Let's face it, winter sets the scene for some serious adventure. And smack in the middle of it, you think, I'm gonna enjoy looking back on this day and laughing about it.
Today was one of those days.
Joe and I had the whole day to ourselves. The kids were headed back to school after a much-needed Christmas break, but Joe's office was closed to observe New Year's Day. We try to get out to ski on our own at least once a year....and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity, after all, we'd had tons of snow!
We got our kids lined out with all the rides they needed to survive without us for the day, and we hit the road while it was still dark.
About half way to Spokane, I realized I had not gassed up the car, and told Joe we would definitely need to stop on the way back.... And we didn't think about it again until we were at the bottom of the ski mountain. Thirty minutes from the lodge and yet, thirty minutes from the nearest gas station in the opposite direction. And also running about thirty minutes late. Bleh.
We decided to just go ahead and roll the dice on that one. I really really didn't want to be later than we already were. The snow looked amazing and the sky was bright blue. It was gonna be an awesome day.
As we edged our way up the hill, our gas tank was...well, tanking. Quickly. By the time we made it to the lodge, we had 7 miles of gas left. We thought surely the snowmobilers would have a gas tank! No luck!
We were envisioning some not great scenarios for getting ourselves out of our foolish mess, when we came upon a parking guy, who assured us that we could get gas at the lodge for $6/gallon. I cannot even begin to tell you how relieved we were.
Joe went to hunt that down and I got in line for tickets inside. The outside line was running about an hour plus. Their computers were down, and it was technically a holiday. A very busy holiday. Fortunately, few people were aware there was a ticket line inside and I got in and out in 20 minutes. Joe was still waiting on gas, so I decided to squeeze a run in real quick.
I hadn't bothered to check the weather forecast for the day, cause actually, I didn't really care. It was a free day, and there was snow, and I could see the sun. There would be skiing.
As I made my way up the hill, I was in heaven, it looked like a perfect day! Three minutes down the run at full speed my whole brain froze up into one big cube. Apparently it was 0 degrees with maybe a -20 degree windchill...it was blinding! I stopped and rubbed my head so that I could warm it up enough to get 10 yards farther down the hill. And I kept this up all the way down the hill.
By the time I met up with Joe, he was in a big hurry to get on out there. I convinced him to give me his goggles (as he was expecting from the get-go). He braved the icy wind and we...well, we survived!
Slowly running out of gas. But the trees!!! So beautiful!
What a view! The exposure of wind and cold on your skin made it instantly freeze. But it had to be documented.
Our faces. Frozen. My nose was peeling all week. I'm pretty certain the tip of my nose died out there somewhere under chair three.
....and for pausing hysterical laughter for one moment to make sure I was okay when I yard-saled at 30 mph under chair 2. And for not applauding that spectacular fail like all the yahoos on the chairlift.
We are already (collectively) laughing about that whole crazy day.
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