ski trip: unbelievable.

started out rather poorly, sitting on our asses on the bus for like 45 minutes waiting to leave. but we finally rolled out around 6 (supposed to leave at 5)... i fell asleep for awhile, we watched a couple of movies... felt kind of funny that day, so i actually ended up getting (of all random things) motion sick on the bus... booted in the bathroom... ew. trip out to tahoe took about 7 hours, and as soon as we got in i got my ass in bed.

bed, for heather and i, was in a little "harry potter" closet under the stairs. hey, it was the only non-traffic-pattern floor space available in the entire house. we had what, 45 people living there, so it got kinda cramped. sleep wasn't so much satisfying, but as soon as the alarm went off i was damn ready to get my butt on the slopes.

and by "butt", i of course mean "butt", because i learned to snowboard. that kicked ass, dude. major ass. took a lesson the first morning, got the basics down, and after lunch tackled a slope. i rode down (halfway actually riding, halfway ass-riding) pretty well - it took me a couple tries to get it down, but by the end of the first day i was sore, mildly frustrated ("why the hell didn't i just stick to skiing?"), but i felt like i was definitely getting better.

wild party saturday night at house 2. need i say more?

sunday, went out and hit the slopes early. took some of the more difficult green runs on the mountain, not quite successfully (rode down sideslip most of the way, but hell, it was fun)... by the end of sunday, however, i was in absolute pain and ready for a hot shower.

sunday night, wild drinking games in our house, followed by a massive takeover of house 2. it ruled.

monday morning, we packed up and waited for the buses. and waited. and waited. it was about 30 minutes late. we watched a bunch of shit on mtv. but it was cool. then we hit the road. didn't get bus sick this time, no, something much more substantial happened.

here's the story (as far as i can make it out):
our bus was behind house 2's bus. traffic was moving along at about 65 but there was a huge traffic jam pretty far ahead, so cars started slowing down. the bus in front of us (i think) swerved a little to avoid hitting another car, slowing down way too fast for our bus to avoid it. so our bus swerved off into the right shoulder to avoid rear-ending the other bus... there was a hill off the side of the road, that we were kind of half-riding on... attempted to pass the first bus on the right, driving on the shoulder... not enough room for us to pass. bus bouncing up and down, kids flying out of seats, and holy shit, the other bus is way too close to us. suddenly, the sickening sound of metal on metal and a crunch as the first two windows on our bus are broken. (most of the glass stayed in the window, but some of it rained down upon a few kids. luckily not me.) i bruised my ass coming back down on the armrest of my chair. everyone screamed. i thought we were going to die.

but we kept on going. about 2 minutes later the buses pulled over and the two drivers had a powwow. i suppose they decided not to call the police and file an accident report because the buses were owned by the same people, the kids in the buses were going the same way, and no one appeared to be injured. so we kept on truckin' on. it was weird.

DEFINITELY a memorable weekend. definitely. unbelievable fun. i loved it. amazing. (i'm a convert. i don't know if i'll ever ski again.)

weeeee!