Vacations are supposed to be fun. They are supposed to be relaxing. I know this because I have seen all of the commercials. Everyone is happy, smiling, and laughing. They are doing things. Sometimes they are in the great outdoors. There can be gentle breezes, or falling snow and a beautiful mountain as a background. Sometimes they are inside observing the great outdoors. Sometimes they are on a cruise ship. It doesn’t matter. They are happy and smiling.
I won a vacation. This should have been my first sign but I missed it. I have never won anything. Ever. In over fifty years, I have never won anything. I was so excited at the prospect of getting away that I couldn’t see past my nose. I won two nights at a ski resort, including lift tickets. I haven’t skied in twenty-five years. This was a sign. I missed it. I got a confirmation email from the reservations dept to let me know that the ski slopes would be closed when we got there but that everything else was open and they hoped we would still be coming and would enjoy the reset of the mountain experience. This was a sign and I missed it.
I know that I haven’t skied but the brochure and web site highlight the 6.5 miles of hiking trails that are as scenic as any ski run. I’m in. I run so hiking is high on my list. I am so in that I go out and get a new pair of hiking shoes. I am also preparing for my hiking experience. I am wearing my new hiking shoes and breaking them in. I wear them to work. I go hiking in the woods near my house. I’m into it.
The day finally arrived. I got up, worked out in preparation for hiking, ate breakfast, showered and was ready to rock and roll. I knew that things were not as they appeared to be when we pulled up. The beautiful ski mountain was covered in brown snow. I know that snow is not supposed to be brown. I also know this from those same the commercials. People were happy and smiling while skiing, or walking into the lodge and smiling. There was no brown snow anywhere. Brown snow aside, the hotel was perfect. It looked like a lodge straight out of the commercial. I’m looking around looking for the hiking trails and a way to access them. It is starting to feel like a vacation. This was a sign. I missed it.
The young lady behind the desk was young and perky. It turns out that the hiking trails were not open either. The web site was incorrect or a just a lie, depending on how you look at intentionally placed false information. I am trying to stay positive. The concept that we had just driven two and a half hours for two days of hiking, that was now not going to happen was lost on the perky one. I dropped the luggage that I was holding and went out the door. I looked up for the black cloud. It wasn’t open that day either but at least it wasn’t advertised as being open.
The most challenging part of the entire vacation non-experience was now having to find something to do. The nearest tourist type activity was thirty-five minutes away, so we did what all good tourists do, we went to dinner. We found a nice restaurant fifteen minutes up the road and went to discuss the options while stuffing our faces. We decided that since we couldn’t get physical we would get cultural. There was a museum in the thirty- five -minute trip away so the next morning we would be tourists. We would soak up the cultural/tourist experience. Maybe this was the sign from God that we were moving too fast. We needed to slow down. So slowing it down became the goal. It wasn’t quite hiking but hey when in Rome. The next morning we slept late, ate a huge breakfast and headed to the museum. The museum was really nice. It had a surprisingly large number of exhibits ranging from Egyptians to Samurai warriors and everything in between. The museum was nice but not all that large. We finished it before lunch so part two of the cultural/tourist vacation was shopping. More specifically, we went outlet shopping which, as every woman knows is a tad different than shopping in Macys or JC Penney or almost anywhere else. The prices are cheaper, the shoppers are more ruthless and in order to have a successful trip you have to be prepared to check every rack. Hubby was not quite up to the task. He waited along the outside of the lingerie outlet. We went in a few stores but decided that riding in the dark when you get lost during the day was probably not the best strategy so we left early and headed for the hotel with the large black cloud hanging over it.
There is a reason why people buy a GPS system. Contrary to the popular myth it is not to get directions. They have objects that give those. They are called maps. The real reason that people by a GPS system is to avoid giving directions between husbands and wives. Of course you don’t see this in the commercials. In those commercials the people are happy and smiling but they are not giving each other directions. They already have their directions, and they didn’t have to yell at anyone to get them.
I didn’t do too badly directionally. We missed a few turns. Hubby felt that he should reverse all of my directions because we were going back the way we came so if you reverse the forward directions we would be heading in the right direction. The only problem with his theory is that I had already reversed directions so he was reversing my reversal. We only went back and forth up the same road three times looking for the correct turns that I had clearly missed because I finally realized that I needed to reverse his reversal of my reversal. I have gotten over this lack of reverse map reading skill. Especially since we didn’t have a real map. We had directions from the ski resort. Yes, those same people who gave us the free weekend with the brown snow, closed trails and large black cloud looming over-head. There is no such thing as a free vacation.
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