Anyone Know an Orthopedist?

I'm back! And in order to show you that I'm not only interested in "nerdy" things, I'll give you a glimpse of the more action packed side of "SB '09" (the moniker given to our little vacation by a fun loving gal from Dallas).

For anyone interested in mountain sports, I highly recommend heading out to the "I-70 Corridor" resorts and vistas in beautiful Colorado. Not only is the economy bringing down the prices of condo rentals and everything else, it means the slopes are uncrowded during the week.

Our first day out was a time to get our feet under ourselves and loosened up for more action later in the week, or so I thought. When my friend, DB, wanted to venture into the terrain park almost immediately, I thought he was crazy. However, I went along with him anyway, which explains past pictures of me wrapped around trees and in creek beds. You see, he is a budding Warren Miller, and is always after the action shot!

This video is of the first jump, the first time in the park at A-Basin:

Prior to that, two kids with baggy pants and fluorescent bandannas skied up next to us. So, I couldn't look chicken! The video doesn't really do the ramp, height or distance justice. It was freakin scary!

Is it an optical illusion?:

They're so cute at this age:

DB gets all the right angles:

I should have known by the shaking in my legs from all the adrenaline that the next move was not a smart one. Always listen to your body! But with a combination of DB chiding me for more action shots and the size of the kicker being considerably smaller than the first, I went ahead:

Ouch! Big mistake. As you can see, I got rotated a little too far backward and just crumpled to the ground, bending my left knee unnaturally backward, while twisting severely and rolling over my equipment! Better go see ski patrol:

Nurse 2outof4 to the rescue! Ski patrol didn't really know anything except that there was no bone sticking out of my ski pants. So, it was off to the ER. The MRI machine is not run on Sundays in Frisco, CO, so the Doc just tugged and pulled my knee around. Final diagnosis: didn't think there was any serious ligament damage, but maybe something wrong with my meniscus, definitely a bad sprain, wear a hinged don-joy brace, and lots of R.I.C.E. The departure nurse said that I would not ski again, and then quickly restated to say not that week.

Probably the worst part of the injury besides not being myself on skis, was it came with a strangely coincidental stomach virus that kept me up all night heaving and emitting sounds that none of my housemates could identify as human! Needless to say, I was on my back on the couch on Monday.

But Tuesday we had 10 to 12 inches of fresh snow at Vail. Two legs be damned!

This is not a bad shot by DB, considering for all intents and purposes I am skiing on one leg and unable to turn to the right:

Nope, definitely not an ambi-turner, but the snow and scenery in Shangri-La at Vail were amazing:

With so much snow, the flat run-outs often led to treks back to steeper terrain:

But alas, not being able to turn right in the bums and deep stuff, due to a bum knee, left me one more day off, followed by a couple of sunny and relaxing days with Mrs./Nurse 2outof4 on the cruisers! Meanwhile, DB found another partner to ski the "Minturn Mile", an out of bounds run down to the village of Minturn, west of Vail, on our last day:

All in all, a great vacation, despite the obvious, with friends and family. And to paraphrase the great Warren Miller, go ahead and move to ski country. If you don't, you'll be one year older when you do.

-2outof4