wanted to go home. So we went to the lodge, waited ½ hour in line to eat a gross lunch and then we just relaxed for a while. Once she seemed rested, we put all of our excess layers in a locker and I decided to give this one more shot and we went straight for the lift. Suprisingly, she loved the lift and got off fine without faling. We spent the next 2 hours going up and down the bunny hill and she had a great time. I held her hand the whole time but she made good progress. Then we even went up the big lift and did green runs twice. I was so proud of her—she did great.

On the way out, we waited for ½ hour for the bus with no luck. Then a pickup drove up and I recognized the driver as the Apache guy that had been guiding traffic at the parking lot. He asked if people needed a ride and all of the people we were waiting with said yes and hopped into the bed of the truck. We decided to join in. We were almost hanging off of the bed of the truck and were crammed in with everyone’s skis/snowboards. You would think that under the circumstances they would have driven carefully, but the spun out of there and Sophie kept on saying “this is my last day to be on earth”. Everyone else jumped out at a different parking lot and only Sophie and I were left alone in the bed of this truck. When all the skis were gone we realized we were also sitting on a bunch of trash. I could just picture headlines reading “mother and daughter missing in Apache reservation”. But fortunately they did take us up the road 5 miles to our car. It would have been no big deal if it were Matt and I, but with Sophie it seemed like such an adventure. I was truly surprised how the reservation really did feel like a 3rd world country.

Sunday Morning we watched Same shoe a horse and the girls and I got to ride.