Well it looks like I have fallen behind on the communal blog and its already half way through the season. I guess it is only fair to start retrogressively from the beginning.
Each one of us three has our story and was motivated to come here by different reasons.
As for me I am going to be a bit lazy and just take some lines from another blog I wrote telling my story.
Sometime in the last few years I have made the commitment to myself to learn something new every year and to have atleast one adventure. This year I decided to go get a snowboarding teachers license and live the life of a snowbum. It is something I have thought about since college in Colorado. It seems a lot of people from Colorado decide to take that route while they debate what course their lives should take. I would definetly recommend it as a great distraction from the real world and responsibility and I mean that only in the best way possible. I actually went to work as a tour guide in Germany after college. Towards the end of my most recent season at Fat Tire in Berlin (3rd season) I decided to book a trip to South America and planned to eventually migrate north to Seattle and live and work up there to be with two of my best friends… Drew and Emily. As I prepared for the trip I decided to submit an application to work as a snowboarding instructor as a fun winter activity but I didn’t necessarily expect to get hired because I lacked official certification and had no experience teaching snowboarding whatsoever. Other teaching experiences must have inspired them to take a chance, and I was hired by the Beavercreek Resort as a children’s instructor. I decided to put my SA adventures on hold and started searching for housing. The God’s of fate must have smiled down upon me when I found an add on Craigslist published by two stokesters from Pennsylvania who needed another room mate. Apparently my emails made an impression and my name promised countless hours of amusement so they chose my application and invited me into their fully furnished and centrally located condo. It was immediately clear that this would be an experience of growth when my response from Rob contained a variety of words I had never heard in their true uses before like: Stoked, mint, masterful, and crasterful. The ensuing months would contain a whole new vocabulary for me and a true emersion into the mountain culture. They actually remind of a book I had read during my Asian adventures called “On the Road Again” by Jack Kerouac. They had a passion for life much like Dean Moriarty. They quit their professional jobs to seek a life of adventure. Mac had been an actuary and Rob had worked as an environmental consultant. Hopefully they will take the time to post their own stories sometime soon.
Our place is right at the base of the Beavercreek resort and across the street from the Bear lot shuttle bus making our commute to “work” easy and practical. The heart of the Avon night life scene is within a fifteen minute walk along a charming path winding side by side with the River. Just across the parking lot from our condo is one of the more fun local clubs called Agave. Our location could not be better.
I remember the first evening arriving in Avon. My sister was kind enough to drive me up as I did not have a car, and my two massive bags and newly purchased snowboard would make the shuttle service from Denver not only a hassle but quite expensive as well.
By the way a huge factor in my decision to come to Colorado in the first place was that my younger sister Ashley lives in Denver. This was a great opportunity to spend more time with her. As we progressed along the winding I-70 highway I realized that I wasn’t really sure what to expect of Avon. I had been there once or twice before as a college student and had no recollection of the town itself. I did not know how big it was, how charming it might be, and its relation to the other resorts. Heading up I-70 we passed A-Basin, Winterpark, Breckenridge, and Keystone. Next came Copper Mtn and a slew of smaller resorts I had never even heard of. We passed the Las Vegas of the mountains; Vail and then plunged into darkness. It seemed so isolated up there in the mountains far from the sprawling metropolises I was used to. (I had lived in L.A., Melbourne, and Berlin previously) There were few intermissions in the lonely darkness as we drove towards my future home. Finally we saw lights again and started passing towns like Eagle and Minturn. I looked out the window and found myself imagining what it would be like to live in such a small sleepy place. There could not be more than a few thousand people living in the houses built so quaintly upon the hill side. I could not see any huge movie complexes or bowling alleys as shining beacons of life in the darkness. Hell I couldn’t even see a grocery store. I didn’t have a car and started imagining the isolation I was about to endure. I had not lived in a town smaller the 200,000 people since the age of four and was used to the amenities towns of that size could offer. But as we turned the bend we finally we saw the signs; Next 2 Exits Avon. We passed the first exit and turned off the second. The town was of a decent size and I could see grocery stores, and hotels, and banks, and life. You can only imagine the relief I felt when we pulled up to the condo to find that I would not have to live the life of a hermit after all.
Since then I have immersed myself into fully into the lifestyle of a snowboarding instructor. The experience started with a two week training session at Beavercreek where they taught us the basics of teaching, the Beavercreek lifestyle, and improved our riding. I needed a lot of improvement. I had ridden a snowboard once in three years when I went on a trip with an ex girlfriend. Needless to say I fell on the first run but I don’t think too many people saw it happen. I got back on track quickly. Rob and Mac are both awesome riders and riding with them definitely improved my form. After a month or so we completed our professional snowboarding AASI certifications.
We have also tried to immerse ourselves into the existing bar scene. Monday nights are club night at Agave, Tuesdays are trivia night and Wednesdays are Karaoke night at Loaded Joe’s, Thursdays are our day of rest, etc.. Everyday is 1$ beer happy hour at the dusty boot so that is where we spend the majority of our time hanging out with other locals and ski/board instructors. But what excites me most about my experience in Avon/Beavercreek is not the intimacy of the bar scene but the people here. It is a little bubble of happiness in a world that has so many problems. Everybody here is happy, tourists and locals alike. I could not imagine what it would be like to be a dentist. Every day people come to see you that hate seeing you; in tourism we have the benefit that people are happy and excited to see us. The people I work with are full of passion and full of life. It creates a general feeling of comradery and compassion and it makes me excited to go to work everyday. I am both dreading the end of the season but looking forward to all the crazy adventures ahead.
