Kimberley and Fernie and the Roads To and From

Spent a week in the mountians, wanna hear about it?  Of course you do, why else would you be here?

Yes, it was time once again for our annual ski/snowboard trip, this time to Fernie.  There were 13 of us, and we had 6 nights booked in a beautiful ski in/ski out that featured more kitchens than we needed, but could have used another bathroom.  Alan, Kelsey, Scott and I left a day early and drove to Kimberley, so we could spend one day riding there before meeting up with the rest of the crew in Fernie.

OK, so Kimberley.  Kimberley is beautiful, we stayed in a cute little motel where the German gentleman running the place gave us a cake when we checked in, saying "For your breakfast.  With your coffee."  We had supper in a place called the Bauernhaus, and let me tell you this place was something else.  The building was first constructed in 1640 or something, and then like 300 years later the owners decided to dismantle it, ship all the pieces to Canada, and RE-ASSEMBLE THE DANG THING IN KIMBERLEY.  Seriously, if you're ever in Kimberley, check this place out, the food and service were both excellent, plus there aren't too many opportunities to have dinner in a building from the 1600s in Canada.

After a night of sharing a very small bed with Scott, we were up early to hit the slopes.  Conditions in Kimberley were basically perfect, we couldn't have asked for a better day.  Shortly before lunch, Alan asked if I wanted to switch boards for a run, and when we did, I learned something very important: my snowboard just completely sucks shit.  The second I tried out Alan's board, everything got 10 times easier, and when we got to the bottom, Alan said something to the effect of, "dude this thing is horrible, we gotta get you a new one."  So we go in for lunch, and Scott gets on Kijiji, and 10 minutes later he's messaging some guy in Fernie.  We spend the rest of the afternoon on the mountain, (Alan lets me ride his board for the rest of the day because he's a swell guy) and get ready to call it a day.

One small mis-adventure, on our last run of the day, I fall behind because even on Alan's board I'm a pretty terrible snowboarder, and I take a wrong turn.  Rather than meeting the rest of the crew at the bottom, I end up on the WRONG SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN.  The dude working the lift is not impressed, since the lift is supposed to be shut, but I apologise profusely and he says "well I gotta let you back up, it's not like I can leave you out here".  So I ride back up and then ski down the proper side, knowing full well that Scott/Kelsey/Alan are probably beside themselves not knowing where I am.  Good thing I don't carry a cell phone.

Anyway, long story long I get my ass down the proper side of the mountain, and explain that I didn't cripple myself I just got lost because I'm a dumbass, and I get made fun of, and then we pile back in the car for the drive to Fernie.

Fernie was an absolute blast.  The days all kind of run together a bit, but there was food and drink and laughs and games and music, and even some more snowboarding on my sweet new-to-me snowboard that some liftie christened "Franken-board", an apt description if ever there was one.  Seriously, my new board is awesome and I love it, and the dude talked himself down from $150 to $140, which I don't really understand but hey, I'll take it.

Somehow Scott and I ended up sharing the master suite in Fernie, which was certainly an improvement over the tight quarters in Kimberley, the new bed was quite literally double the size of the old one, though even that didn't stop Scott from taking half the blankets for himself and dumping the other half on the floor beside him.

This trip had plenty of in-jokes, as these things tend to, we all spent an entire day making up cheese-related puns, and making fun of Grant and Chad for not knowing how to take the lid off the hot tub, and giving Andrea and Alan a hard time for failing at coffee-making (Andrea used the wrong shape of filter and made a huge mess, Alan forgot to put grounds in the machine and just made hot water).  We also wrote a song called "Increase Your Loads", but the less said about that the better, if I'm honest.  Wednesday night and all day Thursday it poured, so we spent our last day in the mountains drinking drinks and playing games, and it was an excellent way to wrap up an excellent vacation.

I love the mountains and I love snowboarding and I love spending time having fun with my friends, and this trip was jam-packed with laughs and good times, and in the words of Grant "I had a better time than I thought I would, and I was already expecting to have a really good time."  Thanks, friends.

  

The Mediocriskis, Fernie, 2017