So we managed to get out to Tahoe for some spring skiing, and the moral of the story is that I am old and confused.  Joe caught an edge and sprained something in his calf muscle, and so he took the rest of the afternoon off, and I decided to go skiing by myself.  I did a few practice runs down Olympic — an easy, uncrowded trail.  Then went over to ski some trail that I had fallen on before, and after satisfactorily making it down without falling, I felt like I could call it a day.  I called Joe at the bottom of some lifts to tell him I was ready to go.  He asked me: “Do you know how to get back?  You need to take the California Trail.”  I glanced at the map behind me and identified some trail marked “California Trail.”  “Yeah, sure, I can do it.”  “Okay…” he said, sounding only half-convinced, and we hung up.  It was almost two hours before I finally was able to meet up with Joe, and it was because of this:

Apparently, my stellar sense of direction, combined with my amazing map reading skills only took me all over the mountain before I was able to find the gondola and call Joe to tell him to pick me up.  I accidentally went down Mott Canyon (how does one accidentally go down a run that has about twenty warning signs that say “expert only”? It’s easy when you apparently don’t read signs) and managed to sprain my thumb on the way down (not exactly sure how that happened, either.)  Vowing to never do that again, I found myself at the bottom of some lift called “Sky Express” about three times.  This was supposed to magically transport me to a clearly identified “California Trail,” which I think I managed to be on about 40% of the time but always ended up back at the bottom of “Sky Express.”  The problem, I think, was two-fold: one, I refused to go on any trail that looked super-flat, requiring me to push myself along in the spring slush, and two, afraid that I would encounter super-flat stuff at slow speeds that would require me to push and walk, I probably managed to ski past well-marked signage that would have led me in the right direction.  Actually, the main problem is that I don’t read signs or maps very well and I have no sense of direction.

“How do you get on in life?” Joe asked me in a sort of incredulous tone.  I have often times wondered that myself.  I have no internal map of any sort, and apparently, external maps are of little help.  This is obviously a brain problem.  Even with the navigation system in our car, the little computer says “re-calculating route,” about every 10 to 15 minutes, indicating to me that I am always making wrong turns, and it turns a 30 minute drive into a 45 minute one.  The other thing is, I am perfectly content not knowing where I am.  While skiing, I am happy just spotting a pretty view of the lake or making it down a steep patch with nicely linked turns, and I really don’t care where I am.  In driving, I am satisfied that I shifted well on a hill, or pleased to discover a new KFC that I hadn’t noticed before, nevermind the fact that I am in Dorchester and not near West Roxbury where I need to be.