I should know not to take part in activities with the potential to cause me great physical harm the day before a bit trip. But of course if I were that smart think of all the missed opportunities.

Friday my son asked me if I would like to go snowboarding with him the next day. In spite of a planned 8 day physically demanding business trip to start on Sunday I agreed immediately. now you have to understand that while I am or rather was a very good skier I'm not such a great snowboarder. I took up snowboarding only a few years ago when it became obvious that my knees would just not put up with that stuff anymore. So my son taught me to snowboard which seems much easier on the knees.

But while I was an advanced intermediate skier I have only worked my way up to advanced beginner on the snowboard. What does  that mean in plain English? It means I go a lot slower on a snowboard and I fall down a lot more. What I am finding out is that as we grow older we bounce less so falls hurt more. And we will not even go into the things that muscles complain about as we get older.

but snowboarding is a lot of fun. We are planning on a long trip to Lake Tahoe later this month to snowboard and a chance to "warm up" seemed like a great idea. I have not ridden a board in almost two years because I didn't make it out at all last winter.

The getting younger part of my title has to do with my son helping me get my lift ticket on. I was having trouble seeing the close stuff without my glasses so he attached my ticket for me. As he did he remarked that we "have come full circle." When he was a child I would fasten his ticket and I also taught him to ski. now he is the teacher and I am the student. Humbling.

Things went well at the start. I was doing very well especially taking the hiatus into account. I did have one fairly hard fall and did a number on my shoulder but that is typical. It will stop hurting eventually. But later in the day after lunch I took a very bad fall.

When I first hit the ground I remember thinking "oh that will make the shoulder worse" and then a split second later my knee hit the ice with a force I could not imagine doing on purpose and I realized that the shoulder was the least of my worries. When the numbness worked itself out after walking part way down the hill the knee started to feel like something was seriously wrong.  A look at the knee determined that there was no bleeding but a lot of swelling. Long story short - I rode the rest of the way down the hill because that hurt less than walking but we drove to the hospital rather than riding some more or going right home.

After all those childhood injuries that had me driving my son to the hospital now my son was driving me. Full circle indeed.

Nothing broken. The swelling should be gone in a few days. Now of course the other muscles in my body are complaining about what I put them through. But you know I had fun. I am really looking forward to snowboarding again. Of course at Lake Tahoe the snow is a lot softer. Really.