This week Dylan gets a couple of days break from school. We take the opportunity to go away. A little ambitious being the day after our Australia Day party. We get up in the morning and semi clean the place up. Pack our snow gear and head off on our first ski trip. We are heading to a mountain top resort in West Virginia called Snowshoe Mountain. It’s about a 5 hour drive and while we could have stayed in Maryland to ski, we take the opportunity to go a little further as Fletch has heard about this resort that has a little village in it and you go straight from your accomodations onto the ski fields.
Now there are four of us in our family, but whenever we go on long trips we always have one extra. Her name is “Ginny”. She’s bossy and opinionated, telling us where to go and always deciding that she knows the best way to go. And if you don’t listen to her, boy does she have a thing or two to say. She decides we need to get off the highways and go through the country side.
She takes us through all these tiny villages and towns, where houses fly confederate flags and have huge barns. I joke with Fletch that they look like a scene from a post apocalyptic zombie movie. Will we see zombies come out of the woods running down the cleared rolling green fields? We drive on single lane country roads, through back mountain passes where the “roads” are just dirt tracks. At some stage both Fletch and I both have our doubts we are heading in the right direction, but the mileage count is still ticking down, so I figure we must be getting to our destination. We resolve to take our second portable GPS with us next time we travel.
Upon arrival first task is getting clothes and car seat laundered. Yes, Hamish loses his lunch on the mountains just before we reach the resort. After that we find something to eat at the numerous cafes and restaurants and settle in for the evening. We get ready for the next day of snow fun.
Dylan has a full day of ski school with five or six other kids all around his age. Fletch takes him to his class, then pops off for his ski lesson. There is noone around on these runs so he does his lesson, skis on his own for a bit and then goes to watch Dylan for a bit, then ski a bit more. We suspect it’s quiet being a Monday and because we are in a different state so kids are still at school. Fletch has a ski instructor to himself and for the most part the whole ski run.
I have a plan of attack for Hamish and I. He is still too little for ski lessons. They start at 4 years old. There’s a ski tube but again for 4 and up. There’s a preski school for his age which is booked out. But I thought I’d take him to the indoor heated pool. So that morning I ring up to find out whether you take your own towels, but get a recorded message that it doesn’t open till 2pm. Oh. Maybe we could go to the indoor activity centre. Call that up, again same message saying they open at 2pm. So we go and have morning tea in the Starbucks and then we go up to the snow and build a snow bunny and have snowball fights. We play in the snow for a couple of hours by which time he’s exhausted and we come home, have lunch and he has a nap.
Hamish wakes up refreshed and we head off to the kid indoor activity centre and he goes on the jumping castles and slides. Later we find Fletch and Dylan in Starbucks on our way back to the room. Fletch tells me Dylan did really well. He thought that Dylan may have thrown the towel in because he was falling over so much at first. But he stuck it out and by the end of the day he was flying down the hills. He sits there drinking his hot chocolate and is quietly triumphant. He’s got no energy and even at dinner it’s the most calm and sedate I’ve seen him in ages, warn out from the activity.
So I can say that it was a very nice little break, the return trip involved no wayward roads and more importantly noone losing their breakfast!
Today brings no words and not a single drop of snow for the whole time we were away, even on the mountains.
No Words, Just Thoughts... 