In the first half of the day, Josh stayed with me on the greens as I practiced J turns and he practiced riding switch. Josh took me up to a blue and I was terrified of going down but after a few times, it wasn't so bad! He really wanted me to get used to going fast, but I was nervous to point the snowboard straight down the mountain. At one point, Josh rode down to the middle of the run and sat making miniature snowmen as he waited for me to falling leaf down the hill. Well, that time I took off much faster than he expected... I shouted, "you're not even watching me!!" as I sped past! He still had time to make one little snowman so I obviously wasn't going that fast, though!
After lunch, Josh suggested that I practice J turns and toe-side falling leaf, so I did that as he went off on a lot of runs by himself. My personal goal for the day was to start linking turns... which I was finally able to do! Josh came down for a bit and gave me some tips, and I was feeling very confident... until I caught an edge and flipped backwards! It was definitely the worst that I've fallen so far and it really made me nervous to try riding toe-side again. I lost my confidence and practiced falling leaf for the rest of the day :( Hopefully tomorrow I can regain that confidence and link turns again!
As we packed up the car, Josh told me that he rode a few runs with a Brazilian snowboarder who is excellent after just five days of practice! We saw him on the side of the road trying to hitchhike back to Truckee, so we decided to stop and pick him up. Our first hitchhiker! (I hope that we're not worrying any family members...) As we left Donner Ranch, we passed by Donner Lake... and conveniently had someone to take a photo of us!
Since it's summer in Brazil, he's in Tahoe for two months on his summer break, and he is still learning English so we tried to help him out with a few words and pronunciations before dropping him off in Truckee. We made dinner when we got back to Lisa's and had fun talking with her until we all decided it was time for bed.
Josh's high for the day was, in his words, "blazing down the mountain with my buddy!" (He's talking about the Brazilian snowboarder.) My high was not being afraid of going fast down that blue run, it was so fun! Josh's low was meeting Lisa's landlord, Hanya... she was not that personable and made us slightly uncomfortable. My low was catching an edge on the snowboard and falling; I really wanted to keep practicing linking turns but I was so nervous! Josh's "ho" was seeing 25 people climbing up the back of the mountain with all of their gear; one guy flagged him over and Josh thought that the lift had broken but they just asked about the snow conditions at the top. We guess that they just didn't want to buy lift tickets! My "ho" was that we actually picked up a hitchhiker!! Granted, it was someone that Josh had met before, but I never thought we would do that!
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