Breckenridge, Colorado

There I was, sitting behind of the wheel of Dave's Nissan Maxima, in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, at 3:30 AM, managing an apologetic smile to the cop who had pulled me over. The cop, looking just like a mustached Randy Quaid, he tapped at my half-opened window and said, "You'd better give me a damn good reason why you were going 110 miles per hour."

"I'm sorry," I replied, fighting off Dave's furious, disbelieving stare. Dave had been asleep on the passenger side the entire time, and had woken up just seconds earlier.

"I'm really sorry. We're, uh, headed towards Colorado. Pulling an all-nighter. I was trying to make good time... and I, uh, I just kind of got carried away there. And uh, I'm really sorry. Sir."

Officer Quaid hung his nose over the edge of my window and glared at me. "I think I'm going to take you to jail tonight. Step out of the car."

It was weird. I knew that his promise to take me to jail was just a bluff from the start, and having me sit in the back of his police car was just a scare tactic to make sure I'd never drive recklessly again. I knew that. But there was just something about my simple $200 speeding ticket, something about the way he opened the door to the back of the police car and said I was free to go, something about the boys-will-be-boys wink he gave me as I re-entered Dave's Maxima, that made me feel like this trip would be special.

That I would be able to walk away from anything negative with a smile on my face.

In any event, I drove away from Officer Quaid, away from the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, telling myself that I would not have a boring vacation in the least bit.

Case in Point #1: I accidentally went down a black diamond slope. I'm not sure if it's cliche to say that I think the symbol for these slopes should instead be a skull and crossbones, because how could you be at the top of the trail, looking down, allll the way down, and not quite be able to see ten minutes into your future because you could very well die in five, and not think that a black diamond is such a fucking underwhelming rating symbol?

How does one accidentally go down a black diamond slope, you ask? Well, Dave and I -- still very much novice snowboarders -- were attempting a blue slope (an intermediate level), and I was about halfway down when I realized that I had lost one of Dave's walkie talkies, most likely due to a nasty fall from earlier.

So, I took a detour and found my way to a lift which I believed would take me to the top of the same blue slope we had been on. Instead, the lift took me higher and higher up the mountain, and to my horror, it dropped me off at a black diamond slope, with no other alternatives in sight.

After about fifteen minutes of just standing at the top, fighting butterflies in my stomach while surveying the terror below, I just whispered "Fuck it," and went down the slope. Or actually: tumbled down the slope.

It was the most terrifying experience of my entire life. The way I fell down that black diamond, I felt like a chihuahua inside of an angry drying machine.

Only there were trees everwhere, looking to dislocate my jaw, trying to turn me into the Vietnamese Sonny Bono.

And I won't forget the name of this black diamond slope, ever: The Sizzler. It's a good thing that this restaurant of the same name doesn't exist in Illinois.

Case in Point #2: I attempted the freestyle terrain. This was no accident. This was just me thinking, by Day 4 of our trip, that I was skilled enough to do an inverted 720 flying backside roast beef ollie switch fakie with a lot of butter on the muffin. When I found myself entering the halfpipe, with my board sliding faster than I thought was possible, with the wind hitting my face like needles, with the ramp fast approaching, I knew that was wrong, very wrong, oh so very wrong, about my abilities. The black diamond might have been scary, but it was harmless compared to this death machine.

Yes, I could have died. On one fall, as I was thrown to the ground at the unforgiving speed of 50 MPH, I hit my head sickeningly hard on the ice and blacked out for a couple seconds. When I came to, I could taste blood in my mouth, and my neck couldn't be turned left or right without making me cry.

Rock on.

Case in Point #3: Dave and I had been feeling pretty down during the last day about driving back to Chicago and returning to the real world. It was an unshakeable sadness that not even our huge breakfast at Blue Moose could quell. We definitely were going to miss the mountain air in the morning, the hospitality of all of the friendly townies, the taste of the local micro-brewed beer, and the numerous blonde snowboarding/skiing babes that surrounded us all week.

After doing one more final run down the slopes, we said goodbye to the mountain, then split up, agreeing to meet back up at our hotel room later. I ended up getting back to the room before Dave, which was what I was hoping for, because it gave me one last chance to produce a fun memory about the trip.

Knowing that what we both really needed was a good laugh, I immediately stepped behind the shower curtain in our bathroom, and simply waited. Dave finally made it back to our room a couple minutes later, and as I covered my mouth in giddy anticipation, I heard him sigh, then yawn, then turn on the TV in the living room.

And I waited. Patiently I waited.

Minutes passed, and I could hear Dave plop lazily onto the bed as he watched college basketball. And I waited.

More minutes passed, and it occured to me that maybe I should just give up and walk into the living room and say hi and just start packing for home already, but I decided not to do that. I continued to wait.

And even when Dave got up out of bed, opened a bag of potato chips, and climbed back into bed, I waited.

And waited... And waited...

And about a half hour later, when I was nearly about to bang my head loudly against the shower tile wall in frustration, Dave suddenly stopped eating his fucking chips. He walked into the bathroom, and flipped on the light switch.

What Dave saw -- a lunatic of a man, crawling from out of the shower curtain, screaming his head off, eyes a blazing, hands shaking in the air -- almost made him piss his pants before he had a chance to lift the toilet seat.

I'll never forget it. Dave, the closest thing to a testosterone-driven meathead of a friend that I have, screamed like a girl. Mariah Carey would have envied the octave range on his shriek.

I don't know about Dave, but I sure had a good, hearty laugh over it. I ran out of the bathroom, fighting my giggle attack, jumping onto the bed and pounding my fist on a pillow because I couldn't stop laughing. Dave just stood there next to me, laughing a little, partly because it was funny, and partly because he was embarrassed.

Still stunned, he shook his head and said, "Damn, dude, I can't believe you were in there all this time. A half hour. You are one crazy motherfucker, do you know that?"