Make Snow Not War

Careful what you wish for. Shawn and I were hot and cruised up north to find some cool. We found ourselves in Flagstaff at the Snowbowl mountain on the "Scenic Chair Ride" heading up to 11,500 feet on a gorgeous, thank God we got out of Phoenix, day. The ride up was beautiful - sunny, even warm in some spots as our feet dangled off the lift. We made fun of the people going down with their jackets and hats - even one guy had on gloves, thinking those weird Flagstaff locals are always so prepared. We noticed the clouds coming in before we got to the top, figured we may get some drops and sort of looked forward to it. That was the plan, right? The whole goal of the day was to cool off. It did just that as we went by the 10,000 foot marker, then 11,000, then 11,500. We got off and walked around, even saw the Grand Canyon in the distance. As we got in line to head back down, the sky started looking worse. I noticed that the other half of the chairlift was empty, too, nobody was coming up anymore, forcing us line waiters to get on only every third chair for balance. Halfway through the 25 minute ride down, we felt the first drops. Then they started coming faster and faster. Then they turned to hail. Hail. In July. I know that any lightheadedness from my freshly made raspberry beer from the microbrewery at lunch had worn off, so the only excuse for our hysterical laughter was probably insanity. We got soaked but kept laughing anyway. The hail was hitting us hard. Shawn - The Hero - wrapped himself around me (as much as you could on a metal swing hundreds of feet up in the air) and saved parts of me, while constantly sweeping off the piles of gathering hail. Still laughing, even though my flip-flopped feet were freezing, it was really fun. Shawn later described it as being rocked by pheasants during medieval times (this, coming from Mr. Metrosexual, standing there in linen shorts). We finally reached the bottom and the only thing I could do was to give a Rocky Balboa hands up in the air scream. There wasn't a soul on the previously full deck, now white with hail. We rushed in to the restaurant, crowded with much more prepared than we were storm watchers. I found a corner behind a table and bent over to shake the big white hard hail balls out of my hair into the dark green carpet. The family at the table was watching me and the guy said they were bummed when the chair lift closed down and they couldn't go. As I wrung out my t-shirt, watching a stream of water drip to the floor, I smiled and said, "Are you still bummed?" He shook his head.

After catching our breath, we ran to the car, cranked the heat and tried to thaw out, sort of hard to do in clothes that weren't going to dry anytime soon. I ventured back in to buy something dry and even though I have vowed to never, ever, ever buy another sweatshirt, I got a very stylish Arizona Snowbowl grey hoodie for only $29.99. Shawn requested a t-shirt and the only thing they had that wasn't brown or green and covered with big deer standing in front of forests with snow-capped mountain peaks in the background was one that said "Make Snow Not War."

We drove down the mountain in the rain to new favorite coffeehouse, Late For The Train, cracking up the whole way.