Extreme Sports in Montana, Day 1

January 6, 2009    Category: Albino Bowler    No Comments »

     Well, I’ve made it to Big Sky country with Paul and Jay. It was an uneventful trip – but loooong. We spent roughly 12 hours in airports and airplanes then another hour drive up to the place we are staying. I know one thing, Montana is COLD!!!!! When we landed it was 3 degrees and it only got colder. Thankfully Thrifty hooked us up with a brand new 4-Runner and off we went. There were many pictures of my travel time, check out my Facebook page to see them. I had to doze off on the drive up to Big Sky as it was way past my bed time – Montana is on Mountain time so two (2) hours behind Knoxville.

    We are staying at Bucks T4 Lodge. We have no idea why it’s called T4 or what the heck T4 means and no one else seems to know either. We got settled and Paul and Jay woke me up to go get a beer before turning in for the night. The place was crazy with all kinds of locals partying. Since Paul and Jay are old they didn’t even want to consider hanging, so they turned in for the night and so did I.

    The day started at 5:30AM Mountain time when I heard Paul rustling around. Actually he got up like three (3) times to take a potty break. He drank like 50 gallons of water on the trip – so as you can imagine I didn’t get a lot of peaceful sleep. Regardless, we went to breakfast – which was a lovely continental breakfast provided free by Bucks – and then back to the room to get ready. These guys are P90x fiends so guess what; they did StretchX to get things rolling. It was kind of funny watching two grown men roll around, stand, squat, stretch, etc all while watching it on a 4” screen in Paul’s iPod touch. Oh I laughed a lot watching these two clowns.

    I rode with Paul, tucked inside the front pocket of his nice down vest jacket. Honestly this was a comfortable spot – warm and out of harms way. My first shots came not too long after they got on the mountain as you can see me here with Paul. I got to actually ride the lift too, which was a bit – well FREAKY. I mean this thing is a long way off the ground and I don’t exactly weigh too much and the thing has no way to strap me in.  So, Paul had to put his hand behind me to make sure I was safe. Anyhow, it was a neat day. I got out again when they had lunch and talked to the waitress. She was pretty cool, hardcore snowboarded from South Africa via Oregon.  Those pictures are on Facebook too. It never got above 13 degrees today and it snowed about six (6) inches, but I managed to stay
warm in the jacket and really just took at easy while these guys tried to figure the mountain out. The place is almost 4000 acres and has a lot of variety so they spent most of the day checking out every lift and run they could get access to. This way they will have a game plan for the mountain.

    When we got back they were dying to get in the hot tub, but I wanted to try and make a snow angel. I tried, it was
OK, but with my arm the way it is and the fact that I am a plastic action figure it was challenging. So, rather than freeze I hung out on the side and actually got in the water as well. It was really toasty, which was nice. I didn’t go all the way in, just got my feet in the water. So, all in all it was a cool day. I was pretty whipped too so when they went to dinner I asked if I could just hang at the hotel and watch football. They forgot to turn the TV on though, so no football for me.

    When they got back they started working on their snowboards, catching up on emails and they also dove into a study on Worldliness. These guys are pretty cool in that they try to tie in their
faith with these trips. They tell me it’s a chance to not just go have fun with a hobby, but appreciate God’s creation and have intentional time to focus on God’s word so that they can grow as a part of their trip. Pretty cool – I learned a lot of stuff I didn’t know. If you want to check out more then check out their blog at http://brightonboys.wordpress.com.

   That’s it for today, day one. I hear tomorrow they are going to get me out and hit kickers with me. I have no idea what that means but apparently it will require them to hold me in their hands while they try to jump off something and the other guy will take a picture. I guess we’ll see how that turns out. I will tell you this, Montana is a beautiful place and I can’t wait to see more of it tomorrow.

– Paul Sponcia

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