Notice
"Hey man look at me now, nothing in the world's gonna get me down
Sparks flying I'm on fire, way up high and I'm getting higher"
--Sixwire
1)I really like riding chair lifts in the summertime.
2)We got our lift stickers with purple pictures of snow and skiers and date stamps that said "August 15" on them.
3)At the bottom of the ticket is the standard disclaimer about skiing being "an inherently hazardous and risky sport..."
4)It continues, "with many dangers and risks that cause injury or death," blah blah blah.
5)My sister and I ran up the grassy slope from lodge to lift and stood on the cement in our t-shirts and bare feet.
6)We rode for the first five minutes with the restraint bar up, just because we could.
7)When we put it down we were like, "Wow, check out all this room we have without snow gear. We could fit five people in here!"
8)And the mountain was all green and leafy and there were wildflowers everywhere.
9)It was so, so quiet, because we went at the end of the day--ten minutes before the last ride up, in fact.
10)Which meant that when we got there we had ten minutes to play before the last ride down, so we climbed up on top of the lodge.
11)Well, not on TOP on top, but up a few stories and sitting out on the balcony railing.
12)There were treetops under our feet. It was high. We held very still while we dangled our feet over the side.
13)I said, "Funny that gravity is the only thing keeping us here, and it's also the only thing that makes it dangerous for us to fall."
14)We read all the snow signs and stood on the picnic tables and then we ran back before they shut down the "sky ride."
15)This time we put the restraint bar down right away, because wow, it looks so much steeper going down...
16)We had fun sticking our feet out so that they blocked lakes and trees and things, though.
17)And speculating on whether we'd be able to climb to a tower if the lift stopped while we were near one.
18)Then my sister pointed out, very reasonably, that if there was actually snow we could just jump.
19)Down, that is. Not to the tower. But it would have to be a couple of feet deep, I think. It was still a long way.
20)As we came down we were like, "Here come those crazy girls who didn't put their restraint bar down!"
21)And Marci said, "No! I didn't see anyone like that! Did you?"
22)Our feet were cold when we got off. The mountain was warm but the lift made its own windchill.
Run Away