The day was long and tedious. I was busy throughout it all, yet saw that I accomplished nothing. Friday was spent studying for finals….all day. Studying is the most unsatisfying thing to do. You work and work and in the end you see nothing accomplished. Hopefully my mind is full of what I need to know for today. Prayers would be appreciated.
I put down the books finally at about 4:00 when the family came home to pack for this weekend. The annual Meister snowboarding trip would soon unfold early Saturday morning at 4:00 am and I needed to pack. It took a bit of strife leading up to this point as a week earlier we realized our Davidovics Christmas party was scheduled the same time. We wrestled with ideas on how to do both, grudgingly decided not to go snowboarding, then finally, chose to just go snowboarding instead. I know many would frown upon this decision, but this is an annual event that is very looked forward to. All summer long we dream of this weekend. In the end, us missing the Davidovics Christmas worked out as Mom needed a break from us to spend some time with just adults.
I set my alarm for Four AM Saturday as we were to leave at five. Woke up all the kids and drank some hot coffee for a few moments of peace before the chaos would unfold. Normally we take our motorhome, but we decided the twelve of us coming should try to save gas and pile up in Spark’s 12 passenger van. So the Sauders, Karin, Sarah, and the four of us loaded up our snowboards and bags (we had booked a hotel in Debuque Iowa for the night) and shoved off. If you were to look into the van to see us all piled in there, you would be reminded of puppies. A mess of them lieing in every bit of available space, over, under, and squished beside eachother. However, puppies usually put themselves in that position willingly and happily. We had no choice but to be crammed into the continually shrinking van. Oh well, it would be worth it. We all looked forward to the day ahead of us.
The slops turned out to be terrible! I have never seen them in such awful conditions. The night before had rained and frozen over causing the once powdery snow to become a hard sheet of crunchy ice. It wasn’t impossible to travel down the hills, but it was also not as enjoyable. Lunch time came and we were all getting cold and looking forward to the hot tub tonight. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to give the impression that we did not have any fun. Despite the conditions we were all smiling and making the best of it.
Well, after lunch the most bizarre thing happened: it rained. It began to come only in short increments of sprinkles, but soon began to pour on us. Soaked through to our skin (well, I should say, THEY were soaked to their skin. I had a new coat which kept me quite warm and dry…Score!), there was just no use in continuing.
In the van we talked of the day. David, Sarah, and Caleb kept together most of the day doing jumps and such. Rachel stayed with Luke who went down Old Main for the first time on his snowboard with only falling a couple of times! He was beaming. Logan, Steven, and Ryan were at the same level, so they stay together also. I spent my day with Jessica, Karin and Anni up until lunch when Anni joined Ryan to give him some pointers. Ryan was the one that we all feared would have an awful day. Snowboarding hasn’t been catching on with him as with the other two boys and he tends to get frustrated and afraid easily. Well, at the end of the day Karin and I decided to watch him down Old Main and expected very little of him. We were surprised to see him carving, going from front edge to back with ease. Good job Ryan!
Getting to the hotel was an adventure in itself. We came to the road and discovered something terrible indeed. The steep curvy road was neither plowed nor salted. The rain became snow and every thing froze from the water. The roads were treacherous. Several times we almost lost it. With a this-is-it feeling we stared at the cliffs feeling a sense of impending doom. By some miraculous force we seemed to be shoved away from them at the last instant. We prayed as hard as we could for Karin and the van. The stressful trip was finally over and we finally took a deep breath of relief as we entered the hotel.
First stop was the hottub. Our cold achy bones were just ready to be immersed in the hot soothing water. It was wonderful! After that we did what seems to be the Meister way with hotels, we took over the lobby for card games and pizza and hot chocolate. Around eight o clock it was time for the old folks to retire and the teenagers to watch movies. We cleverly planned for one room to be the stay-up-late room where all of us could hang out. I don’t know why, but I was completely hyped up. There was no way I was going to sleep at any decent hour. It wasn’t until about one in the morning when I finally chose to attempt at sleep. But, before that we saw some funny stuff in the parking lot from the third floor window. First, a house across the road from the hotel was busy with activity. We saw its inhabitants take out the dog, work in their garage, and shine their lazer light in ours and other room’s windows. Also, at about one, a suspicious man wondered around the cars and focused on one truck, looking in windows and poking around it. We wondered if he was a burglar or if it was his own truck. In the end I think it was his as he finally gave up and came back to the hotel.
The plan for Sunday morning was to have church at 9:00 and leave right after. Well, as the morning went on we got report after report of how bad the blizzard was in Peoria. Although, we had blue skies, we decided to wait it out. This meant church at 10 and hot tub after that. It was actually quite nice and relaxing to have such a slow morning. By about 11 or so we began to debate whether we should try to make the trip home at all. Yesterday’s ordeal was so scary it was difficult to force ourselves to get in the van and try it. We were getting close booking the hotel for another night when we got news that the storm had quieted.
The trip home was much longer than the trip up, and much more crowded it seemed. I was so glad to stretch my legs when we finally returned home.
All in all, I would say the whole weekend was worth it. Were we disappointed at the weather conditions? yes. But the hotel was a lovely little respite from normal life.
My video camera got wet at the beginning of the day so I was unable to record any of it. Karin should have pictures up later though on facebook or something.
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