Xtreme embarrassment

Work asked if anyone would be willing to write a short article on going snowboarding, so I volunteered. I've skied for a long time and have wanted to try snowboarding for a few years, but have never gotten around to it. I've never skateboarded and I'm not exactly the type to be thrashing down a half-pipe doing 360s and ollies or whatever while chugging Mountain Dew, but I figured it was a good excuse to give it a shot.
I went yesterday and this was pretty much how the day went:

7 a.m.: Alarm goes off. I had originally planned on driving out earlier to the ski resort, which is about three and a half hours away in western Virginia, but when I didn't get home from work until about 1 a.m. I thought better of it.

8:30: I'm finally on the road after having showered, eaten, gotten all my stuff together and stopped by the house of a friend for whom I'm dog sitting. It's mornings like these that I really wish I drank coffee. I could desperately use the caffeine. Instead, I pull over at a rest stop for a quick nap along the way.

Noon: I get to the ski resort and am surprised that there is no snow anywhere. But then again, of course there's no snow. It's been a warm winter until recently and I'm not that high up. How depressing. But they have a few runs open that they've covered with manmade snow. I get a half-day pass and rent a snowboard and boots. With the rental comes a free beginner lesson. The next one, though, isn't until 2 or 2:30.

12:30: I grab a quick lunch and watch the people on the slopes. Most of the snowboarders make it look easy. I know they're lying.

1:00: I decide to try to get a feel for the snowboard while I'm waiting for the lesson to begin. I strap myself in and manage to stand up.
I promptly fall over.
I stand up again.
And promptly fall over.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 several more times.

Finally, I decide to move to somewhere with less people standing around in order to minimize my embarrassment.

I watch two young girls who have coerced a third friend into trying to snowboard. I listen in on what they're telling her, hoping to glean some information that might be useful. Unfortunately for me, and their friend, they're not a lot of help.

I finally get to the point where I can stand up and slide back and forth a little. On flat land. I try moving slowly down a hill and quickly lose balance and fall.

At this point, I should mention something: I have been warned about this. Everyone I know who was ever snowboarded has said that it is difficult. There's a steep learning curve, they say, so don't expect to get the hang of it until after you've done it a lot.

They are right.

Colorado skiing background, a pretty decent sense of balance, comfort on a mountain slope -- all of these traits are for naught.

2:15: I at least get pretty good at strapping my boots into the snowboard and am OK at standing up by the time the lesson starts. The class consists of me and a young couple. We go over the basics of safety and naming the parts of the board. We practice sliding around with one foot strapped to the board, which is a lot harder than it looks.

2:25: Finally, we hit the slope. We practice standing. I will have a lot of practice at getting up before the afternoon is over. Then we practice moving on the heel edge of the board. Later we practice the toe edge. It takes an eternity to get down the slope. I will sum up a very lengthy journey like this: I fell. A lot. Occasionally, I would have moments of comprehension that would last for a few seconds and were followed by a loss of control and either a face plant or a butt fall. I exerted way more energy than I ever would have thought possible and suddenly understood why, when you usually see snowboarders, they're sitting down on the slopes. It's freaking exhausting. It took me about 40 minutes to get to the bottom of the slope. I sense that the instructor, while nice, was probably a little impatient with me. The other two in the class made it down in about half the time it took me. They, too, were nice about it, but I felt bad.

3:10: We get on the lift. To say that it's a huge relief to be sitting down on something that's not the cold, wet ground is an understatement. That relief turns to embarrassment for the umpteenth time that day when I fall down trying to get off the lift and must quickly crawl/slide on my rear to get out of the way before the people on the next lift chair run me over.

3:15: The instructor and the rest of the class prepare for a second run. I politely bow out. I don't want to make them suffer any more than they already have and I desperately need a break.

3:25: I stop by the restaurant and order a glass of water, a smoothie and an ice cream sundae. After all of that, I'm burning up. The waitress, who is a friendly, motherly sort, wants to know what sort of food I order in the summer.

3:45: It's possible I have overestimated in my food choice. By the time the sundae arrives, I've not only cooled down, I've chilled myself. I barely eat any of the sundae. The waitress says I look defeated by the sundae. She is right, but the look of defeat has more to do with having spent the past few hours having my ass spanked by a 3-foot board working in tandem with a mountain.

3:55: I head back outside and decide if I want to try another run. But a lot of me is soaked and cold, and frankly, I'm not sure I can make it to the bottom of the hill before the lifts close at 4:30. In the half-hour I've been sitting down, I also feel like my muscles have atrophied. And I have to try to take some pictures of snowboarders to go with the article. So I pack it in, grab the camera and spend awhile shooting photos.

4:30: I'm on the road again. About 7 hours of driving for one full run on the hill. I am humbled. In the future, I know that I can either stick with skiing, which I know and which comes fairly easy for me now, or I can try snowboarding, which is new and difficult. One of those telling life choices. I'd like to think I'll choose to snowboard again. Although given the distance of the slopes and that I'll probably only get out there once or twice a year -- if that -- it's going to be difficult to feel like I'm having fun on a board anytime soon. But we'll see.

5:30: I fill up at a gas station and grab a Mountain Dew while I'm there. I chug it. At least I've done something Xtreme today.