Well I went out to Copper mountain this weekend, and I can't believe how out of shape I am!  Everything hurts now.  Let's take a step back.  When we arrived at the Denver airport, we thought we might try and find a cheaper rental car.  We stopped at Advantage Rental Agency, and boy did we find a deal!  We got the same car, a Jeep Commander, for $60 less than Dollar was offering.  So we hop in our hot Deal, and drive away.  About 10 miles down I70 the antilock brakes start rattling uncontrollably, and then the instrument cluster, the headlights, blinker, and anything electronic goes dead, but the engine keeps running.  So, I'm driving down the highway with no lights on and no way to signal.  I get off at the first exit, and restart the car.  The lights came back on, so we drove to our friend's place.  I called Advantage, and described the problem we were having with the rental.  They hung up on me, several times.  Apparently Denver has a phone system second to a Third World Country.  So I call back several times, and finally get a manager to agree to send me a new Jeep Commander and pick up the busted one.  Now, it's 10pm when I got off the phone, and it wasn't until 2am that I heard a knock at the door.  He quickly switches out vehicles, and I fell asleep on the couch.

 

6am saturday we wake up, get ready and pack the cars to go to Copper.  We got there unscaved around 10:00am, 30 minutes after my friend's first snowboard lesson was supposed to start.  As I put my gear together, I realized that my highback was missing a few screws (all of them).  So we had to stop at the resort shop and scrounge up some hardware.  It's like 1pm before our boards touched snow.  We get a couple runs in, everything is great.  When we get to the top, I slap my board on the ground, as we all do a million times a day, and what happens?  My f*cking binding strap breaks!  No problem!  My friend whips out her trusty phillips, and I stretch out my ankle strap far enough to reach what is left of the ladder strap.  We get to the bottom of the hill, and I return to the mountain board shop for more hardware.  4 oclock rolls around, and Copper closes up shop.  We seek refuge at Jake's, a bar situated within a banquet hall of sorts.  WooHoo.  uhh... 

 

Everyone's drinking.  I can't seem to even catch a buzz.  So I give up.  Some dude that makes a living singing like famous musicians plays over 4 hours without a break.  We're all impressed, not by his singing, but his stamina.  anyway...  We go eat.  Hop in the hot tub for an hour.  Now, I don't have much sleep, and I've been dragging for most of the day.  I'm ready for bed.  I try to fall asleep to find that the girl, I just met, in the bed next to me is ready for some 'get to know ya action'.  Good idea, bad timing.  I know she'll read this so.. anyway...  I just wanted to get some sleep.  I can't... Just when I think I'm going to get some rest, in comes my new friend, completely wasted and apparently a little sexually frustrated from his unfruitful attempts at hooking up all night in the bar, with a snowboard instructor's girlfriend...  Instead of hopping in the large bed with only one person in it, he hops into my smaller bed, where two people are trying to get some sleep, and starts trying to cuddle with the girl next to me.  She gets fed up, and switches places with me, and now I am trying to sleep on a fold out couch with two new people on either side of me, and both are trying to get some cuddle action!

 

8am sunday morning, and my friends in the only bedroom wake up.  I steal their bed and finally get some sleep.  11am hits and they tell me they're ready to go ride.  I get a shower and I'm on the mountain at about noon.  Copper hasn't had enough time to build a real park, the super pipe is freaking huge, and the tree's are riddled with brush and exposed obsticles.  I make the best of it.  The riding is great!  Little icy at times.  It was like riding at Snow Creek, on the best day, if Snow Creek were about 50 times bigger.  2 o'clock rolls around and my friends are exhausted.  We check out of the condo, get our shi*t together, and drive back to denver.