Snowboarding...Whoo Hoo!

This was it. My first time on the ski lift to the top of the hill where I'd be going down on a snowboard for the first time. I was ready. I mean, it can't be that hard, right? I got off the lift (without falling, I might add) and strapped my other foot in. Then I slowly got up... and fell down again. No problem, I thought. I got up again, and fell down. "That's it" I said while I was turning my board, aiming straight down the slopes. I gathered some courage and off I was, zooming down the hill. It was so easy, to just go straight and gain some speed. But after a short while I started nearing the bottom of the slope and the beginning of the ski lift at an alarming speed, and at that time I decided to start slowing down. At that exact moment, however, I hit a particularly large rift in the snow which stopped my downward progress immediately. I flew what fell like twenty feet (which in twenty feet going downhill, you can get pretty far off the ground) and hit face-first into the hard-packed snow. After a couple of minutes of laying there motionless, I thought that I might be able to live through this snowboarding day. That's when my little brother proved me wrong. My little brother was also learning to snowboard that day, and he's just about my size, so it hurt about the same as falling twenty feet when he hit me from behind and fell right on top of me. As soon as we were both conscious enough to move out of the way of other, more competent skiers and snowboarders, we decided that this whole snowboarding thing was not something you could just pick up and learn to do in one day. But with three more times down the slopes and many more times falling, I think I've got the hang of it. I'll be pro in no time.