When Pictures and Diagrams Speak Louder Than Words: A quick recap from my first time downhill skiing

I have now downhill skied. Please view the following photos with captions and diagrams for further information regarding this endeavor.

The day was spent in a charmingly quintessential ski town in the Alps. The snow was just magnificent! And as for the mountains - I am not, generally speaking, at a loss for words, and yet I can find none to satisfactorily articulate the stunning grandeur and awesome majesty of the Alps.

We took a break halfway through to stop by that little bakery there, pictured below in the corner, and we sat outside eating croissants and drinking most delicious hot cocoa!

That is me. I enjoy this photo because it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was not on the ground the entire time. I do not enjoy this photo because it utterly fails to adequately depict the shocking steepness of the mountain I was skiing down.

That is also me. I enjoy this photo because that is me, successfully skiing down a mountain. Please closely observe me successfully skiing down the mountain and applaud this massive accomplishment.

Before you read further, just indulge me by viewing these next two photos of me skiing successfully down a mountain. I think that it is a very good first impression for you to have. And I enjoy these pictures a lot. Because they are of me successfully skiing down the mountain. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

I am pleased to report that I did not fall, not even once, on my first time going down the mountain. However, on my second time skiing down, I did fall. It was a fall I am not likely to forget. It was also a fall that I have found difficult to explain in words, other than to say that if it had been caught on film (which it mercifully was not) there is no doubt in my mind that it would instantly be on America's Funniest Videos or whatever that show is called where they show people falling and hurting themselves and call it funny.

And so without further ado, a simple succession of diagrams attempting to explain my first fall:

(note in this picture that the skis are entirely perpendicular to the ground)

(yes, I realize that skier does not have two "i's". My apologies. I am not accustomed to writing down ski terminology!)

So that was that. If you did not follow those diagrams, feel free to make further inquiries. In addition to being sore, I am covered in a great many bruises of all sorts - bruises of the bones and of the muscles and of the everything else - presumably from flying off of the cliff and landing face first in the snow bank.

But it was all completely worth it, believe it or not, especially because despite all the formidable forecasts, the Lord graciously granted us with spectacular weather and the view at every instant of the day, every which way you turned, was magnificent...

(going up a mountain in those with only a thin metal bar between you and an uncertain death is utterly terrifying. And wonderful).

(Ski lift in the corner of the sky!)

All in all, it was a perfectly splendid day, and worth every miserable minute of acute muscular suffering that has ensued ever since!