Chapter 1- The Journey Begins

Subaru loaded full of gear and ready for adventure

It's not every weekend that I have a trip of some sort planned. I would much rather spend my weekends in the darkness of my apartment. The thing I miss most about Seattle is the rain. I hate that in New Orleans it doesn't rain for days or weeks at a time. I like being able to have the curtain open, yet still be dark. I also miss the mountains and the ability to go skiing, so I decided to drive the 600 miles from New Orleans to Knoxville and pick up Sarah, my girlfriend. From there I we would drive another 100 miles to Johnson City, Tennessee, where we had reservations for 5 nights.

What I love about this blog is that my journey should be relatively uneventful, that driving 600 miles should be a piece of cake. If this were a movie they would should this 10 hour drive of 600 miles, take place in super fast forward that would last at most 20 seconds. I wasn't so lucky, as not only did the drive take the entire 10 hours, but I had to suffer through it with an Inguinal Hernia. With a trip already booked, there was no way a Hernia was going to stop me from skiing. in the end I made it to Knoxville, and I only saw one rabid dog carrying a heap of dead animal intestines!

Enjoying the scenic and harrowing drive

One Ambien, and seven hours of sleep later we were up and ready to make the hour drive to ski in North Carolina. I'm sure when you mention thousand dollar ski trips, which this one will cost by the time it's finished, North Carolina and Tennessee don't come to mind. Having grown up in the Northwest, I must have been spoiled by guard rails and sane drivers, because North Carolina had neither. The roads were ridiculously tight and cars were backed up for 50 yards behind me. After having a nervous breakdown on the side of the hill, not really but I was immensely stressed, and having stopped for directions twice, we arrived at Beech Mountain.

Sarah making her way down the mountain

To my excitement the parking lot was packed! Seriously, I wasn't really excited about this. Nor was I excited about the $120 dollar cost for a day of skiing for two. With the most expensive stickers I ever bought equipped, Sarah and I took the first chair we saw. For the most part the day was uneventful, which was a blessing. We stopped at noon, ate, and then got back out there. My bindings suddenly failed to work and after having them readjusted, I was finally able to hit the slopes for a few more runs.

Me at the bottom of the run

All in all, it was a good day. However, it has been a dreadful evening as the "food" we ate in the ski lodge is now working its way out with vengeance. I feel like I can't make it through any trip, resort, retreat, anything, without having some bout of something. If I was completely healthy for an entire trip it would be considered an oddity.