Ashley Baker
John Steinbrink
ENC 1101-51492
January 28, 2014
My Journey to Florida My many family vacations to the beach always left me in wonder as to what it would be like to actually live near one. Little did I know that one day I would finally find out. For the past couple of months my best friend, Marie, and I had been discussing the idea of having me moving down to Florida with her. It was not until the Christmas after my high school graduation that Marie, her aunt Tina, and her uncle Dennis made the two day trip to come up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While they were on their way to get me, I was at home doing some last minute packing and enjoying my last couple of days with my parents. Then came the part no one was looking forward to, the much dreaded goodbyes. With tears in our eyes, all of us loaded the truck with my things, hugged each other farewell, and off I went. Not looking forward to the long boring drive back to Florida, we decided to make a trip of it and have fun. Knowing we would be driving through West Virginia, it was the perfect opportunity to have a mini ski vacation there. The night we left, we drove until we arrived in Flat Top, West Virginia the four of us decided to get a hotel and call it a night. The next morning, Tina figured instead of driving some more, we would eat some breakfast and spend the rest of the day playing on the slopes. Our first ski destination was Winterplace Ski Resort. I had never been skiing before so I was in for a challenge. I couldn’t quite get the hang of skis, but after a good 45 minutes of practicing on the bunny slopes, I was ready to try a bit more difficult slope. Needless to say, that was a bad idea. Although I did not fall, I was slipping and sliding all over the place. The blistering cold wind had me stopping every ten minutes to try and regain feeling in my hands and face. Marie, Tina, Dennis, and I had spent almost the entire day on the slopes until it started to get dark. We opted for one more mountain and by the time we reached the bottom, we were all tired, cold, and hungry. We hurried to get inside the overly crowded lodge to order hot beverages and food to warm up. Once we were all full and toasty warm, we headed back to our hotel for the night. Each of us wanted to enjoy the snow while we could, so on day two of our journey it was decided that more skiing was necessary! This lead us to our second ski destination, still in West Virginia, Snowshoe Mountain Resort. I had learned that skiing was not my thing, so I chose snowboarding this time. It was a much better option and it came naturally to me since I had learned to snowboard a few years prior to this. I felt more comfortable and wanted to really challenge myself and go down the big mountains. I started out easy to regain my confidence in what I was doing. After a few runs down the easy slopes, I was ready to conquer the difficult ones! Despite my excitement to snowboard the day away, my fear of heights left me hesitant to ride the ski lift to the highest mountain at the resort. About halfway to the top, the lift suddenly stopped for a couple of minutes, which did not ease my fear at all. After about a four minute ride, that felt like 20, I was finally at the top of the mountain. Even though all I could see around me was people, snow, and trees, the view was astonishing! All around me were skiers slicing through the snow, snowboarders gliding down the mountains, and far off in the distance on a smaller slope, tubers were bouncing across the uneven hillside like kangaroos jumping in the plains of Australia. I had never been on a mountain that high and challenging, so I was slightly nervous but ready. I was proud that I could challenge myself and face my fears head on. Again, the whole day was spent skiing and snowboarding. It was not nearly as cold on day two as it was on day one, but it still felt necessary to take breaks here and there to warm up. As day two quickly came to an end, we