Into the Hills
This is the image gallery from my skiing trip back in
January '98. My digital camera was messed up (and
still needs to be fixed) so a lot of the picture have wierd
artifacts in them. Most of them look pretty good though.

Below is an extract from an entry I did back on January 19th, 1998. It describes the trip so I thought I would place it here as well to make it easier for thoes who were interested. It's kinda funny..

Like we were told, it took about 4 hours to get to the Skiing joint we were staying at. The place is called Timberline and its located in the middle of NOWHERE. Actually the town is called Davis, but Nowhere and Davis are one in the same if you ask me. I was amazed they had as much snow on the slopes as they did. It was definitely below freezing when we got there that night. They had the snow makers rollin' full blast. We got there around 10:30pm to find people already drinking and playing cards and... in the HOT TUB!? Maaaaan, nobody told me about the damn hot tub! The only shorts I brought were the ones I wore under my jeans, man.. Welp, guess I was warring my boxers in the hot tub! :-) The place was really nice. It was ALL wood -- everything: the ceiling, the floors, the siding. Well, everything except the walls, basically. Three bedrooms (4 beds), 3 couches (one fold-out), a loft, two bathrooms, a bunch of sky-lights, nice kitchen, a fireplace, and yes, the hot tub. The first night was pretty uneventful. I had a few beers, ate some food, and helped keep the fire goin'. I was informed that the plan was to get up at 7am and go skiing(WHAAAAAT!?!?!?). Well, forget about getting any decent sleep this weekend, sheesh... It was like I was in the damn military. Oh, thats right... I AM, remember??? Anyway, I was graciously given one of the couches in the living room for my sleeping pleasure -- multiplying the 'no-sleep-this-weekend' by a factor of 2.

So, for the second day in a row, I was up at the ass-crack of dawn. The ski lodge was within walking distance, so that is just what we did. I was rather amazed there was a pretty large group of people who were as crazy as we were to get up so early. I had next to no cash on me and I didn't bother to get any on the way there the night before because they would surely have an ATM there, right? I mean, this is a big place, thousands of people go there all the time... Well guess what, bullshit fans??? THEY DIDN'T!!! Man, what a bunch of losers! Maybe the advances in portable ATM technology hasn't made it out into the WV hills yet. I had to bust out the virtual money card and run that damn credit bill up some more! Man, that was major loser material there, folks... These guys need to get their show together. What next??? So, those of us who had no skis (because I returned mine becuase I didn't think there would be any snow) had to go get some and then we hit the slopes. The main ski lift was huge -- the ride was about 10 minutes long to get to the top (?!). It really was a beautiful ride to the top of the mountain. You could see for quite some distance. Well, luckily I brought my trusty, newly repaired, digital camera with me. I knew the batteries were low but I was sure I could get a few more shots before they completely ran out, right? WRONG! (I guess THIS is what was "next") They were dead -- completely. Well, I thought I would get some when I got the the bottom of the slopes.. no biggy. GUEEEEESS WHAT!? WRONG AGAIN! They only had 'D' size...which might be great if I were looking for breasts! But I'm looking for batteries here! I found out there was a store about 3 miles away that not only has batteries, but they also have an ATM. To hell with that. I didn't feel like taking the time to do all that at that point. So, folks, no pretty mountain pictures, sorry.

I did have a lot of fun skiing that day. The first time down was real bad, but after that, it all came back to me and I got better and better. The only major problems were, as I got better, I got more and more tired. Skiing is a very exhausting sport if you don't do it very often. I haven't been running since late November. If I had been keeping up with my running, I would have had more energy. My legs would just burn so bad and they were fairly sore at the end of the day. That 10 minute ride up the mountain was actually pretty convenient because it gave you some extra time to rest. And then the other issue becomes a problem: OTHER SKIERS. Sure, just as you're getting good, all of these obstacles appear! It's quite a pain in the butt, cuz if I'm going too fast and I can't slide back and forth to keep my speed down because there isn't enough room to do so, I'll panic from gaining too much speed and I'll go down. Better that than to run into someone. I buzzed John one time and actually ran over the front of his skis, throwing him off balance, and he went down (oops). It was kinda funny. He gave me the "You loser!" treatment as I continued down the slope. I became pretty good at the 'fallen-skier-slalom'. You have to once it gets crowded. Part of the problem was there was only one intermediate slope open. Anything above that was a single diamond and then two other double diamonds (suicidal slopes). So the intermediate slope was pretty crowded. They probably didn't have time to get some snow onto the other slopes because the weather had just gotten cold enough. I also had a problem at the beginning of the day with my left boot unbuckling - very bad. If you don't get the right amount of support for your legs and ankles, you could certainly break something. I went back in and got a replacement pair and I was good to go. I skied from about 8:30AM to about 3:30PM with about an hour or so lunch. Wheew, that shit wipes you out. The last 2 times down were actually two of my worst runs because I was so tired, I couldn't properly control myself and I kept falling. It began to get rather painful because I kept falling on my sides all of the time. 'Twas a good time.

I was part of the last group that came back to the house. When I got there, I changed and hitched a ride with Greg to THE store down the road. I got my batteries but I had to use my damn credit card again to get cash cuz the machine didn't accept my ATM card. Damn loser-West Virginia. :-) I spent some time in the hot tub.. (yes, in my underwear). We had a spaghetti dinner with salad and garlic bread. Unfortunately, someone didn't tell Shawn the spaghetti was the 3-minute variety instead of the 5 to 7 minute variety (he over cooked it). I got dibs on the first batch, so for me it was 'slop with salad and garlic bread'. :-) It was pretty decent, actually. I'm not sure that the beer that Christine added to the boiling water made much of a difference. I donno, you give it a shot and email me on your findings. These are the kind of things that happen when you have the intoxicated members of your clan do the cooking for the night.

So, the rest of the night, most of us got drunk. I just wasn't in the mood, to tell you the truth. I was really tired, for one thing. I actually managed to fall asleep for about 45 minutes amid yelling and screaming. At one point everyone gathered around the living room and decided to play 'I never'. The game varies a little bit depending on who is playing. What we did was one person would call out the punishment for the loser of the game, everyone would hold up all ten fingers, and every time someone DID do what a person said THEY hadn't done, the 'someone' would put down a finger. Whoever ended up with no fingers first was the loser (duh). I really didn't feel like kissing another guy or sucking on someone's toe. I didn't play the first two times but I did play the next two (peer pressure). I donno.. I just wasn't in the mood, really. I should have had more to drink... We then played 'I Have' two times which, of course, is the opposite of 'I Never'. THEN some wise-guy suggested we should play 'Spin The Bottle'. Now... we have ALL played Spin the Bottle before, right boys and girls??? Of course! Well.. everyone except me, that is. Yup... I DEFINITELY should have had more to drink! At first, I said no... and then as it was getting closer and closer to what would have been my turn, I said yes. I was still sooo close to saying no, but I didn't. First, I realized I was emotionally numb so I thought I could deal with it. Secondly, I thought it would be a really good ice breaker (I'm talkin' ice many feet thick, not the stuff you find on your wind-shield in the morning). My problem wasn't so much kissing other girls I didn't know real well, per say.. it was that THEY were going to be kissing other guys. Awww.. everyone else does it and they're still alive, I figured I would live through it too. We did make one little clause, however. If a guy spun the bottle and it stopped on another guy, the spinner could have the option of kissing the next girl to the right of the person the bottle landed on. If that was not the case, I would not have played -- screw that, man. Another reservation I had: kissing a friend's girlfriend. Gee, NOT my idea of a good time. :-) Oh well.. on with the show. Sure enough, the bottle stopped on a friend's girlfriend (doh!). He had to turn his head. Oh well... rules are rules and it wasn't my idea, damn it..*smooch*. I think we did two rounds of that. THEN it was time for TUNG (!?)!! Hmm..... well.... OK! :-) Either directly or indirectly, I french kissed every damn person and that room (11 people). Would you believe girls were passing up on kissing guys (yes, including me) and kissing EACHOTHER instead!? That kinda thing turns most guys on. I really don't care for it much, really. That was the most action I had had in 5 months! :-) I had to kiss one of my friend's honey about 4 times; he had to leave the room every single time. I don't blame him either.. I think he is more of a man than me. I'm not sure I could do the same thing with my girlfriend. I think it would depend on who is in the room. I donno.. maybe I'll find out one day. Yeah.. but who knows when the hell that will happen. :_( This went on for about an hour and a half. I think we did about 9 rounds or so of that. It certainly was an interesting experience. I was about to really start getting brave (kissing certain people deeper/longer). Then all of the smokers in the room called for a smoke break and that was it. I don't like kissing ash trays.. sorry. All the non-smokers, including myself, called it quits.

That was about it for the trip. Nothing much else to speak of, really. I did take a bunch of pictures with my digital camera but there is a problem. It is STILL broken. The images are still blurry and some of them have weird artifacts in them, you can't tell unless you download them to a computer. The little LCD screen on the camera itself doesn't show enough detail for you to see the problem and I didn't notice it until I came home from the trip. Some of the pictures are pretty decent and I will put them up. But I'm going to wait until I get all of the pictures I want from the other people that were there. There were about 6 cameras there so there will be a lot to choose from. To my knowledge, nobody brought a camera out to the slopes. I will just have to wait until I see the people who were there at a party or something. John is having a party this weekend so I hope to see some people there with their pictures.

I got home almost exactly 48 hours after leaving Friday afternoon (4:30) on Sunday. I remember I laid down on my bed and watched the pretty sunset for a while. I was feeling the strange sense of a let-down for some reason. Something was bothering me and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It took until the next day at work for me to realize what it was: the trip was too short... It was fun and it ended too quickly. I guess I'll have to wait another year to do it again. Hmmm.. I wonder how different things will be then. I do have the summer to look forward to, I guess. Although I'm not in school anymore so it isn't the same. We shall see...

. As soon as I got back to the house with some batteries, I started taking some pictures. This is (from left to right): Kim, John, Suzanne (Suz), and Mary nursing sore butts and elbows after a day on the slopes. Everyone except Kim, of course. She wasn't feeling well so she stayed home all day. I jumped in right after I took this. I had no bathing shorts, so luckily I was waring boxers -- they did the trick.

As crappy as this camera is indoors, I'm surprised this picture came out at all. I had to pull a few image editing tricks outta my ass to get it to look even this good. This was later at night when most everyone was less than sober. The blob in the back on the left is John bending over to get something. Mary is closest to me on the bottom right. Becky is next to her all the way on the left, Kim is next to Becky. Donna and Shawn are gettin' it on all the way to the right, and Suz is sipping her beer all the way in the back. I don't think I got in and joined them this time. Maybe too many bodily fluids swashin' around in there...

A group photo of the freaks I stayed with that weekend. Man, this picture blows.. but this is the best I can do right now until I get some scans of some of the other pictures taken by other people (don't know when that will be). Bottom row from the left: Harold, Suz, Mary, Kim, and John. Top row: Shawn, Donna, Becky, Greg, Christine, and me. Does my shirt look a little familiar??? Oh, and uhh, that couch we're sitting on was my bed for the weekend, by the way.

Yet another crappy picture. And this was the camera in it's 'repaired' state, mind you.. It's going back to the repair shop as soon as I get around to sending it. We're on our way home.. Johns at the helm, I got shotgun, Kim is behind John, and the girl that I must say I really enjoyed kissing that weekend, Mary, is behind me. :-)

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