Bro Trip II

Shane Carlos and I (original)

My dad had just recently bought a place in the one and only Solana Beach, California and wanted me to come down to the beach with him and bring along a friend.  Since my other friend Shane already was going to Solana that weekend (to his house that I visited a couple months before and wrote about in my second blog post) I brought my other very close friend named Carlos.  We have known each other since sixth grade due to mutual friends and sports and have spent a lot of time together since then.  I asked him at the very last minute to come to California with me and to my surprise his parents allowed him to accompany me on “Bro” Trip number two!

Half of Park City, Utah seemed to be around our whereabouts when we were in Cali.  Shane, Livi, Cameron, Raeah, Lance, and Finn were all in about a 2 hour drive to us.  So maybe I exaggerated a little bit not half of Park City but six of our friends were near us.  This added some excitement to the trip because if we didn’t find any girls or friends that I met from the trip before we could hang out with some of the Park City kids that were also visiting Cali.  We hopped on the plane the next day and flew for about two hours and landed only about 15 minutes outside of Solana.

We then found ourselves fifteen minutes later right on the beach in a very cool condo and within walking distance of my other close friend.  Carlos and I immediately put our swim trunks on and went for a short swim in the ocean.  It was very refreshing to get back into the ocean after being away from it for so long.  Although it was revitalizing it tired both of us out so we walked over to the famous local burrito shop named Robertos.  To our surprise we found Shane there with his two younger sisters.  Although we were both planning on seeing each other there it was out of complete chance that we saw him at that time.  We then made plans with shane for the night and went back to the house to shower and go to they gym (which we never actually got around to).  The night ended up to be a bust and we just stayed at shames neighbors house and watched a movie bu the next day was going to be full of adventure.

We woke up around 8 o’clock that next morning and felt compelled to go jump into the ocean for a couple of hours.  Equipped with boogie boards and skim boards we marched down to the beach for some fun.  Carlos and I are both not very educated in the ocean area and we ended up floating out in a rip tide.  Being blind from what was happening for around an hour we realized we were very far out and couldn't get back in.  I knew some about this and starting swimming diagonally out of the rip tide which thankfully got me back onto shore.  Although I was back on the beach Carlos was stuck out there for another good half an hour and we got it all on film!!  This trip was short lived but filled with fun and adrenaline!

Turning Point III

Super-G Fall

The big run was only an hour away.  I was taking laps on Eagle inspecting my course for the next run.  The course seemed like a great set but there was one slight problem.  First of all I had the jitters and second, the weather was getting very hot and was melting the snow making it very soft and this could cause some big ruts.  This started to get into my head and I kept thinking more and more about what would happen if I were to fall.  I decided to take my mind away from my run by taking some runs on my own just free skiing; this seemed to do the trick because my mind was cleared and my confidence was back.

Only minutes before the run I am taking off my warm up pants and jacket getting ready to jump into the start gate.  I am in the pit getting the snow clicked off the bottom of my boots so my ski doesn’t eject while I am going down the hill.  All that I am thinking to myself is,”I am going to win, I am going to win.”  I was more nervous than all of my other runs which worried me but I shook it off and skied down to the start.  Ten more racers ahead of me getting ready for their chance at the win and I looked at them all deciding their fate.  Three racers ahead of me didn't finish it worried me and my coach also gave me the heads up that the snow was really soft and easy to loose edging on.  All of my observations were getting into my head and taking my mind off of what I actually was supposed to do.

I got into the gate my mind was wandering, I was thinking all of the wrong thoughts at the absolute wrong time.  “Racer Ready?” said the gate keeper, “3… 2… 1… GO!”  I pushed out of the gate as hard as I could trying to build up as much speed as possible for the first gate.  I was around 5 or 6 gates in and the snow under my ski gave and I leaned in; my butt was on the ground and I was sliding out of the course to wrap up my first loss for that race.  I was very disappointed and was hitting my poles on the ground on the side of the run.  Well you can’t win em all can ya.