Home James

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Our time in the mountains has come to and end and we are so incredibly sad. It has been epic and neither of us want it to be over. It's hard to believe how quickly it has gone and how totally addictive snowboarding can be.

In our twelve weeks away we have visited six resorts, and made a home away from home in three. We've snowboarded for 61 days and covered over 2000km! We've been to dinner with someone who used to work for NASA and met a bus driving writer. It has been an unforgettable experience, one we would love to repeat (come on lottery win!!!)

Although we might not be ready to retire until next year, our kit is definitely ready to be retired, forever. It's fair to say that we both look like snowboarding hobos, or as my mum would say, we look like nobody owns us. We came out to America with the intention of buying loads of new kit. Generally it is much cheaper than the UK but with the dodgy exchange rate and expensive resort prices it's not quite worked out for us. This means we're in snowboard trousers that are seriously faded (especially on the bottom), letting in water and ripping. My jacket has plasters on it from where the edge of my snowboard have shredded it (and for the record proper American Band Aids are much better than Tesco fabric plasters, which fall off after a day) and Paul's coat is covered in oil from dripping chairlifts in Breckenridge.

Our boots aren't any better. Paul needs a spoon to do his up and mine, once a bright white are now a grubby cream (they were definitely a casualty of my birthday celebrations) and need marigolds wedging in the ratchets to stop the laces from slipping!

Our snowboards were fairing ok until our last week, when more and more of the mountain has been exposed revealing rocks and tree stumps. They are now looking a little worse for wear and have some seriously deep scratches on them. I think it's fair to say that we will need to do some serious shopping before next season.

There are a couple of things we won't miss; I won't miss the porridge we had every other day for breakfast and I think Paul will be happy never to see another sandwich. But that's about it.

Next stop is sunny Nottingham for a few nights to swap out the snowboards for our summer kit and mandarin phrase book.

As one adventure ends, another one begins......



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