A vacation of Mammoth proportions

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I am still mad at my husband for taking me to the top of the hill

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Fuck me how can my body still hurt this bad four days later.

For Christmas my parents sent Rob and I to Mammoth to snowboard.  My husband loves to snowboard and has always wanted to go.  Somehow I got roped into this situation because ONCE UPON A TIME I USED TO KNOW HOW TO GET DOWN A HILL WITH OUT FALLING.  Snowboarding falls under the category of "Things Shannon could do when she was in high school and not afraid of dying."

My husband likes to say, "babe you snow board fine, you probably make it down the hill faster then me."

Shooting down the hill straight as fast as possible then coming to a massive stop usually right in front of someone on skis who shouts "SNOWBOARDERS SHOULD GET OFF THE FUCKING HILL," and then shooting back down the hill at top speed not slowing down because if I turn any which way to slow down I will eat shit, is not what I consider snowboarding.

But he had faith in me.

Silly boy.

We wake up Monday in Mammoth to a beautiful day.  It was sunny and bright and I’m thinking, "shit this day is gonna be a breeze." We ventured off to Old New York Bakery & Deli.  Where I was immediately overwhelmed with food choices.  I settled on an everything bagel with a fried egg, plain cream cheese, avocado and cheddar cheese.

And then I went to food heaven.

I am a firm believer that the messier the food is the better it taste.  I also ordered the BEST Caramel machiato coffee ON THE PLANET.

 

Then it was time.  We went to the gondola (everyone there kept saying GONE-DOE-LUH) with some kind of weird accent that every person in Mammoth used when saying that word.  And then it happened we were at the lodge.  There was a chair lift and my husband wanted to get on it. So we did.  And I panicked like always that I would fall on my ass getting off the chair lift, but I didn’t.  I sailed off there so smooth that I knew this day would kick ass.

And then I snowboarded 15 feet.

The next thing Rob saw was his wife faceplanted in the snow.

I don’t even know what happened.  I was going along just fine, aiming for the trail Rob was on when this ski lady got in front of me (skiers really shouldn’t be allowed on the hill) and I moved a little to avoid her.  Only that sent me on a different trail then Rob towards some ski lift.  I looked at him, looked at the lift, turned my board a little and

OOOOF THBT THUMP PLEGHF

That is the sound of my board catching and me literally slamming face first into the ground.  I hit so hard I knocked the air out of me.  Hint: THAT WAS HARD.  Rob came over to see if I was okay, and according to him my whole face was even covered in snow đŸ˜¦

I can’t believe not even five minutes in and I was soaked.  When we got on that lift Rob pointed out some big hill.  AKA the top of Mammoth.  For those of you not familiar Mammoth is about as tall as two Megatrons, a Bumble Bee and a Sears tower stacked up.  I told him he could totally go up there himself and I’d play on the bunny hill.  He said NO.  That he doesn’t like boarding alone, he would not go alone and that tomorrow we were going up that fucking hill.

I pouted.

And cussed at him.

A few runs down I was starting to hurt.

Like bad.

You see, since I only know one way to go down my legs don’t get a lot of movement which means I spend about 90% of the run in a sitting position.  You know that challenge on Biggest Loser where they have to go lean against a wall and sit as if a chair was under them until they fall? That is Shannon on a snowboard, so you have to imagine how much my quads and ass were hurting.  This combined with my previous running injury to my knee and ankle and things were starting to get bad.  So I stopped and asked Rob to adjust my bindings a little.

And away we went.

The whole time Rob is like, "okay just go to the left and take that lift."  So I do.  Then we get on this lift and he is all HE HE HE HE WE ARE GOING TO THE TOP.

To which I have a panic attack and wonder why on earth I didn’t pack a Xannax snowboarding.  Then get really mad at him, then kind of freak out again and then

I’M ON TOP OF A FUCKING MOUNTAIN GET ME DOWN.

I get off the lift and am greeted with a giant sign like this:

Rob wanted to take a picture by it but there was NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL because in order to get close enough for a picture I would have to get close enough to fall down the whole hill.

He got this picture instead.

Look honey I’m at the top of your bullshit fucking hill asshole.

Around this time I’m saying, "I have a really bad feeling about this."

So we took a couple of "oh look how happy I am to be on top of a death trap" photos and found an "easier" way down.   But first we adjusted my bindings again.

One last photo before I fall to my death.

Pretending I don’t want to rip his head off for taking me to the top of this mountain.

The easier way was going around this back path with a teeny little road.  If you got anywhere near the teeny little road you went down a very large, very steep, shit your pants kind of a hill.  So I hugged the wall on the other side.  Problem is for whatever reason I kept slamming into the wall.  Then I would get up. Only for me to get up I have to be on my knees.  But when I crash I usually land on my ass.  This means I have to roll over.  I have devised a method of rolling over, where I rock my whole body to one side, attempt to thrown my snowboard over the same way, then get stuck, flop back over, and have to start again until I flip myself around. 

At this point my husband dubbed me a "rolly polly."
 

The next problem is, after rolling over my back is facing down the hill, which is what normal boarders do, but Shannon is ascareded of that so I promptly stand up and try and spin myself around facing down hill again. 

Are you dizzy yet? Because I was.

However, 70% of the time I do this I cause myself to slam back into the ground.  Rob usually boards ahead of me a few feet then sits down and waits for me.  This takes a while, especially on this little road thing because I fell down about 8 times.  So I catch him and I’m pretty mad about it all.  But I get really mad when I realize we are now STUCK on the backside of the motherfucking mountain.  I’m hurting BAD and I just want to rest, but you can’t rest when you are on the back of a mountain.  We get on another lift that claims to get us down and head down.  Now I’m really hurting.  In fact I’m hurting so bad that when I finally find Rob I have tears streaming down my face.

YES I WAS A PUSSY I WAS CRYING.

The last binding adjustment was a bad idea and I was really in pain.  Like 10 more minutes of this and my ankle might break.

I don’t know why he didn’t take a picture of me then.  If it had been me I totally would have taken a picture of a cry baby on a mountain. We fix my binding and get down the hill and

THE LODGE THE GLORIOUS LODGE I’M OFF THE HILL.

Right?

WRONG!!!!

Wrong lodge.  We were about 17 mountains away from our lodge.  This is the point where I texted my mom that if I didn’t get a shot of Jaeger in me shit was gonna get bad.

She texted back that I maybe needed two shots.

Rob was trying to find the GONE DOE LUH back to some more ski lifts to try and get us to our lodge.  I put my foot down and said, "dude now is the time to feed me, get me drunk and let me rest."

So we went in and I sent him off to get me some garlic fries (amazing) and told the bartender I needed some stuff.

Shot of Jaeger

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Hot apple pie (Tuaca & apple cider).

I merrily drank my stuff, ate my fries and got ready to go.

See, look I’m all happy and shit.

We find the gondola, get off, get on a lift and head for our lodge.  About four seconds into it, and one crash later I realized I was not drunk and my mom was wrong, I NEEDED ABOUT FOUR SHOTS OF JAEGER.  I was a little pissed.  I knew I should have had a few more drinks.  After a loooong time we made it down the hill.  I was hurting and crying and mad and THE LODGE I SEE THE LODGE I SEE THE

BAMN CRASH BOOM.

I face planted, then flipped over my back side, rolled down the hill and landed back on my face.  Not even 100 feet from the lodge. Not to mention I knocked the wind out of myself for the second time in one day.

Oooooh I was mad.

I finally got off that hill and we went back to the room to try and rustle up some dinner. 

But first I had to go against all I believe in and wear some "skinny" pants. I’m sorry friends, but seriously it was a necessity up on the mountain with nothing but boots to wear.

(And I didn’t even hate them)

 

We ended up at the "Smokeyard BBQ & chop shop."  I walked in and knew I was in a happy place.

Then we ordered our weight in food.  Smoked Gouda artichoke dip, onion rings, wings, chili, rib eyes.  Oh yea we went for the gold.  The problem was THE FOOD WAS MAMMOTH.  Seriously everything was mega large there.

Here is a picture of my "cup" of chilli.  Behind that you can see my "small" order of onion rings.

That "cup" of chili was a bowl bigger then my salad bowl at home.  I was horrified.  I also ordered a drink. Some amaretto, Kaluha, Baileys, coffee concoction.

And then my husbands says, "hey lets get dessert."

This would be the DARK CHOCOLATE MACADAMIA WITH WHITE CHOCOLATE BUTTERSCOTCH TOPPED WITH ICE CREAM COVERED IN CARAMEL dessert.

We might as well have been having sex at the dinner table that shit was so good.

On the way back though we both started to feel a little sick.

The flu.

Yay.  So imagine two things, one of them is having your entire body hurt from being slammed around a mountain all day, and then spending the night with that kind of flu that makes your whole body hurt.  Yeah it was heaven.

But the second thing is being trapped in a room with your husband while you have the flu.  Because duh, I don’t like to fart or poop near him.  So add in the worst stomach ache of my life and you have my Monday night.

But boy that brownie was good.

The hard part was climbing the two flights of stairs to our room when I could barely breath.  Chest slamming the snow twice in one day really makes it hard to climb a flight of stairs.

Tuesday was much of the same.  We went up the hill, Shannon fell down the hill.  We went up the hill, Shannon slid face first down the hill.

Finally we got snowed out and wandered off to a place called "Burgers" for some lunch.  They don’t have a link but wow.  We ordered and my husbands says, "if I wasn’t still feeling sick I would have got the Mammoth burger."  Sooo good he didn’t because when our burgers came out (mine, veggie burger on sourdough grilled in butter, with avocado, swiss cheese, and mushrooms) our eyes bugged out of our heads.

DUDE!

DUDE!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

I couldn’t even fit my mouth around it.  But dear God was it good shit.  I mean.  WOW. Just WOW.

We ate and went back to our rooms where I got the bright idea I would walk to Ben & Jerry’s.

Funny.

I walked into a blizzard.  So here I am walking straight into a wind/snow storm, soaked to the bone to buy ICE CREAM!

I make it back to the room looking like a drowned cat and sat down to enjoy the ice cream I nearly froze to death for, only to discover a hair in it.

Fuck this I’m going to bed.

I went to sleep with this window:

I woke up to this window.

Hmm that’s odd.  Let’s go check on my car.

Oh there it is.

Wait…no

There it is.

I walked back upstairs and said, "uh honey I can’t find my car."

We (he) got our car dug out and headed out of town.

He pulled over to the side of the road to get some snow off the car and I rolled my window down.  The snow was so high I could touch it out my car window.  I drive a Yukon, my car window is pretty high up.

The drive home was beautiful.

Every time we drove this way it was dark so it was nice to see it all in the day.

Somewhere in Topaz.

We finally made it home.  I was sad.  I missed my boys like crazy but I was having fun living up in my little snowball.  I spent a ton of time reading my book, Anna Karenina and watching old episodes of Saved By the Bell.  We had a really good trip and even though my body hurts so bad that yesterday my arm shook a little when I tried to write I would go again.  (Next time with a few more shots of Jaeger).  I still hurt. Like four or five days later I hurt.  Not just a little, not like after you work out and hurt the next day but I hurt as if someone was punching on me all day.   My right arm hurts to type, my left leg is useless, my abs hate me.  It’s pretty bad.  I think next time Jillian wants to punish people on the Biggest Loser she should send them to the top of Mammoth and say HA HA SUCKERS SEE YOU AT THE BOTTOM.

Thanks mom and dad.  But next year I think you need to either come flying down the mountain with me, or send me to somewhere with less chance of breaking a bone.

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