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It all started Wednesday afternoon. I had everything ready to go BigBear with the exception of bindings for my board. My brother's friendhad just happened to sell the bindings I was supposed to borrow. I goto Sport Chalet which had NOTHING. Bummer. My cousin then offered totake me to her friends place and got 04 bindings from TechNine thatwere 70 bucks. I take them and am excited to go on my firstsnowboarding trip of 09 since it dumped up there in a month. No rain isexpected and this is my final chance of trying the place out as well asmy new gear.
11pm same night rolls around and I get picked up from my friend Karen.We drive from my house to Riverside since her parents own a house upthere and it saves us at least an hour of traffic. We wax the boardsand get them tuned up for tomorrow morning.
Wake up early the next morning ( Thursday) and get ready to go.
Driving up to the mountain was no problem and get there around 10:30amand park at the snow summit parking lot and take the bus to Big Bear.Its around 11am with the tickets in our hands and excitement in ourblood. We hit up some runs. I realized after I had snapped in my rightboot that my toe binding is missing and had to snowboard with onebinding. I slowly make my way down and get it fixed. After that smallproblem Karen and I finally try some fun boxes and the halfpipe. Theentire day I landed one box and went halfway up the halfpipe. I hadtons of fun though even though my finger is still slowly recovering.With much accomplished in the five hours Karen and I were ready to plana trip next week to get our skills up to par. We get to our car around4:45pm since the park was about to close. We change and get ready toleave. Guess what? The car refuses to stop and cannot go forwards orbackwards. Luckily the guy next to us spotted our problem and said hewas a mechanic. He checks our fliuids which were good but found out thetranny is busted.
Dillema: Where can we get it fixed? Answer: Nowhere since the majority of businesses close around 5pm. We walk around and find a towing place.The MINIMUM of having the car towed down the mountain was $300 dollars.Karen and I cringed at the fact of the price of that tow. We think over our second possible answer and that was to stay overnight and having itfixed up in Big Bear. Then Karen made the most lifesaving and luckiest call. Her friend Kristina has AAA and 100 free towing miles. We squealwith excitement but realize we can't get the car towed at night due to visability and ice on the streets. We ponder to think of staying in thecar overnight but then the earthquake shook the car and scared the daylights out of Karen. Immediately after that the lights in theparking lot turn off and it is black.
We immediately decide to look for a hotel and lucky enough Karen findsa hotel within walking distance to our car. We check in and drag ourgoods in. Take a hot shower, change clothes and crossed our fingers that no one would try to steal the car five minutes away from thehotel. Without any lunch in our stomachs we grab what was the only food available. Dinner consisted of hot ramen and potato chips, soda and water in our camelbaks.
Luckily enough ( again ) we had found a coffee pot in our hotel roomand heated up some water for some hot ramen and chips with soda. Wepass out in our beds and call it a night.
Following morning we wake up at 7am and get our stuff ready. Call Kristna and tells us to get ready within 30 minutes. We quickly pack upand get ready but then Kristina calls us again and tells us that at11:30am is when the tow truck guy will come up. Then a last phone call from the actual tow guy comes through and we have a tow at 10:30 beforethe parking lot at Summit gets full.
Before we got home the tow truck guy had a huge truck on his bed while dragging Karen's poor Rav-4 in the back. We give him directions sincet he MapQuest directions were whack. After we drop off the truck we get back in and drive 92 miles back home and have tons of memories.
I expected to get back at 5pm last night and now am here exhausted but cannot believe what I had just gone through. It was quite the start to this year. I hope its a precursor to what expect this year. Adventure and discovery!