Life Left to Chance

This last weekend Steve and I penciled in a date with our Knoxville buddies, Gabe and Emilie, to go skiing. Of the four of us, I was the only one who had never been skiing (or done anything remotely athletic in snow other than make a GIANT snowball one year...but hey, I'm from Florida, it's an understandable hole in my life), so I was really really really really excited. So we arrived at Gabe and Em's house late Friday night to hear that they *probably* would not be able to go skiing with us on Sunday due to two unexpected turns-for-the-worse. 1. Gabe officially got fired from Jewelry TV and 2. Emilie's future with Kimberly Clarke is questionable. But they offered to join us for some awesome hiking on Saturday.

And it indeed was awesome. We hiked a trail unofficially known as "Trainwreck Hike," aptly named as it ends (or maybe that's just where we decided to stop and turn around back for the car) at the site of a 1920's train wreck. It took us forever to reach what was reported to only be 2.8 miles, and we had mixed expectations about what we would find. Along the path we discussed...is it a train, as in locomotive, and if so, where the hell are the tracks?.... is it a wagon train? and if so, how the hell can there be anything remaining after so many years?...and why the hell would anyone chose this bumpy, hilly "road" to transport anything at all? Well, when we arrived we got some pretty cool answers. This is what we found: its a steel steam-powered locomotive, complete with steel wagonwheels (not pictured) lying in the bed of a creek. It is very cool, and if I can remember the name of the trail I would like to go back again and get closer (this is not my photo, and the water was too high on Saturday to get close).



Anyway, after this venture, Gabe and Em left us in Gatlinburg and Steve and I headed out to celebrate our birthdays with a little Italian food and a bottle of red wine. It was fun stumbling around Gatlinburg afterwards...we bought taffy, touristy stickers, and flavored coffee (and as most of you know, I HATE flavored coffee...yeah, I was tipsy for sure!)

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and made our way to Ober Gatlinburg for skiing. But, as we were getting closer and closer to the mountain, we started toying with the idea of trying out snowboarding. Gabe and Emilie were really our inspiration for skiing...I really wanted to try both...Steve seemed a little hesitant but also seemed equally willing to try either. So, as we stood in front of the cashier at Ober, who looked at us with pained patience as we dug around in our pockets for a coin and flipped it to decide what we would do, fate decided for us. Tails ftw. Snowboarding it was.

Now, for those of you that have never been snowboarding, but have ever critisized the guys and gals you see on TV...let me just tell you now, it's a lot harder than it looks. The boots are heavy, the board is awkward, and once your strapped in it takes a lot of effort to not head straight down the mountain at breakneck speed. Steve spent most of the day boarding for 5-10 feet, then he'd fall, get upset, fight and kick to get the snowboard clips released, and then huff back up the hill where he would sit and watch me snowboard for 30 minutes before repeating the process all over again. Me? Well I went up and down that darn hill as much and as often as I could. The more I fell, the more determined I was to not fall the next time. After about five hours of this I was exhausted, and at 4pm, Sunday, February 1, 2009, Steve and I delicately made our way back down the mountain and gorged ourselves sick at The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Restaurant. Good times!

Anyway, here's a picture of me looking all suave in my gear:









X-Games XIV, Here I come!