About 5 years ago (can’t believe it’s been that long, but I am starting to say that about a lot of things lately), I went snowboarding for the first time. It was a horrible experience. I had no instruction, except a few “tips” from the person I went with, who was my ex-wife’s co-worker at the time.

Today, I took Adam up to Breckenridge with some co-workers, and had a fantastic time. Adam, me, and Zach K. took a morning lesson while three the other experienced guys went out on their own. The instructor was a real piece of work — constantly shouting at us when we did something wrong. We endured this guy’s antics for about three hours, and it was good enough to get us out onto a beginner run after lunch.

Adam really had a great time and didn’t struggle nearly as much as Zach and I did.

Things got a little interesting though towards the end of the day. Zach and I only went down the beginner run once, because we were slow. We fell a lot, and had to take breaks as we were trying to figure out what to do. The other experienced guys went along with us, and hung around for a while, but then broke ahead to finish off their day.

The plan was to all meet at the bottom of the slope at a specific location.

Taking a step back from this, let’s review some other details from the weekend.

We drove up Friday night, separately (Adam, Zach, me) from the other guys. One of the other guys, Jake, has parents who live in a huge house in Breckenridge, and we slept there Friday night.

Saturday morning, Jake and the other guys drove separately to the ski area, because his stepdad has a parking pass, and WE WOULDN’T WANT TO PAY TEN BUCKS to have the convenience of my car there, so Jake’s stepdad dropped us off while Jake utilized the parking pass.

This is completely confusing and retarded, yes.

Continuing forward.

Zach and I both decided against bringing our cell phones under the premise that they might get wet. Jake had some walkie talkies, which seemed like a good idea.

Problem #1 began after the morning lesson, we were trying to communicate over the radios, and couldn’t discern where to meet them for lunch. We waited around for about 30 minutes thinking they were going to find us, but that didn’t happen. Well, they found us, but we had already gone in to eat, and then found out that they had already ate.

Not a big deal, really, but kind of annoying.

Back to the story and Problem #2.

Jake and company were apparently ready to go back to the house after that last run after lunch, where me and Zach were going slow.

Adam, meanwhile, was doing great, and had decided to get back on the lift and do the run again. We didn’t know this, however.

Jake and company left immediately after they were at the bottom of the run, and we assumed that they had gone with them.

We didn’t actually KNOW that they left, however, because we had all agreed to meet at the bottom. They were trying to radio me, but I was in the middle of struggling in my descent down the hill on my board and didn’t answer.

We finally made contact with them about 20 minutes of sitting at the bottom, waiting. We assumed Adam was with them. He was not with them, however.

We didn’t discover this until we made it back to the parking area (a 10-minute gondola ride plus 10-minute line wait), and Jake’s parents let us know that Adam was not with the other guys.

So we race back up the hill to the ski area, and I don’t really even know where to look, but I make an assumption that Adam is still snowboarding.

Through some weird stroke of luck, as I walked back to the lift we had been using, he was getting ready to board the lift for another run. He was there the whole time, apparently, and had even lost track of how many times he went down.

I was pretty pissed at the time when I didn’t know where the fuck Adam was, but it was a pretty great relief to see him at the lift. And he really enjoyed the snowboarding.