The Answer is 31

One of the things I did not know when we moved to New Mexico last year, was that they had skiing so close to where we moved. We were moving to the Permian Basin, see that second word, a basin, which is flat. The area used to be an ocean. Oceans do not have mountains and skiing.
So last year when we realized just how close we were to a mountain that had snow and ski lifts, we took off and skied. Me! I skied.

Have I told you of my amazing sports expertise? The only extracurricular sport I ever participated in – volleyball. And we were the Deadbeats. And we sucked. Kaytabug, I hope I am not shattering any delusions of grandeur that you may have held onto, we sucked.

I am clumsy and accident prone. And yet, I skied! I absolutely loved it. The beauty, the serenity, the speed when I flew down the mountain. I enjoyed it so much!

Of course, I fell. However, once I kinda sorta got the hang of it though, I didn’t fall too much and most importantly, I didn’t hurt myself when I fell. I absolutely fell in love with skiing.

This year, I was thrilled to go. We have been talking about it for several weeks. I was here in NM just 2 weeks ago, and but for a nasty cold, we would have hit the slopes. This weekend, we were going.

We left Friday night, leaving at 8 P.M. We arrived just before midnight, and settled in for a good night’s sleep, setting the alarm for an early rise in order to hit the slopes early. Of course, we snoozed a bit, and then drug our asses around for a couple hours. We finally headed up the mountain. A 20 minute drive, going 20 mph. It is gorgeous, just a magnificent sight. We get to the lodge and get in line to rent our equipment. Only to find that they don’t rent ski bibs. The pants, a requirement! We could buy pants for just the mere cost of our first born. So we headed back down the mountain. There, we obtained our full rental gear and headed up the mountain once again.

By this time, it was just an hour until the cost of a ski pass would be reduced to the half day cost, so we waited it out, snacking on suspicious carne asada and fajitas. The Mescalero Indian tribe is not known for their ability to cook Mexican food. Just a warning.

Finally, we were off. We headed for the bunny slope to ensure we knew what we were doing. Ran down that a couple times. Once we both felt secure enough in our bunny slope mastery, we headed to the next least difficult slope, the Easy Rider.

The biggest difficulty with skiing is that after you kinda sorta have the hang of it, there are still a lot of people that don’t kinda sorta have the hang of it. They fall, then they sit where they fell, considering who will win the Super Bowl, what they should have for dinner, or which Spice Girl was the hottest. Avoiding these fallen skiers is dangerous and causes me to fall. Even though I kinda sorta have the hang of it.

I love skiing. I love riding up the lifts, looking out at the amazing view, the nervousness of getting off the lift safely, avoiding others and the rush when you start flying down the slope. The rising excitement as you continue down the mountain.

You know, there is no real reason to keep going on and on about this.

Because this is how it really went:

1. Get on ski lift and travel up slope;
2. Get off ski lift;
3. Ski between 10-30 yards;
4. Spot a lump of human flesh on the slope;
5. Fall;
6. Bang tailbone;
7. Bang head;
8. Skid 10 feet;
9. Hurry to my feet to obtain whatever piece of equipment I had lost;
10. Ski down remaining portion of slope where I would:

• a. Repeat steps 4-10; or,
• b. Make it all the way down and repeat all previous steps.

I started fussing at the people gathered around the area where you get off the ski lift at the top of the slope, blaming them for causing many people to fall, because, "Hi, you just got off the lift, the next step is to ski down the mountain, not discuss last night’s American Idol. You are causing a skiing bottleneck."

Then, I would call out the people that caused me to fall. "Hi, I just ate it really bad and may have a severe concussion and separated shoulder because you are sitting on the mountain instead of doing this thing you do at ski resorts, it is a 3 letter word starting with a s and ending with an i. Have a nice day while I hobble down the mountain, jackass."

I seriously made it down just once without falling at all. I made it down 3 times without falling more than once and well, we skied for 4 hours so you figure out the rest.

So whatevers, I am not a ski champ. And I may or may not be to blame for injuring the love of my life. I am sorry, dear, it was that other idiot’s fault that caused us to get all tangled up getting off the lift and causing your knee to become detached and your kneecap to meet your ankle. I am very sorry about that, but I totally blame that Spice Girl wanna-be in the skintight gold ski pants.

I really, really love skiing, although I cannot move my head more than an inch to the left or the right and walking kinda hurts and I can’t raise my arms without wincing and um yea, my pride is totally in traction. Please send flowers.

So that title?

Alex, the question is, what age should you give up skiing?