You Really Don't Ski? (Alta, UT Jan 2013)

 *Disclaimer: These blogs are severely out of order but ah well! Better late than never!

I have always hated the cold. My friends and family joke that I'm cold blooded as I am literally always freezing, which is why I think it came as such a shock that I was getting ready to head out to Alta, Utah in the dead of winter to work as a server at a ski lodge when I didn't even ski. I think my mom took it a bit personally and my brothers kept advising that I needed to "stop running

Graham in his rockin onesie!

away" but I've honestly never looked at it that way. I love my friends and family in Rantoul, but my life has always become in enriched in ways that I didn't even know possible by all the new people that I meet and new experiences that I have in a new place. Life is about living, pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones. On a biological level, the more you do something the more neural connections that get devoted to that particular task. If you work all the time, you begin to become work driven and it begins to consume your life, same with schooling and making a life somewhere. You become devoted to that task and it's easy to forget that there's so much out there and an alternative way of life. My brothers insist that eventually I'm going to have to "grow up" but I think I've done more growing in the past year travelling place to place than I did my entire college career. I've just discovered an alternative way of life that works for me personally and I intend to follow it.
  With that being said, I flew into Salt Lake City knowing absolutely no one and had no idea what I was in for. What I didn't realize was that I would yet again be in for the experience of a lifetime. I landed a job at the Rustler Lodge which happened to be the most expensive lodge to stay in with guests paying nearly $500/night just to be there and ski there. With this came enormous perks. I stayed in dorm style housing with the rest of the employees where we all got free food, free ski passes (what?!?!), free use of the outdoor heated pool, jacuzzi, and eucalyptus steam room, as well as tips and salary on top of that. Best. Job. Ever. I literally got paid just to live and work with my friends all day. Teresa and Hallie were amazing roommates and Kayla who came late in the season as well soon became one of my best friends.

  Our schedules worked out so that we would get two days off every week but on the days that we did work we would have two shifts staggered that way we could either ski in the morning before working lunch and dinner or ski over lunch if we had to work breakfast. When I first arrived at the Rustler, everyone was super warm and welcoming. I suspect that this was the case solely because I had a vagina as there is literally about a 12:1 ratio of guys to girls. But regardless, everyone was
extremely shocked to hear that I would accept a job at a ski lodge when I didn't ski as they were all super intense awesome skiers that eat, breath, and sleep skiing. My roommate Teresa turned out to be the most amazing person in the world and I feel so lucky to have had her in my life. She is so incredibly caring and loving and just has a passion for life that is so refreshing. She patiently helped me learn how to ski and thanks to everyone throwing gear my way and the Powder House in the basement of the lodge giving me free skis for the season in exchange for beer, I was all set up to  give it a go.
 I spent my winter skiing on the groomers, playing dominoes with the guys at night, going down to the valley for beer runs as all the beer in Utah is 3.21% alcohol unless you go to state liquor store, and playing games all evening in the EDR.

Ski Pole Frisbee! Goal: Knock the beer can off of the
opponents ski pole with a frisbee without them catching the
can or the pole

Favorite Memories:
-St. Patty's Day!- Getting Brian smashed at breakfast and watching him run into poles all day,
breaking the shot glasses while trying to do the CarBombSki (Copyright Mike Campanelli), spray painting Aaron and Mike's mustaches green, pounding beers and Irish Car Grenades on the ski lifts all day, having everyone barely functioning at work.
 -My Birthday!- Mike and I nearly getting arrested
-Running the 9 miles down the Canyon with Andrew and then hiking 3 miles back up before hitchhiking a ride back to Snowbird where we'd stashed beers for when we were done. We got a few more beers to drink while we waited for the bus then went and sat in the hot tub and pretended to watch Sherlock Holmes before work.
-All the nights playing dominoes in the EDR or judging an Iron Chef competition
-Rustler Prom with Darrel and his Flava-Flave! clock around his neck and my team winning the 30 rack challenge despite Andrew sabotaging everyone with his Smirnoff Ices

dominoes with Alex

 -Frank!- Attending a party on the top of Wildcat which involved sitting with employees from all the lodges in the snow throwing hot dogs at people as they did skied down the mountain doing back flips and 360s in ridiculous outfits (or in the nude). Andrew was super resourceful and brought a grill up and we all just sat and drank as we watched people crash and burn or in Willy's case, pull off a double back flip. After having way too much to drink, I successfully yard saled (i.e. skied over a cat track and lost all my skis, poles, helmet, and goggles) as Andrew sat by and watched it all happen.
- The last night getting to drink all the left over wine and beer in the lodge and finishing off the kegs while making a whirl pool in the outdoor pool

Shot Ski before the Hoe-Down

Grilling out on the top of Wild Cat watching people
do stunts down the mountain before getting
hot dogs thrown at them.. classic.

Andrew and I at the Rustler Prom

There were so many great times with people that chose to live life to the fullest and go against the normal pattern of go to school, get a job, get a car. It was so refreshing to hear everyone's summer plans of living out of the their car, being raft guides, retiring for the summer before the next ski season, backpacking for the next two years, and it was great to be able to plan my next adventure. We loaded up Roby's stick shift truck (take that Max) and I drove it all the way back to Oregon while he rode his motorcycle before we met up with Kayla to start our 1000 mi bike trip down the West Coast. Whoooo!