The Single Line

There's something really cool about skiing on opening day.  I'd never done it before, but the stars aligned and a flex day coincided with opening day at Keystone.

It's more of a badge of honor than a great day of skiing - there was literally only one run open in the entire resort.  But it was a long run, and the conditions were actually not bad at all - soft powdery snow, only a couple of icy patches, nothing too skied off.  It was cloudy and snowing, so the drive over Loveland Pass was of the white-knuckle variety, but no one was in a hurry and everyone got over the mountain in one piece.

And the conditions meant that the light was kind of flat, making it difficult to see the snow clearly.  But still, it was great to be out skiing again.  I didn't do too many runs - I didn't want to burn my legs out on the first day, plus after a certain point, skiing the same run over and over again gets kind of old.  But it was really fun.

Catching snowflakes

I was skiing alone, which I love.  When you ski alone, you get to go at your own pace, take the runs you want as fast as you want, eat when you want, and use the "single" line to get on the lift.  Meaning if it's a four-person chair and there's a group of three in the main line, the liftie will send a single in to fill out the group.  So you get to ride up with different people who are also excited to be at Keystone on opening day.

The view from the chairlift

One of my rides was with a group of guys who looked to be in their 30s and who, based on their conversation, had known each other since at least college.  In a nice touch, they had cans of Keystone Ice beer that they were happy to share with me.  I never drink when I ski, but I figured a little bit of beer wasn't going to kill me.  And it didn't.

The lift was moving slowly, so I got to listen to their stories.

We were talking about wanting to have fun doing things like skiing and biking, but without being a total adrenaline junkie about it.  It's good to have a great time, but nobody wants to die.

Andy said, "all I want to do is stuff like ski long fast runs, drink beer, play some PlayStation, have sex."

We all nodded.  Sounded good to us.

"And if you can do some of those things at the same time, all the better, right?"  he added.

I chuckled.  Hanging with bros is always entertaining.

Andy kept going.  "Well, y'all know I'm a big World War II buff, right?""

"Yeah," said Dave.

"One night in college, I was having sex with my girlfriend, but I was over her facing the TV, which she couldn't see because it was kind of behind her, and there was a World War II documentary playing on the History Channel. So I got to have sex while watching a World War II documentary. It was awesome."

I laughed out loud.  "Oh, that poor woman," I said.

"Any woman having sex with Andy can be called a 'poor woman,'" joked Dave.

"You joke, but who wouldn't want to combine some of their favorite things like that?"

He had a point.

I'm not a huge World War II buff.  So for me, it would have to be having sex while somehow simultaneously singing blues standards in a smoky club and also watching Ted Olson argue a civil rights case at the Supreme Court.

That would be totally hot.