After a while, you get used to it.

"After a while, you get used to it."

This is a handy little lie that's been told to me about any number of horribly unpleasant things (short list: braces, moving, the suffocating smell of someone suffering indigestion with you on a long car trip, being assigned a truly belittling nickname, and the yearly recurrence of sinus headaches, and being too tall to be a matched dance partner for many men), but in the past two weeks, I've found that it's true about one thing I truly hate. My latest revelation: after repeated exposure to thigh-deep snow and face-peeling wind, one becomes accustomed to being cold such that being cold is no longer a compelling reason for rage, bitterness, and physical pain.

I owe this discovery to the state of Utah. And also to Pants, who schooled me in the art of layering for winter sports, though I at first doubted his "no cotton" edict and thus felt the paradoxical icy bite of first sweating and then freezing from my own sweat.

In the past two weeks, we've hit four states, rattling along in our 1992 Ford F-150, a.k.a Babe the Blue Ox, and covered roughly 2700 miles of snow, sleet, wind, ice, dust, and frozen dog turds (ah, ye designer-clothed resort dogs, little more than breathing accessories for Ugg-wearing, skinny-jeaned second wives-- dare I begrudge you a well-placed parking lot dog bomb? Nay, wretched one. Take ye pleasures where ye may). We hit the road on December 20 with the bed of the truck weighed down with a curious water bladder thing meant to keep the back end of our two-wheel drive truck from sliding on Lake Tahoe's icy mountain pass, and were successful in making it through both chain application and chain removal, which occur on either side of Donner Pass, where I like to eat beef jerky very solemnly and will the truck onward with my mind. That night we made it to Fallon, Nevada where there's a Naval Air Station with a lodge we could spend the night in for super cheap.

Poor Fallon. All lonely and abandoned in a part of the state willingly given over to fake bombing runs and permanent jet roar, and so homely that not even a lacy layer of snow can do much to class it up. Every town needs an ace in the hole, though, and Fallon's is the Taqueria Azteca, where God's own breakfast burritos are assembled with divine inspiration and priced criminally cheap. The next day was for traversing Nevada and gaining a new appreciation for the majesty of a big sky, which necessarily requires open, flat land and nothing to block the wandering of the eye from horizon to horizon. We stopped in Elko for a traditional Basque lunch at the Star Hotel, and here I have to stop and confess a deeply embarrassing travel condition I get because it's essential to the story.

I can't poop when I'm traveling. This is a problem, and I suspect it comes from some deep internal fear that unfamiliar environments mean we're moving again, and my body locks down, refusing to process food normally until "home court advantage" is reestablished. In the early days of our relationship, I was polite and elliptical with Pants about the source of my discomfort, but now I just say it plainly and we buy lots of coffee. If that doesn't work, then I get to seek out a local grocery establishment and look eye to eye with some stranger as I slap down a box of Ex-Lax and try to pretend I'm not dying a little inside as we exchange pleasantries.

So this is what I did in Elko, Nevada, at the local Albertsons (which happens to be yet another completely inappropriate place for slot machines, and yet there they are, right next to the pharmacy, and occupied by all kinds of people only days before Christmas in a recession-- seriously, Nevada?). It was here in the Albertsons that I wrestled with my competing senses of embarassment and misery in front of some raccoon-eyed teenage girl who just couldn't seem to wipe the huge, knowing grin off her face while I tried to be casual in asking where the Basque restaurant was. Teen Cashier of Elko, know that you made my pain just a little bit worse, but know too that you are in ELKO, NEVADA. The Basque food was delicious.

We made it on to Salt Lake City that night and then further north to Ogden, where the Air Force has a base and pretends to do work. We stayed in their lodge, ceremoniously named the Mountain View Inn, for the next five days while the sky hurled giant, landmark-erasing piles of snow down upon us.

I should explain my feelings about the Air Force: I am jealous. They have a base at the foot of a beautiful mountain range in Utah and there is a postcard view out every window of every building on that base. Including the gym with its indoor track and four-story climbing wall and cathedral-like vaulted ceiling and glassed-in handball courts and legions of expensive exercise equipment. Were I notified that the Air Force has its own special warm-water founts for individual ball washing, I would not blink in hesitation. According to my sources (Navy conjecture), the Air Force gets 60% of government funding and the three remaining branches of service duke it out for the remaining 40%. Also, the Air Force lands on air strips, meaning solid ground, and puts their pilots up in nice hotels far from combat and pays per dium. It all makes "Anchors Aweigh" ring a little sad in my ears now, but I keep relatively quiet about that. There is also an Arts & Crafts building on the Ogden base, and Pants and I consoled our jealous little hearts by cooing about Air Force "craft hour" and wondering if they made paper snowflakes and pipe cleaner wreaths for their moms.

Overall, Ogden was a splendid staging ground for our raids on the Wasatch Mountains and their ski resorts. On Christmas Day we tried to snowboard at Brighton, but they were getting three feet of snow hurled down on them and once we made the heroic trek all the way up there, they turned us back. Avalanche cannons were booming in the background, the sky was invisible-- like static on an off-air station-- and cars kept sliding slowly and determinedly the wrong way, so I was more than a little relieved not to have to bust out my shaky snowboarding skills. The day had disaster written all over it, so we headed back to the base, loaded up on macaroni and cheese and watched all four Rocky movies. Pants made us Peppermint Patties (hot chocolate with peppermint Schnapps and whipped cream), and we contemplated Stalone's juiced up pecs and poor enunciation. A merry Christmas was had.

The next day we went to Snow Basin, and then the day after that to Brighton, and I experimented with the many ways not to connect my turns from toe edge to heel edge, but managed to triumph over the lift, which usually bitch slaps me straight onto my face every time I try to stand and slide out like all the other boarders. Both days I took an extended afternoon hiatus from the mountain for some prime people-watching while Pants explored the blue and black routes with his customary maddening ease and grace. I have discovered this about winter resort culture: no matter who you are, or how much money or plastic surgery you've had, no one looks cool walking in ski boots. Also, people will name their kids anything, and then feel comfortable yelling it in a restaurant. I heard Alsace, Loris, Letice and Hampton. These are spelling approximations. I'm sure there are silent letters and umlauts in play here. If I ever get really rich and then find myself pregnant, I'll have to look to either my spice rack or my collection of ancient mariner maps for name inspiration.

After five days in Ogden, we headed south to Zion National Park, and this is the part where I renounce everything bad I've ever said about Mormons and their bizarre special underwear. I truly think that if I were part of a wagon train of weary pilgrims that woke up one morning to sunrise in the deep palm of massive blazing red canyon, I would feel pretty certain that God had set me aside for some special purpose. How that translates into interplanetary travel and knee-length under drawers, I don't know, but I'm willing to accept "dazzled by nature's stunning beauty" as an excuse.

Here I also got a little glimpse into Pants' usually padlocked inner mind. "This is my favorite place in the world," he said quietly when we drove in and got the warm sun reflection from the white-robed shoulders of Zion's peaks. When we turned off the Babe's engine, the world was quieter than I'd heard it in quite some time. Every color seared the retina-- bluest blue of the sky, pure, electric white of snow, an improbable green from scattered evergreens digging their woody toes into the soaring mountainsides, and that wonderful iron-oxide red, the kind of red that gives off heat when it's lit and makes you believe you'll never be cold again. In Zion, I knew what he meant when he once said it was ridiculous to go to church to try and feel God near you when all you had to do was get outside and hike a little. More than that, though, I felt like being in Zion showed me a part of my husband that I've been trying to put words to for four years and can't. There are parts of him that can't be mined with words, his or mine or anyone else's. Parts of him are necessarily remote, but if you pack your own provisions and are prepared to walk, you'll see something beautiful.

We stayed two nights in the lodge in Zion's heart. We had planned to climb Angels' Landing, but the ranger warned us off it by saying some ominous things about ice and people with a fear of falling long distances. Not a fear of heights. Of falling from them. Quite sufficient for me, and instead we took long drives through the canyons and retired for nights of illicit in-room jambalaya cooking and listening to a histrionic British actor read The Chronicles of Narnia on my iPod. We also enjoyed a very fine 2007 Argentinean malbec from the Septima Bodega, which was purchased-- where else?-- at the 24-hour mini-mart on the Air Force base back in Ogden. Incidentally, one can also buy a full set of radial tires there at any time of night.

We originally planned to stay one night at Zion and one night at the lodge in Bryce Canyon, but a ranger with a very thick Baltic accent told us, "Lodge in Bryce Canyon is closed till April," so we re-upped our Zion reservation and made Bryce a day trip. This is where I finally overcame my sissiness about cold and actually took an hour hike in knee-deep snow in a thin, long-sleeved shirt and jeans. I started out the day in my giant fuzzy hat that makes Pants mistake me for a Japanese tourist when we get separated but soon found I didn't need it, or my scarf, or my jacket. We hiked around a canyon rim and took copious photos of the snow-hooded hoodoos (I love that word) in all their cake-layer colorfulness. I wanted to hike further down and go snaking in between all the rock formations, but Pants was recently informed that his left knee no longer has a single supporting ligament (the result of one major lacrosse injury and a series of increasingly ridiculous follow-up injuries, including one dance-related one at a wedding), and he balked at the winding, icy sandstone paths. Now who's the sissy?, I mock, bouncing on stabilized knees.

Our last stop was at Brian Head, Utah, which I think is a rather awkward name for junior high reasons. At any rate, it's where I finally learned to stop sucking so bad at snowboarding and was finally able to connect my turns, kick my back foot around to tear up an arcing wall of snow when I stop, and manage to keep my head facing forward while making tighter arcs from one edge to the other. Unfortunately, the price for all this progress was a regression to full retard on getting off the lift. In front of others, I will claim that the lift operator sped the thing up, that skiiers were in my way, or that I got a bad foothold with my unbound boot, but in reality, I simply ate shit every time I was supposed to stand up and get off the chair. On several occasions, I gave myself searing militaristic pep talks on the approach to the disembarkation point only to then catch the cord of my mitten on the arm bar of the lift chair, thus nearly ripping my arm out of socket when the lift and I headed our separate ways. My bruises from these encounters refuse to turn the shocking shades of purple and yellow I need to hold up the drama of my tale, but trust me, it fucking hurt.

Brian Head was wonderful in its refusal to fall victim to the fashion show elitism of most winter resorts. Overheard from a large family unloading a minivan in the parking lot: "Cody. CODY! Is them your mittens?" Our parking attendant was for once not some overly-outfitted winter species of skate punk but instead a jovial, red-faced farm boy who came over and shared his plans of becoming a Navy cook once he lost that last stubborn fifty pounds. "It just stays put, you know?" he lamented, taking another swig of his bucket-sized soda. When it became obvious that Pants and I, being the classy people we are, were going to change into our snowboarding gear in the covered bed of our pick-up and thus needed at least a modicum of privacy, he wandered off and struck up a conversation with another carload of people. This is the kind of guy who will never tell you that the runs are "burly, bra" and also will never come rocketing off the blind hill of a green pass, narrowly missing slicing your hand off and then tossing back a wind-chilled "my bad!"

New Year's Eve at Brian Head was wonderful because all the resort employees fire up red road flares and pile onto the longest ski lift at night. Going up, they looked like one big red caterpillar slowly conquering the mountain. Coming down, they looked like a scattered river of lava, splitting off at various trail heads and weaving wildly across the lanes, circling their arms and leaping over hills. The guy on the moguls looked like a tiny pinball popping his way down a tricky pass of the machine and never dodging the paddles. What made this all even more wonderful was that Pants and I watched it from the window of our own little cabin with big steaming bowls of homemade chili and chilled bottles of Utah's own Polygamy Porter. There were even fireworks afterward, which was great for the simple fact of being fireworks (one of the few things in which I take absolute, unmitigated joy), and for occurring over pristine snow, which magnifies their brilliance like nothing else, even water. I knew right then it had been a good year because that was the second time I'd seen fireworks on a rare vacation with Pants-- the first being at Monterey Bay on July 4th.

Which brings us up to the last day, where we got up early, early, way before the sun and while the stars were still incredibly bright and incredibly many, and wound our way down the mountain and out of Utah. My parting gift from the state was the discovery of snow donuts, which is the only name I can think of for the phenomena of falling clumps of snow along a hillside. A clump falls off, say, a low-hanging tree branch onto a hill, and as soon as it does, it gathers up more snow and starts to roll. As it rolls, it increases in size exponentially, just like in cartoons, but instead of a rabbit or a speech-impaired pig wrapped up in the middle of the ball, there's a hole where the ball formed and then rolled so quickly that a shot of daylight was left in the middle. When it settles in the ditch by a winding roadside, it is a fully formed donut standing proudly on edge with a little trough behind it tracing the way back up the hill. Awesome. The snow donut has replaced the icicle as winter's easy, go-to magic trick for impressing me.

On the last day, we ran through four states-- Utah, the lovely northwest corner of Arizona, flat, guileless, casino-infested Nevada, and then the Joshua tree, wind farm part of California, which leads to the false Scottish highlands of California, and then, tragically, to the foggy flatlands we call home. The reality that Pants leaves on deployment in less than two weeks has hit me like a properly functioning ski lift. I'm doing my typical thing-- having small panic attacks about things like the hall closet's flagrant disarray and our perplexing mountain of garage junk. I'm convinced there's something vitally important, and yet trivial, that we haven't discussed, like how to change out the lawnmower blade or what the hell that third remote that came with the DVD player is for.

I can't put my finger on it, and that only panics me more. He'll be gone soon, is all I can think, he's leaving. It's hard to sort out what's important now and what's just knee-jerk fear of something I know I don't do well, which is say goodbye and spend a long time alone. I keep hearing other wives telling me that same lie about how you get used to it, and I both want it to be true and don't want it to be.