Vacation Musings...

Its been a few days, but Rachel, Brayden and I just returned from a long weekend with the Reeder clan. It was wonderful to get away from work for a few days and reset. We drove down to MON, West Virginia to Snowshoe Resort, where Rachel's parents had rented a townhouse for the weekend.

I will admit that I approached the trip with some trepidation, as it was my (our?) first roadtrip with an infant. Fortunately, Brayden is pretty much the perfect child (up to this point, anyhow...) and travelled really well. We cramped ourselves into the Milan with Rachel's sister and her husband for the 6 hour trip. We sent a few items along with Doug and Gail, since its hard enough to pack for 4 in a mid-size car, not to mention all of the infant accessories needed for a few days on the road.

The weather was quite nice on the trip down. Sunny, warm-but-not-hot and traffic was generally light. The automatic transmission paired to the 2.3L Duratec has odd tendencies in the mountains (especially laden as it was), but cruises well between 75-80 (you had to realize that there would be significant automotive references in here, right?). Once we got to Elkins on Thursday, we got a few sprinkles, but the weather was generally quite pleasant. Once we got onto the mountain (apparently ~4848', based on the number of references made to that number about the "village"), the temperature dropped into mid-60s and was pretty overcast. Once nightfall hit, the fog rolled in and it was truly spectacular. Visibility dropped below 30 feet and the wind blew sheets of fog around. I hung out in the hot tub on the back porch and watched the fog roll around for about a half hour. That was pretty much the extent of the weather on Friday as well. Saturday there was a Chili Cookoff in the "village", and there was a 30% chance of percipitation. That turned in to 90% by about noon and we got drenched. Rachel, Brayden and I were hanging out in the village, waiting for the rest of the family to return from their trip down the ski lift to the lake below. When the torrential rain hit, we sought refugee under the eaves of the nearest Starbucks. We finally moved into the main room (is it a lobby? dining area? I'm not really sure what to call it) and decided since we were there we would patronize the establishment. I was soaked to the bone and thought that something warm sounded good. I had something from Starbucks about 5 years ago and knew it had carmel in it. So the first thing I saw was a Carmel Frappachino. Hmmmm...did you know that that's milk that is put in a blender with ice, coffee grounds, some carmel flavoring, and ICE! Yeah, needless to say, the combination of the caffeine and the ice made me start to shiver even more. At least I got a coupon for a $2 Grande cold beverage after 2PM (which we were still hanging out after 2PM, so I gave it to Rachel to get a Vanilla Bean Frappachino). Random Starbucks story aside, it was interesting to watch the fog roll in after the rain stopped. It literally blew in sheets. Rachel's mom kept apologizing for the weather (as if she had control over it), but I thought it was perfect.

There was a Jeep Jamboree going on while we were there as well. For people who think I've got a lot invested in my Focus, they need to look at some of these rigs. There was a crew who towed in two built Wranglers behind a decked out Hummer tow vehicle (all in matching red, with silver graphics, including the trailer). I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit tempted to pick up a Grand Cherokee, or a CRD Liberty and hit the trails. I've got too many other projects to work on instead (like a street "legal" Daytona Prototype replica, or even just finishing the Focus).

One interesting thing to note was the large number of college students that were hanging out for the weekend. It was apparent to me that there were a number of kids whose parents had time-shares up on the mountain. Saturday was a big drinking fest; we got the privilege of watching a guy pee off a ski lift and having every other chair yelling "Chili Cookoff...WOO!" I also heard a few passing references to some drug usage (which didn't really surprise me...I expect that from the snow-board/extreme sports fanatics).

The biggest thing that I missed out on was sleep. Since we had Brayden with us, Rachel and I slept "downstairs" in the main living quarters, so we would have a place to feed him and rock him, if need be. Everyone kind of hung out until 10:30 or 11PM every night, just talking, watching TV, etc. Then Brayden was ready to get up and greet the world at 6AM (like we normally do). The 7 hours in between were spent flopping on marginally comfortable couches (which were more comfortable than the hide-a-bed). That drove me to really wanting a can of Red Bull on Friday night...unfortunately, I hadn't taken any along, which left me to the mercy of the fine retail establishments on the mountain. Rachel ironically wanted a can of Caffeine Free Diet Coke, so I went down to the store to procure a few provisions. Ten bucks and some change later, I returned with two 250mL cans of Red Bull and two cans of Caffeine Free Diet Coke (the last two in the store).

On the way home on Sunday, we drove into PA, then cut across to Wheeling to stop at Cabela's for a little while. I wasn't really feeling going to Cabela's (which is interesting because 10-12 years ago, that would have been my Mecca) because I've kind of moved beyond the whole "Outdoorsman/hunter" phase that I had gone through as a kid. Just before we got to I70 in PA, we ran into "construction", and traveled at 35 MPH for about 30 minutes. By construction, I mean, painting the line down the center of the road. This was, humorously enough, being done by a contractor from Norwalk, OH. Is there no one out that way that can drive a paint truck in a straight line? Construction was the name of the game pretty much the rest of the way home. Just before Wheeling, we merged down to one lane, which brings me to my next pet peeve; the chronic late merger. Why do people let other people get away with this? Someone is always driving all the way up to the very last foot of their lane, then turning on their turn signal to get over. Didn't you see the sign two miles ago that said to merge right? Its people like you who get traffic backed up as badly as it is...to the person in the red Magnum, I'm still not sorry and if I had been the only person in the car, you would have ended up waiting for a long time.

The next construction occurred when we were almost home. We turned off of 21 in Strasburg onto 250 at 9:30PM Sunday and there was a sign up that said "Flagger Ahead". I read it humorously to Rachel, assuming that some lazy ODOT employee/contractor had left it up from Friday afternoon, but just the same telling Rachel that I had to assume that there was a flagger ahead. Sure enough, about 3 miles down the road, traffic was stopped...which brings me to yet another pet peeve; the angry tooter. We were sitting, waiting our turn to traverse the constructin site when someone a few cars back decided to start honking their horn. I'm sorry, did you think that we all just decided to stop and take a break in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday night? Honking isn't going to make the roller go any faster; in fact, based on my experience in the road construction industry, if any of the workers catch wind of your impatience, you'll end up waiting longer. None of them really wanted to be out there on a Sunday night, either.

Regardless, we finally got home and I realized a few things. Vacations should be longer than 4 days. You should always take a day off to recuperate from a vacation. Finally, I think I'm taking after my dad; I'm really looking forward to the week and a half that I'm off here in 2 weeks where I'm going to be hanging out at home, working on my car. As a Miller, I don't really do that well with traveling and I don't really do that well with not doing anything at all (there's a difference between not getting much done and not doing anything at all). I found myself getting a little stir crazy sitting on top of the mountain. There were about 20 minutes worth of shops in the "village" and there was really only so much walking that you could do without needing some serious gear. I like to have the option of having things to do, even though I generally don't exercise those options. Oh, and the other thing that I realized...Nikl Nips from Cracker Barrel aren't as good as I remembered them being 17 years ago.