For the weekend of Presidents Day, we decided to get out of the house and, well, hole up in another house. While that wasn't our initial plan, that's what it eventually ended up being: an expensive stay-cation, in a different location.
I got an AirBnB up in Logan with the idea that we would spend the long weekend skiing at Cherry Peak ski resort. We had done it last year and the kids had a blast. So why not do a repeat!
The first omen of things to come was arriving at the house. I had reserved a basement apartment of a "colonial mansion." The host's instructions said there was a gravel driveway to the entrance at the back of the house. We could park there, or park in the main driveway. After some searching, we found the gravel driveway entrance. There were two or three inches of snow on the ground, but the drive was relatively level and straight, so I thought, why not try heading down that way with my rugged minivan. Well, I discovered that my minivan is not quite so rugged. About ten feet in it got stuck, its front wheels dug deep into a rut. The next twenty minutes were spent stuffing rocks, dirt, twigs, and whatever else we could find to give the wheels more traction, then together heaving the car up and out while Tonya tried to back it out.
We finally got the car out and took the second option of just parking in the main driveway.
The next morning we made our way up to the ski resort. It was snowing lightly. There was a dusting of snow on the road that got progressively thicker the further up the mountain we went. Tonya became visibly nervous, occasionally commenting "Uhh, you sure we want to do this?" Then just as we were about 50 yards short of the parking lot, the road hit a short steep patch. Several cars were backed up in front of us, not able to make it up. We stopped and waited. One by one, the cars each trudged up the slope, aided by people getting out and pushing. When it got to our turn, though we had several helpers, the van just would not make it up. So, we thought, no worries. We can turn around, head to the bottom and wait for a snow plow to clear off the road. So we turned around and started back down.
We were going about as slowly and carefully down the road as we could when we looked ahead and saw a car, heading the other way up the mountain, that had slipped out of its lane into ours. The road was pretty narrow, with steep mountain slopes on either side. As soon as I saw it I hit the brakes. I immediately felt the anti-lock mechanism kick in as we continued to slowly slip down the road. I swear we were at least 100 yards away, going less than 5 miles per hour. Yet we could not stop the car. It was like this slow motion yet inevitable crash about to happen.
At 100 yards I'm thinking, we've still got like 30 seconds before we get to that point, so I'm sure they'll figure it out by that time. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. OK we're at 90 yards, and the car's still in our lane, but I think we're still OK. Five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi. OK we're at 70 yards and they're actually getting out of the car to start pushing. Is that good? Well, if they're pushing then maybe they'll better be able to get out of the way. But if they don't get it out of the way, and we run into them, is my car going to be running over a bunch of people, not just hitting another car? Twelve Mississippi, thirteen Mississippi, fourteen Mississippi, fifteen Mississippi. Crap, we're at 50 yards and they've still not made any progress. Wait, do they even know that we're inching down this road but can't stop? Oh, yeah, use your horn Anthony! HONK! HONK! HONK! Twenty Mississippi, twenty one Mississippi, twenty two Mississippi, twenty three Mississippi. AHHHHH! WE'RE GOING TO CRASH INTO THEM AT 3 MILES PER HOUR AND I CAN'T DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT!!!
It wasn't until we were probably within ten yards that they were finally able to push the car out of our lane and into their own. As I peeled my white knuckles off of the steering wheel, there was this huge sigh of relief from both Tonya and me. Summer was nearly crying in the back seat.
By that point, we had all lost any desire for skiing. We decided to just head back to our basement and hang out for the day. Yet the misadventure didn't end there. A little further down the road, a car heading up the mountain flagged me down to ask about the road conditions. This time the road was even enough for me to stop the car, roll down the window and tell him, "If you don't have 4 wheel drive, you're not going to make it." Scarcely had I finished the sentence when I heard a honking from behind. Another car was experiencing the exact same terror I had just gone through, but now because I had stopped my car in front of them. I immediately hit the gas and narrowly avoided yet another collision.
So, the rest of that Saturday and the following Sunday we spent just hanging out in our rented basement. The kids played some twister. The place had a nice big theater room, so we watched two of the original Spiderman movies, National Treasure, Princess Diaries, and a few others that I can't remember.
We considered staying until Monday and skiing then, but the forecast again called for more snow, so we weren't in a mood to risk it. We headed back home Sunday night.
So that was this year's Presidents Day weekend misadventure. A really expensive movie marathon, in someone else's house.