The Perfect Day

I had the most perfect and wonderful day this week-- it really seemed too good to be true!  Like, I was expecting at any minute to twist my knee or fall on my head or something disastrous.  Nope!  I was just super lucky enough to take a day off from work to go snowboarding, and it just so happened to be the most beautiful day of my life!  Let me tell you why it was so perfect:

Ingredients to perfection:  1) Clear, deep blue sky.  2) Jamba Juice Breakfast.  3) Snowboarding at Sundance.  4) Soft, perfect snow.  5) Hanging out by myself!  6) Clif Bar snack/meal.  7) BEAUTIFUL day!

1)  So I woke up and peeked through the blinds-- I do that every day as soon as I wake up-- and saw a clear, deep blue sky at 9am.  I hit my snooze button and snuggled back down in my bed.  Then it clicked in my brain:  Clear blue skies!!!  Get out of the house!  After that, it was easy to get up, get ready, and get out!

2)  Breakfast!  I was driving to the canyon so it only seemed perfect to drop by Jamba Juice (I am their biggest fan) to pick up a Cold Buster smoothie and a warm apple cinnamon soft pretzel.

(This isn't the Jamba Juice apple cinnamon pretzel, although this regular pretzel would've been delicious as well!)

I rolled down my windows, plugged my iPod into my car stereo and turned up the volume, and literally smiled the whole drive up to Sundance.  The warm pretzel was perfect, and although the smoothie gave me a few brain freezes (I was so excited and drank it too fast)... I was totally content with how my day was already going.  No time constraints, no real expectations-- just a fun day ahead of me to do whatever I wanted.

(Seriously.  Look at that sky!!!)

3)  FINALLY I had a day to go snowboarding!  As much as I love this activity, I rarely have time to do it.  The first time I went this year was in February with my Dad.  We went to Brighton and the conditions were horrible, windy, blizzardy, and painful. But we had a fun time together!  The second time I went boarding was a few weeks later with a friend in Colorado. But I had done a painful workout a few days earlier and couldn't even walk that day.  I don't know how I managed to go snowboarding, but once again, we had a blast!  That same weekend in Colorado I bought a snowboard at a 40% off sale and was totally in love with it!  And every Saturday after that I was doing this ski program for the teens at work and couldn't use my snowboard.  So I put my foot down and decided to take a vacation day and simply told my boss I needed to use my new snowboard before winter was over! :)  Here are a few pictures of my snowboard:

(A view from the lift)

(I love the colors!  The bottom has blended shades of orange, yellow, and pink.)

4) You wouldn't think the snow would be that great the last week of March, but I was delighted to discover the snow was perfect!  It wasn't icy at all-- just perfect.  There were even secret places I found that had big thick snow and even powder, and I was adventurous and more confident than I'd ever been before.

(A lot of the snow had been groomed and looked like this.  I thought it would be hard and icy.  Nope!)

 (Chunkier snow but super soft and powdery)

5)  I think it's a good sign when you can hang out by yourself and totally love it.  I love friends and even enjoy snowboarding with other people... but sometimes it's just great to be completely solitary;  it's therapeutic.  This all started for me when I lived in PA and would go snowboarding at our small, local resort:  Ski Roundtop. That's where I learned to snowboard, and with it only 15-20 minutes away, I would drive up in the morning, hang out for a few hours, then get back in time to go to work.  I usually went by myself and really enjoyed that "me" time.  So this week I chose this vacation day to be a "me" day.  And it was perfect.  I had so much fun hanging out with myself, I decided to take a video. HAHA.  Enjoy...

(P.S.  This video actually makes me look like I'm an idiot, but I had a fun time doing it.)

6)  Snack time!  I decided to skip a heavy lunch at the lodge and popped out a Clif bar on the lift.  It was delicious and just what I needed to hold me over for a few hours.  I really like those crazy little bars and feel outdoorsy and healthy when I eat them. :)

7)  Everything about my snowboarding experience was perfect.  The weather was ridiculously beautiful, and so warm!  I'd take off my jacket every time I got on the lift and spread my arms out and just bask in the sunlight.  I purposely took off my goggles on the lift so I wouldn't get stuck with the crazy "ski bum" look with the white raccoon eyes.  Nope-- my face got plenty of sun!  There weren't a lot of people at Sundance-- no waiting lines-- and I always got to sit on the lift by myself-- I actually LOVE that!  As fun as it can be to make new friends and talk to random strangers on a ski lift, I'd much rather have those moments to myself.  So I took lots of pictures and enjoyed the solitary peace.  

Towards the end of the day I went to the backside of the mountain and got on another lift that goes to the top of the mountain.  I think I forgot it went up that high, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done it if I had remembered.  It kind of scared me!  But this was the view once I got off the lift:

 (GOOOOOOORGEOUS)

I decided it was worth the fear, and I made my way down the mountain like a champ... but didn't do it again. I'm not what you'd call a hardcore snowboarder.  I don't fly down the mountain at insane fast speeds.  I don't do crazy jumps or tricks or anything.  I just love to have a nice smooth ride down the mountain, carving back and forth, occasionally riding over a bump and catching a few inches of air, and making it down alive.  Snowboarding is actually a great source of leg strengthening and my calves and quads are burning by the end of the day.

You  know what ELSE was burning by the end of the day?  MY FACE.  And NECK.  And I didn't even think about sun screen until after I got home and noticed the intense sunburn.  This is what I observed that night:

Maybe you can't tell just how red my skin is.  But if I would've just pulled my collar to the side a little, you'd see my natural WHITE skin glowing along side the nice burning color.  Aloe vera is now my friend.

But the sunburn didn't take away anything from my perfect day.  I loved every minute of it and really just smiled and laughed to myself at how lucky I was to be snowboarding instead of working, and absolutely loving it.  I'm taking another snow day on Monday... we'll see if I can have ANOTHER perfect day!