It was morning at Copper Mountain, Colorado. I opened the window, taking a deep breath. I could feel the crispness of the air here, much more dry here than sticky Houston. I saw people walking towards the bus stations, getting ready for the day ahead.

The lifts had not opened yet. The sun was out. The mountains were pure white. It was a great day to ski.

Our airplane had touched down at Denver International Airport nearly a day ago. We had played around in Denver.

Around six in the afternoon yesterday, we had to pick up our skis. We had rented them at a ski rental office, and it was there that we picked them up.

Now, however, it was time to get on the mountain. It was time to run around. It was time… to ski.

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One and a half hours of messing around later, my entire family (Dad, Mom, and me) were finally at the bottom of the mountain. We grabbed our skis and headed toward the lift.

Right next to the bottom of the lift, my dad tightened and buckled up my boots. He did the same thing for my mom, and then finally himself.

We were set up. It was time to ski.

I clamped my boots into my skis.

My dad clamped his boots into his skis.

Now it was my mother’s turn.

“Eh, I think I have a problem.”

My dad trundled over to my mom. “I think we already had this discussion before, but sometimes the snow gets in your boot and it gets hard to lock in—”

He stopped in the middle of telling my mother off, because the thing was, my mother was completely right.

Her ski bindings were three inches longer than her foot.

It stunned us for a while, and then one of us murmured, “How was it possible?”

Everything was set wrong. Every single setting on the binding was not coordinated with her. Something had gone seriously bad.

Then my dad tried it on.

It fit him perfectly.

Apparently the workers at our rental company had adjusted the skis to my dad’s sizes. Another thirty minutes passed before my mom got to the rental company on-mountain. They adjusted it for her, but it was still an annoyance.

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This article is a part of a series of articles on my 2008 winter trip to Colorado. They are all tagged with “2008winter” for easy reading.