More Winter…
The highlight of our trip was our getaway. Gary spent the day packing up our packs, my mom and I made up our dinners for the next two nights, Ryan sorted through the layers he’d need to wear and we got the dog in her new winter coat and leash. She’s never been outside our yard for anything other than a vet’s appt.. she could feel the energy of a trip about to happen and she was running around excited as ever.
Around 4pm we hopped into our cars full of our gear and drove about an hour and a half east to the Green Mountains of Vermont. The further we drove the more snow we saw on the ground…we were finally getting to see some serious white! We arrived at the parking lot of the cabins and parked. Snowfall had just begun and we had nothing but the moon (and a small headlamp) to light the way. It took some prompting of the dog to get her to follow four of us in snowshoes and overnight packs up a mountain full of snow, but she finally got into it. It took us about an hour and a half to hike up and when we got to the lone cabin on the ridge, we knew we had made it. Straight past the outhouse!
The cabin was COLD. Gary got the fire going and we started to unpack and take off our layers, light some candles for light and get our dinner going. And by dinner..I don’t mean pork and beans. I mean antipasto salad followed by a penne shrimp with feta cheese, spinach, olives and artichokes, followed by Christmas cookies.
Hit the hay early and the cabin got warm. Hopped in our sleeping bags and went to sleep expecting a big hike in the morning.
We woke up and looked out the windows of the cabin. The snow was gusting, the wind was blowing…it looked absolutely…FRIGID. We made blueberry pancakes on the griddle and defrosted our oj that had been out in the snow to stay cold. Breakfast never tasted so good.
After stepping out to test the air temp (-25 with the windchill) my mom and decided the men could go for another snowshoe adventure and we’d stay in. We read books, hung out with the pup, played Scrabble and started early on the wine we had lugged up in Nalgene bottles. It was nice to have time just the two of us. Gary and Ryan returned hours later with the rest of the food from the car and a few more drinks. We heated up dinner…this time it was a southwestern shepards pie with cornbread. It hit the spot. After some more reading we went to bed early again.
Morning we awoke ready to go home and take a shower and use an actual toilet. How exciting! It was a beautiful day with the temps significantly higher and the sun shining. We snowshoed back down the mountain to our car and headed home after breakfast at a greasy spoon diner in a town I’ve never heard of.
