Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

Tag: snowboarding

Travel Moments That Changed Me

I recently read an article with the title, “Traveling Doesn’t Make You a Better Person.” The first time I skimmed it, I dismissed the idea because I may have misunderstood the author’s intended message. I read it as, “traveling can’t change you and doesn’t ever make you a better person.” And like the author’s reaction to a friend who made a similar comment, I was stunned and perhaps a little put-off by it. However, a proper read-through clarified what I think the author was trying to say. (The title of the article is perhaps a little misleading.) My interpretation of the overall message is that traveling doesn’t automatically make you a better person since it depends on how you travel, and traveling doesn’t make you better than someone who doesn’t travel. I wholeheartedly agree with that on both accounts.

It got me thinking about moments in my own travels so far and I was able to identify a few special experiences that did change me as a person. In general, travel makes me a better version of myself simply because traveling makes me so happy, but there have been a few moments that altered me in a very specific way. And I’m not even talking about my scars from various bug bites or injuries, or the pounds I have inevitably gained enjoying international cuisines.

England 2003

Ah, my first trip outside of North America. I suspect you’d have a hard time finding someone bitten by the travel bug who wasn’t changed by their first trip overseas. I went to visit my parents who were living in England at the time, and I was mesmerized by the entire country. I’ve always had wanderlust on some level, but this trip introduced me to what it actually feels like to see and photograph far away places. Despite coming down with a horrible cold while I was there, I remember my magical trip to England with a very full heart and my love for travel has grown exponentially since then.

Hawaii, Switzerland, and Italy 2004

Thanks to Chris’s job at the time, I had the opportunity to tag along on a couple of conferences in fantastic locations: Hawaii and Switzerland. While Chris worked during the day on these trips, I set out on my own to explore and had some independent moments that allowed me to grow as a traveler. Oahu felt easy enough to navigate and it was a good starting point for a solo adventure. I rented a car and felt perfectly comfortable driving around the island alone during the day. In Switzerland, I wandered around Lugano by myself, shopping, eating, and navigating public transportation. On an overnight trip to Gimmelwald, I ended up taking the most peaceful, solitary hike where I was dwarfed by the surrounding Alps. And since the Italy border was so close to Lugano, I even hopped over to Milan for a day on my own.

Aside from a few potentially scary moments (getting lost on a mountain, wrestling my camera away from a stranger, etc.), these independent experiences gave me confidence as a traveler. I learned about navigation and safety in ways that will stick with me in my travel tool belt forever. Chris is my dream travel partner and I’m so very thankful to share adventures with him for the rest of our lives, but I’m also glad I had the opportunity to do some solo travel, albeit brief and on a small scale.

Colorado, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania 2012

“Let’s go snowboarding while we’re in Colorado,” he said. “It’ll be fun,” he said. Never have I ever attempted to do something with such a steep learning curve. I heard from plenty of people beforehand that snowboarding is difficult to learn, but I needed to see for myself. I had been skiing once before and picked it up pretty quickly, so how much different could snowboarding be? Answer: completely different. I spent more time on my tailbone than standing up during my half-day lesson in Colorado.

It took four more tries – one trip to Snowshoe, West Virginia and three visits to Whitetail Ski Resort in Pennsylvania – before I got the hang of it. I’m a little stubborn in general (let’s call it persistent), but learning to snowboard really put my perseverance to the test. We can all use a good never-give-up lesson now and then, can’t we? I stuck with it through some really painful injuries. I didn’t give up despite how much it hurt my body and my pride. Then one day things suddenly clicked and I managed to link turns. That was a very proud moment! Now whenever I’m faced with a difficult task, I use snowboarding as the benchmark. Most things are easier to learn than snowboarding, so that helps keep it all in perspective.

Tortola and Virgin Gorda 2013

I realize it might sound a little silly when I say that snorkeling changed me, but it did! And it happened on our trip to Tortola. I had attempted snorkeling a couple of times prior to this trip, and both times I got scared and didn’t last very long in the water. This was the trip where I vowed not to chicken out and I bravely faced my life-long ocean creature fears. Our island-hopping day trip to the Baths of Virgin Gorda was the perfect place for me to realize why other people love snorkeling so much. The water was calm, and the fish were colorful and friendly, and the positive experience enabled me to spend the rest of my time in Tortola happily exploring the beautiful underwater world.

Any time you step outside of your comfort zone and face a fear it’s a life-changing moment for sure, and this one led me to my next big moment…

Belize 2015

Last but not least, my scuba diving debut in Belize earlier this year. Conquering one of my biggest fears certainly changed me and I wrote about it here. There’s nothing I was more scared to do (other than say, scuba diving at night or in a cave), so knowing that I was able to go through with it and come out perfectly unscathed makes me feel like I can face just about anything. I will always remember how I felt that day in Belize – the build-up of fear in the hours before we headed to the dive shop, the butterflies in my stomach on the dive boat, and the I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-it feeling once I was submerged and breathing underwater among the fish.

So what about you? What moments in your travels (be it local or long distance) made a life-changing impact? It can even be something as simple as putting your face in the water wearing a mask to gaze upon tropical fish!

June 8, 2015
Deep Thoughts on Snowboarding vs. Skiing

Hope everyone is still staying all warm and cozy through this long winter! Chris and I just returned from a quick trip to Seven Springs in Pennsylvania where we broke in our new skis and enjoyed playing on the snow. We decided to go during the week rather than on a weekend so that we could practice skiing with fewer people on the trails. Hardly anyone was at the resort, and we really did have the place pretty much to ourselves so we felt like that was a good call! The drive up was so beautiful, and the mountain was also really lovely. We stayed at a cute condo with ski-in/ski-out access, and were able to get in lots of practice.

So now that I’ve skied a few times after spending the last two seasons learning how to snowboard, I think I can say with confidence that skiing is much (much much) easier to learn. I have fallen maybe 4-5 times total so far while learning on skis, whereas with snowboarding I fell at least 4-5 times per run in the learning stages. Ow. And that’s not counting falling when getting off the lift, which was at least half of the time. Oh, the bruises and aches I collected while learning! It took me at least five separate trips to various resorts to get the hang of snowboarding (meaning, linking smooth turns all the way down without falling), but with skiing I was able to successfully make it down the green runs on my first try. I’m not really counting the first time I ever skied when I was sixteen, although I was able to ski down the greens back then, too.

I’ve read that snowboarding is harder to learn but easy to master, and that skiing is easy to learn but hard to master. I wouldn’t say I mastered snowboarding, but I did become proficient enough and I can agree with that statement – skiing is waaay easier to learn. But I can see how it’s going to take some more time to improve my skiing techniques, and I imagine the patience comes into play during the intermediate level. So if you’re new to snow sports and trying to decide what to try, maybe that will help. If you enjoy a challenge and have the patience to stick with it, try snowboarding! If you’d rather have an easier time with just getting down the mountain on your first day, maybe skiing is a good option. Or you can always choose to try both so you’ll know for sure which one you like better. I’m planning to put more time into skiing next season to work on technique.

Here are just a couple of photos from Seven Springs. I meant to take more, but the one thing that is harder on skis is taking photos! It’s hard to hold both poles and a camera. 🙂

February 27, 2014
Meet-the-Parents Photos

Do you remember the scene in the movie Meet the Parents where Greg and Pam arrive at Pam’s ex-fiance, Kevin’s, house for a pre-wedding barbeque? Greg finds all the old photos of Pam and Kevin together, doing amazing things like skydiving and snorkeling (still on display in the ex-fiance’s house – hilarious). Somehow that scene stuck with Chris and me, and every time we take a photo together doing something even slightly adventurous, we call it a “Meet-the-Parents” photo. Now that I’m explaining it, it sounds totally weird, but to us it’s silly and good fun. We’ve been collecting quite a few of these, and we’re hoping to add more to the series soon! Here we are doing things like kayaking, zip-lining, dog-sledding, hiking and snowboarding:

This year we’re planning to add a big one: scuba-diving! Truth? I’m pretty scared of trying it even though I love doing things (within reason) that put me well out of my comfort zone. I’m not interested in say, holding a spider, mind you. That’s light years outside of my comfort zone. But challenging myself to do things that are a little scary seems to broaden my horizon a bit each time. I learn about myself, about other people, and about the world, and I truly enjoy that part of it. So I’m expecting to learn quite a bit from getting PADI certified if I can get through the open water dives, which we plan to do in Grand Cayman!

I’m not actually too scared of the breathing under water part. I think that will be fun, and I’m glad we get to try it in a pool first. It’s the ocean-wide world of creatures that makes me nervous. How do I know which ones are friendly and which ones aren’t? And when I’m approached by one in the unfriendly camp, then what? What if I panic? I’m also someone who gets really (really really) excited about things. Big things, little things, plain things, amazing things. Ask Chris – we are often driving along somewhere when he hears me draw a sudden GASP that makes him worry he’s about to hit another car when nope, it’s just that I saw an interesting cloud/tree/house/random stranger. So I’m worried I won’t know how to properly “chill” while diving. But I’m willing to see how it goes, and hopefully I’ll have a Meet-the-Parents photo to post for you here!

February 5, 2014
Colorado Recap: The Obsession Continues…

Chris and I were in Colorado for Christmas a few weeks ago, and while we were there we took a trip out to Steamboat Springs for some snowboarding with my sister and brother-in-law. They are locals and longtime skiers, and they love Steamboat so we decided to give it a try with them. The resort is huge, and the skiing/snowboarding was amazing. They had just received something like 14-inches of new powdery snow, so it was definitely the softest, snowiest ride we’ve ever experienced. And it was COLD. The base of the mountain was 12 degrees, so you can imagine that as we went up (and up and up) the lifts, it got really chilly even with lots of layers on. Plus there were flurries throughout the day. Here we are, smiley but cold!

The view from the lift was just so pretty. The view down the mountain:

And the view up the hill. Plus an action shot of me! I’m happy to report that my skills are improving vastly – I can link turns consistently and make it down a run without really falling. I do still have a little trouble when the trail is really really narrow – that kind of spooks me because my turns are wide, but I’m sure I’ll continue to improve this season. We have several trips planned – I’m obsessed with our new hobby.

Most importantly, while I was in Colorado I got to spend quality time with my family for the Christmas holiday. I love them so much! We chatted a lot, and I personally ate a lot, so thank goodness for the snowboarding to burn off the calories.

And I got to see my nephew, Andy the Weimaraner (pictured below), and my niece, Fiona the Snowshoe Siamese kitty! So that’s always nice.

Counting down the days to our next trip out there!

January 18, 2013
Shredding the Gnar

It was (almost) around this time last year that I started to learn how to snowboard! It’s something Chris had tried a few times before and he wanted to get back into it, so I thought I’d give it a try so it could be something we could enjoy together. Though I admit I was pretty scared to try it – having both of your feet stuck to one board that you can’t easily detach (like skis) while barreling down a slope seemed like a bad idea to me.

The first time I went was in Colorado where we signed up for a private lesson with one of the instructors at Eldora Mountain Resort. I was warned ahead of time that the learning curve is quite steep, and that’s an understatement! But I was immediately* in love with it, despite also being so frustrated with how HARD it is. I think it took me about five snowboarding trips and many many bruises before I really “got it.”

*Edited to add: Chris just reminded me that I wasn’t quite immediately in love with it. I was pretty flustered with the first few hours of the lesson. Our instructor had us practicing on a small hill, where we’d ride down and then climb back up with the heavy board strapped to one foot. It’s probably the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done! So actually, I think I said, “I hate this,” when we were on break.

Our instructor, Amir, was awesome. He was patient and really focused on the basics and a good foundation. He pushed me to challenge myself, but not too far past what I was comfortable with, alhough I did take a hard fall at the end of the day when he let me go down the bottom of the trail by myself. I’ll never forget laying on the ground looking up at the sky when Amir rushed over and said, “That was AWESOME!” Apparently I had linked turns a few times at the end of the run (by accident) right before I fell. Okay, awesome, but painful! My tailbone still isn’t quite the same.

I left with a few skills under my belt (and a very bruised tailbone), and once we were back home I immediately went out and purchased my own board, bindings, boots, helmet (critical!), and goggles.

We went nearly every weekend to Whitetail Resort in Pennsylvania to practice, practice, practice. Thank goodness for the small hills and gentle slopes of a PA mountain, unlike the “real” mountains of Colorado. Much better for a beginner! Though we don’t have much in the way of real snow here – it’s mostly man-made snow over a hard layer of ice, so there are pros and cons. (Falling on ice is a major con.)

Here I am taking a short break on the side of the beginner trail. In addition to the learning curve, snowboarding as a beginner is exhausting! Thankfully all those waterproof layers allow me to sit in the snow off to the side and rest every once in a while.

I finally learned to connect everything together once I actually got OFF of the bunny trail, and went to a more difficult but less populated green trail. Look how crowded that bunny hill is! So many people to run into. Once I had a little more room, everything just clicked, and I started linking turns – this time on purpose. Yay!

And with that, I crossed off #49 on my old 101 in 1001 list for prosperity and to you know, keep it official. I’m really looking forward to our second season, hopefully with fewer bruises! P.S. We don’t really say, “shredding the gnar” except to joke around, but snowboard slang is pretty fun. “Sweet cherry cherry pow-pow” means fresh, untouched snow (powder). And there were a few occasions where I “scorpioned,” meaning I fell face-first downhill with my board overhead. There are no pictures of that, thankfully.

So what about you? Are there any new hobbies you want to try? Want to give snowboarding a try?! It’s (apparently) one of those things that you have to push through no matter how hard it is at first, and if you’re patient (and stubborn) enough, everything will just click and it gets really fun! Let me know if you decide to try it! And if you need any advice on protective crash gear, I’ve done TONS of research on pads, helmets, wrist guards, etc. And I’ve done lots of crashing, so I can vouch for what works. 🙂

December 12, 2012