Saturday we had a great day skiing at Vogel.  Em, Caroline, James and I went with my tried and true ski partner, Maliha and her 11 year old son Shaun.  Usually her 15 year old Aidan comes along too.  It's actually works out well for the both of us because we both love to ski, but we both have incapacitated husbands this season. Tom has had hip issues the past several months, and of course, Ben is still healing from his ankle surgery--he won't be hitting the slopes anytime soon.  So, most Saturdays Maliha and I head out with the kids.  She talked me into getting a season pass for all the Slovenian resorts (very affordable!), so that has kept us going back!  

The great thing about Emily's getup is I can ALWAYS find her on the slopes

The view from the observation deck... that's beatuiful Lake Bohinj

Most outings involve some crazy mishap with our kids that is document worthy, and Saturday was no exception. 

The skies were sunny and blue, slopes were great with a fresh skiff of snow, and the resort was quite crowded as it was a weekend.  By 3:00, as we were finishing the day I thought to myself, "Wow, we haven't had any misadventures like we usually do."  Such innocence. Little did I know, my thoughts were premature.

 One of the downsides of Vogel is that a lot of the lifts are T-bars. I don't know if T-bars are really a thing back in the states, I certainly don't recall ever having to deal with them, but this is what they look like: 

And this is how you're SUPPOSED to sit on them:

As you can see, they're not exactly a secure apparatus.  It really takes some dexterity to master the T-bar.  Admittedly, last year, I was a hot mess trying to get on that thing.  Lots of embarrassing fails as I tried to catch it, tame it, and mount it. How I cursed the T-bar! On Saturday, though, I was quite impressed with the kids and how smoothly they mounted the t-bars with no major incidents.  Maliha in her nice and helpful way, teamed up with James.  Shaun and Caroline were partners, and Emily rode with me.  We had no serious issues, until literally the last T-bar lift of the day.  

Caroline and Shaun were a ways up in front of the lift line, with Maliha and James behind them.  Following them was a random couple, then a single person, and then finally Emily and me.  Em and I are always last in line because Miss Em likes to very gingerly and carefully glide down the mountain.  Shaun and Caroline, on the other hand, are always first in the lift line because they like to recklessly barrel down the mountain.  As I stood a ways behind them in the line and watched them head up the slope, I noticed they had not mounted the t-bar correctly, neither of them were sitting on it but were both clinging to the vertical rod with their arms, holding on for dear life.  I cringed watching them, they were past the point of no return going up that steep slope.  If they let go, the would certainly wreck. I didn't have much time to react though because soon it was Emily's and my turn to get on.  I grabbed the vertical pole as it whipped around and sat on the bar, but Em had a hard time mounting and missed it.  She kind of panicked so I turned around as I was going up the hill telling her not to worry, she could grab the next one. Not seeing what was in front of me, I was suddenly ripped from the t-bar. Miss Caroline, careening down the slope, had taken me out.  I was down on the ground, dazed and confused as I watched Caroline slide further on down the hill, backwards on her stomach, no skis, one glove, and take out Emily who was on the t-bar behind me.  I looked up in front of me to see several people, poles, and skis splayed across the slope.  It was like a mass casualty event.  Caroline kept sliding down, kind of whimpering, obviously scared.  Shaun wasn't far behind her, he was sliding on his butt, turning around and out of control, whizzing past me.  FINALLY the lift operator turned off the lift.  I don't know why he waited so long, maybe he was just enjoying the show.  Caroline and Shaun in their impossible position on the t-bar, had fallen off and taken out James, Maliha, three strangers, myself, and Emily as they slid uncontrollably down the mountain in the path of oncoming t-bar riders.  I didn't even see them coming since I was turned around trying to coach Emily onto the lift.  As I laid there and saw it all before me, I thought, "Well, there's our jacked up story of the day!  We can't seem to go home without one!"  

We were all a mess trying to gather our equipment.  Maliha and James were at the top gathering gloves, skis and poles.  The other people who had been wiped out were able to get up and make their way down.  In the meantime, there was a long line of people at the bottom just watching the whole spectacle and waiting for us to get out of the way so lift operations could resume.  The operator made his way up to help us, he actually seemed genuinely concerned about our well being, which was a nice change from the usual annoyed and grumpy operators we encounter.  He carried my skis down and even called for back-up, another resort employee with a neon vest came on site to help clean up the mess that we all were.  Talk about embarrassing.  We finally made our way down, with our tails between our legs, past the line of people who had all seen our downfall and who were patiently waiting for us to recover ourselves so they could continue on with what little was left of their ski day.  Finally the lift was turned back on.   Shaun and Caroline, didn't seem too fazed by the whole thing, Caroline's gloveless hand was icy cold, and her elbow was scratched up, but other than that, they were smiling and laughing.  I don't know how they don't get embarrassed, but I suppose I was embarrassed enough for the both of them.  It's always something crazy with those two!