Boarding at Vallecitos

Dan:We finally got out to the slopes! It turns out it was the last weekend of the year at the two closests resorts. Lou and I, and a friend named Aaron headed to Vallecitos, about two hours away. This particular ski center is know as just about the wussiest and smallest one around here, ie. about our speed. It being the last weekend of the year, most of the runs were closed. We were left with pretty much a beginner slope and a difficult slope. I guess that was OK given that Lou had never tried snowboarding before, and Aaron had done so only once. I was impressed with

Lou’s ability to pick it up.

I think the physical strength she has gained from doing capoeira helped a lot. She believes her new-found comfort with falling down made her less fearful. I think she's still a little scared of chairlifts though.

There were not many people at Vallecitos. Most of them were families. We were worried about trying to find a locker of something for our things, but we felt comfortbale just making a pile on the side of the slope. Anyway, this place didn’t have much in the way of services. They had a restaurant with three items on the menu, a rental shop and two St. Bernards. We ended up with quite a pile of stuff as we peeled layer after layer off. We had no idea what to expect up in the mountains. The last few times we got out of town it was damn cold. So we wore pants AND snowpants, and many layers up top. By mid afternoon the sun was brutal. We never thought to bring a hat with a brim. After lunch, it felt like we were snowboarding through Andean glacial gravy, the snow was so wet. Today Lou realized that she had sunburned eyelids (no picture available) from squinting so much, I guess. She is pink, puffy and sore today, but we had the day off so we went out for lunch and watched bad movies on TV.