Our first ski trip

This afternoon, we crossed into France (behind us basically) and went skiing in La Rousses (this town actually is on the France/Swiss border). The drive up was nice. It's about 20 minutes to the base of the mountains there. Then, you start zigzagging across the face of the mountain (doing some nice hairpin turns). There were some nice views of Lake Geneva below and across into France (on the other side of the lake - we are surrounded by France almost). We got all dressed in our warm (almost too warm) clothes. Rented some skis and headed out. It started out a little rocky. Gene had some trouble with the pull lifts - you take a pole that is on a spring and it has a little disk you put between your legs and then it pulls you up the slope (Rob, Beth and Jacque - you remember them from Wisconsin, when Jacque who had just had about 5 minutes of lessons from us took off up the slope without us and we didn't have a clue how to ride the lift). Anyway, Gene fell twice on the lift. So, then we decided let's just get on the big chair lift and go up and see what happens. We were just hoping that there were some easy slopes to come down. Luckily, there were. But, Gene fell getting off the chair lift. The ride up was much longer than Wisconsin or even Eureka (go figure). We headed off to the green slope and were amazed at how high the snow was. It came up to my shoulders, if not higher in some spots. I was really wishing I had Beth with me. We would have been to the bottom and back up by the time Gene and Rob got to the bottom the first time. It was some good powder and if I could have, I would have gotten some nice speed. I was nice and waited around for Gene, even though he told me to go on. But, I wanted to make sure he didn't fall and add his first injury to this blog. Rob is typically the one who stays behind and helps him or even falls himself watching Gene fall. I'm a loving wife and watch from the bottom. The next few times going back down, Gene made it off the lift OK and I was leaving Gene behind (but not too far - just far enough that I could still pick him out and make sure he had not fallen). Except for the time that Gene nearly did the splits (ie nuts rubbing the snow)...I definitely did not see that one to know that he was OK...my bad, my bad. :) Oh, and there were some AMAZING views from the tops of the mountains. Prager's - we think this place may have some nice hiking trails for Frank in the summer. In the end, we made it back OK, just sore. We had a nice time and will probably go back sometime.