Ski Lift Conversations

I'm on a ski trip with 150 of my classmates, but I've spent a lot of the time skiing by myself. This is because most of the people on the trip are either absolute beginners or jumping off cliffs, whereas I am a strong but cautious intermediate skiier. Fortunately, I love skiing by myself. I don't like stopping a whole lot, and when I go by myself I can get in a scary amount of runs in a short period of time. And the skiing here has been great.

There's one other huge benefit to solo skiing: the singles line. It not only means no waiting in line, it offers the bonus of meeting all sorts of people on the ride up. I don't always get chatty-- I usually let people take the lead. But I've encountered all sorts of interesting people up here. There are lots of Texans, so we enjoyed continuing to discuss Wednesday's game (btw, I love that my football post got the most responses I've had in a while. My friends rule.). I rode up with two women who went to Stanford back in the '60's, and insisted on introducing me to their husbands (they all met at the Farm) and telling them that I was at Wharton. I've met people who came here from South Africa and Australia, which tells you something about Colorado's skiing. And hands down my favorite conversation: two guys from Chattanooga, Tennessee debated whether the Apollo moon landing was completely faked, or whether we actually did land on the moon but were forced to recreate the photos in a sound stage because of issues with the camera equipment on the moon. The authenticity of the pictures was not subject to debate, only how deep the ruse went.