So between taking vacation for our regular summer trips, my cruise, girls camp, and youth conference. He doesn't have any days left.
But when my parents were going to be here over one of his Friday's off, we scheduled a little date.
He did his research, the way Dan does, and planned a jam packed, awesome little trip.
We left on Friday morning about 7am to beat the ski traffic and be there in time to meet our guide to go dog sledding.
We made fantastic time on our drive, leaving a few hours to eat some of the best burgers of our lives at the Back Door Grill, followed by a breathtaking winter hike at Fish Creek Falls.
There was no shortage of snow up there.
It was less than 20 degrees, so of course the falls were frozen, but still beautiful none the less. We're gonna do that one again this summer with the kids and I'm looking forward to seeing it both ways.
Back in 2012 when I went to France and Italy with my mom, I came up with a challenge for myself. We were taking public transit all over the place, trying to figure out where we were going and how we were going to get there. There was something scary and exhilarating about it. And I decided I wanted to do something that scared me, or at least got me out of my comfort zone, every year for the rest of my life. I think I have succeeded so far.
Dog sledding checked that box this year. I know it doesn't sound that scary, at least it didn't to me. Theoretically, I have always wanted to try it. And theoretically you just sit or stand there while dogs drag you around. But somewhere around the time our dog sled expert had us gathered around explaining how and when to use the brakes, it kind of hit us: We were about to go drive a dog sled for 2.5 hours and we don't know how to drive a dog sled.
The kennel, as it's called, didn't look like any kennel I had ever seen. About two hundred dogs live happily this field, in the snow, with individual barrel houses, chained to lines, and wake up everyday hoping to pull a sled.
The most interesting phenomenon played out as we readied ourselves to go. Upon arrival, the dogs were mostly calm. We got to walk through and pet them. Once we gathered together to hear the spiel, a dog behind us was suddenly on top of his barrel making some noise and other dogs were beginning to join in.
As time went on, the energy level was building and even more dogs began to chime in as well. They knew what was coming.
By the time the sleds were lined up, it was getting crazy. Seriously. Mushers were running every which way, from dog to sled, each carrying, leading, dragging dogs to be hooked up to each sled. The noise and excitement reached a climax. Each dog was begging to be chosen with their voice and their jumping. "Pick me! Pick me! Pleeeeeeeeese pick me!"
And then, as the first group of sleds pulled away (we were in the group departing second). The sadness was palpable. The howling, whining and moaning began.
Then it was our turn. I got wrapped up like a burrito in the sled and I had realized that Dan was now in charge of my life. And he didn't know what he was doing.
After the initial shock wore off, it started to get fun and the scenery was beautiful.
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At his point in our journey, my phone froze. Literally. It was about 10 degrees that day and as I was taking a picture, it just shut down.
Therefore the rest of the pictures are on Dan's phone. Including the ones of me driving. And if I waited until those were uploaded before I posted this, it would never get posted.
So after about an hour, we stopped and switched places. There were two guides on snowmobiles never too far away. They would pull up along side us and give us pointers, tell us about our dogs, and generally educate us about the sport. It was so wonderful, from start to finish. The only downside was that my body was so tense while I was driving, that the next day I was sore from head to toe.
It was a bucket list experience. If it's not on yours, it should be.
That night we ate a pretty nasty dinner at a taqueria (I miss Mexican food!!) and then the plan was to head to the hot springs.
Now. There are two hot springs in the Steamboat area. One is natural and beautiful.
The other is more of a family recreation center pool, fed by the hot springs, but with the feel of a regular swimming pool with water slides, etc.
Of course we wanted to go to the natural ones. But when Dan was trying to make our plans and reserve us a spot on a shuttle for that night (it's up in the mountains and requires 4 wheel drive to get there) he realized it was natural, beautiful, and clothing optional after dark. Because our time line was so tight, night was our only option, and we aren't much for public nudity, we settled on the idea that we'd go just have to go to the recreation center in town.
But after finishing our bad Mexican, we were talking to the concierge at the hotel who told us we would absolutely regret not going to the natural springs at Strawberry Park. She assured us that it would be way too dark to see anything and that it would be an unforgettable experience. I guarantee she did not know how true those words were when they came out of her mouth.
Seriously, buckle up. It's bout to get crazy up in here.
We decided to go for it and reserved the last two spots in a 15 passenger van chock full of extremely inebriated college-y type kids. The ride up was not good and we were immediately regretting our decision. We are old. We are Mormon. We have 5 kids. We loved VidAngel because it meant we didn't have to hear swear words in our movies. This ride was basically 40 minutes of every disgusting word ever bleeped out of any movie in the history of the world, all strung together into one wasted conversation. Priority number one upon arriving at the hot springs: lose these kids. Disappointment number one upon arriving at the hot springs: realizing the place was crawling with hundreds more just like them and half of them were naked.
So when we got there, it was absolutely pitch black. We could hardly see a hand in front of our faces. We were led down a snowy road. The driver pointed this way and that with his flashlight. We couldn't really see where he was pointing or hear what he was saying from where we were standing, but we caught words like "the bathroom," "warm room," "curtains," "bashful". We gathered that in one of these buildings there was a heated room to change behind curtains. We already had our suits on under our clothes and it was about 3 degrees at that point so all we wanted to do was get in the warm water. Then he handed all of us flashlights and pointed us down some stairs. As we passed, I asked him where the lockers were for our stuff. He told me there were no lockers, just to leave our stuff by the edge of the water.
It should be noted that every surface that had seen water was covered in a thick layer of ice. We tried to find a secluded area but even through the dark, we could tell it just wasn't that big and there were a lot of people. The flashlight was mostly useless because as you shined it to find your way, you were inevitably shining it on things and people you didn't want to see, nor who particularly wanted to have a light shined on them. So we kept it close to the ground shining it only just in front of our feet until we found a chair upon which we dumped our stuff, ripped off our clothes, and got in the water as fast as we could.
Once we were in, it was blissful. We kept to ourselves, avoided looking or talking with anyone but each other, and I basically clung to Dan like a howler monkey to its momma and Dan toted us around. I have never seen the stars like I did that night. I didn't even know there were that many to be seen. I counted seven shooting stars. It was so cold, if your hair got wet, it immediately turned to ice.
We were enjoying ourselves but decided that since we (and all our van riding comrades) had to be back to the parking lot by 11pm to catch our ride back down, we'd like to avoid the mad rush and naked changing crowd on the side of the springs and decided to get out at 10:30 to beat the rush and find our way to that warm changing room, where we could change in peace and private.
Unfortunately, despite our plans that was not in the cards for us. We knew getting out was going to be painful, we just didn't realize how painful. When we found our chair, we also found that other people had put their stuff on ours and all of the sudden we were both kind of freaking out because we were so cold and we were picking through clothes and towels, just hoping we got all of our stuff and none of anyone else's. We proceed to slip and slide on the ice, a bag on this shoulder, some clothes in that hand, dropping stuff, picking it up, and we couldn't find the flashlight.
It's about this time, after fumbling to find his phone, that Dan turns on his phone's light and starts blabbering almost psychotically. He is saying over and over again, "Where are my socks?! Where are my socks?! Where are my socks?!"
Now. Neither of us knew where his socks were. I was too busy fruitlessly trying to find the stairs that would lead us back up to the warm room. But everywhere we turned, there was a rock, or a naked person, or we were back where we started. With every passing second, Dan's imploring for his socks got louder and more desperate. Until finally, I lead us to another dead end, and as I turn around, Dan has, in desperation and a hanging thread of sanity, dropped everything he was carrying on to a bench, including his phone which is now shining face up, and is yanking off his suit in the middle of this walkway. And he's still saying, "Where are my socks?!"
He stood directly over that light, the family jewels illuminated from below for all to see. I honestly didn't know what to do, except laugh. I ran into the dark, changed as fast as I could, covering the last vital pieces just as a group approached with their flashlights blazing.
Once we were warm, it was quite simple to find our way to the stairs and to the empty, welcoming warm room, whose curtains we no longer needed. We waited by the fire there and recounted what had just happened. Dan was himself again and told me, "Once I got my socks on, I knew I was going to be okay."
Then we decided that between changing outside to snorkel in Iceland in the winter and this, we better be hitting somewhere tropical for our next trip together.
1 comment:
That was so fun! Let's go somewhere warm next time.
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