Thursday, February 17, 2011

Ski Trip.....Part 2: What We Did!

Ready for a lot more pictures? And more rambling? Ok, good. :) Thursday night when we got good and checked in, and finished snooping around for a while, we ran into this rustic little restaurant called "Stickney's," appropriately named after the man who build this quaint little hotel in 1902.Yikes. That's one roughed-up birthday girl. At this point I had logged about 4 hours in a car, 4 in a plane, and maybe slept about that long the night before too I was so excited about our trip! But the smartwater and sleeve o' Ritz crackers had warn off at this point....we were ready for some real food! So we splashed some water on our sleepy Southern faces and ordered every appetizer Stickney's had to offer! And I knew the first thing I wanted to try was some authentic New England clam chowdah!
And these were some pretty de-vine sausage and mussels!
Seafood Fritters (which the bartender said were glorified Yankee hushpuppies! ha!)
Everything was great, of course, just as it looks, and when Jeffrey as for a dessert menu for a little bday dessert....the waiter took it upon himself to deliver a house special....yep, candles, singing, wait staff and all! Though we, of course would not have chosen a cholocate cake for me (the non-chocolate eater AT ALL) it was super fun and watching Jeff melt over every bite was well worth it!
Friday morning began ski day #1. We began the day with blueberry muffins and coffee from the deli in the hotel and took the shuttle to the "lodge" at the base of the slopes, 2 minutes away. We rented our equipment there and hopped on a lift! From the top this is what we saw....
And on the way up, this is how excited we were! Goofballs...
Let me tell you, I toted my smaller "point-and-shoot" camera around with me in one of the 50 zipper pockets of my jacket and pants all over the slopes for pictures on ski days. But it takes a LOT of effort to: steady your skis, stab your poles in the ground, un-velcro your wrists, take your gloves off, unzip a pocket, steady your camera in your freezing hands, and hold a poise.... You can forget asking someone else to take one for you, so you can have a couple shot!
By the time Jeff had gotten steady, un-velcroed, unzipped, etc.....I was accidently sliding....he had to snap fast, or I was going to be out of range! I was heading "to da leff, to da leff!"
Friday was a fun day. I didn't fall one bit! Sweet Thang, on the other hand.... Well, let's just say we DID NOT go down this Black Diamond Slope we accidently ran upon on our journey! Love you, Love!
After a looong day of getting our ski legs back, we were t.i.r.e.d.! When we got back to the Titanic, uh, hotel I mean, we crash landed into nearly a 2 hour nap! We perked back up just in time to get all fancy shmancy for our reservations at The Main Dining Room for dinner. Now this was high cotton, baby.
Both of us had our own waiter, who never stepped further than 10 feet from us. I'd literally take a sip of water and he'd fill it right back up! So needless to say by the main course, I really had to potty! And guess who was right behind me to pull out my chair before Jeff could even stand up!
The food matched the service for sure! These people were gen-u-wine, as my dear friend Oakes would say. And the food was amazing. My seafood tortillini appetizer---Ahhh. Even the Ceasar salad wasn't your average ol' salad. But check out my main course. Scallops. Possibly my favorite creature of the sea. 3 Scallops and 3 Clams, big as my fist!
This guy had seared duck. So I tried duck for the first time. I'm not apposed to trying new things, of which I'm glad. 'Caused I like his duck.
After desserts of pumpkin cheesecake and creme brulee, and making googly eyes at each other and promises I hope I remember for ever.... We lightened the mood (lucky for yall, no more mush :) and headed down stairs to the "Speakeasy" called The Cave to have a few toddies and listen to some great live music.
Ski Day #2 we began back in the Main Dining Room with the biggest buffet you could ever imagine. Seriously, they had salmon and shrimp out for breakfast!
The slopes produced nothing but sass from me. I am too school for cool. Or is it too cool for school? Either way, it was clear by the end of Day 2, school..."ski school" that is, wouldn't have been that bad of an idea.....
A rare shot of the two of us, taken by Jeffrey's outstretched, frozen arm. He only let us do this twice, before his gloves were calling his name. This is the best we got. :/
Now. About this. I would like it to have it's own post really. But for fear I won't get a good steak dinner for a while, I'll throw it in here. (and still get in trouble....) This made me almost wet my ski britches, and I was most certainly crying! Let me first tell you, unlike in NC last year, we NEVER left the green slopes. The mountain is steep, and the slopes are ungroomed, so the ONE Blue slope we partially went down we prayed aloud the majority of the way! However, along all the slopes, they have these little paths off the sides of the slopes no wider than a foot trail you can dart down and will spit you out back on the slope several hundred feet later. Guess which genius darted down one.....
The part we didnt realize is that they're rated BLACK DIAMONDs, and you don't realize until you hit the first bump and go airborne what you've done. I could only watch helplessly from the slope, as he flew through head over heels, praying he didn't hit a tree! Well, he didn't, and he stood up, so I cracked up and proceeded to yell at him (as I whipped out my camera of course) "I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO DOWN THERE!!" And started snapping away as he walked 20 feet behind him to pick up his skis, and 20 feet to the right for one pole, and left for the other.....I'm so laughing as I type this.
The next thing I hear is "Woman, I swear if you blog about this...." So my love grabs his poles (standing only in his boots, no skis attached, mind you) and says "At least take a picture and make it look like I'm skiing!"
Thank you for making laugh, baby. At you and with you. :)
My shout out to my friend, Darby, and her rocking tees. If it's not obvious, I was clearly a Happy Camper.
Each day, we'd take lunch breaks at The Lodge at the bottom of the slopes and grab some nachos and some beverages and refuel. Other than the airport, this was by far the best place to people watch.
At the end of skiing on day 2, we were battered and bruised, and had had so very much fun. We refused to even think about the fact we had to leave the next day. So we walked off the shuttle and into the lobby...mind you, it's the size of a football field....and accessed the situation. One of the things I loved the most about this place was it was so homey feeling, family-ish. Get it? There were dozens of sitting areas set up, that people were just lounging in, and my favorite part were all the card tables with checkers, scrabble, and puzzles everywhere. So we grabbed a seat!
And a Valentine's-tini!
And we proceeded to play the most intense game of jumbo checkers ever. I'm not even kidding.
Finally, we drug ourselves away from checkers, freshened up and went to another yummy dinner where we set at the bar (it was super crowded by Saturday night) and met another fun couple and chatted it up. They were of the Yankee variety, but we didn't judge. :) It seemed the bartender kept bringing us all sorts of foods and home brews to sample, I'm not sure if he was just that nice to everyone or just wanted to hear us talk! But it was a great way to wrap up an amazing weekend.
Sunday morning, 6:30 came waaaaay too early for me, I'm just saying. And I teared up as we left this big beautiful place. I had the most wonderful time, with the most wonderful man, in the most FREEZING temperatures I've seen. hehe. :) It was the perfect way to ring in my 31st year. Happy Birthday to me!
**Okay....so I know Jeffrey is going to pick up the phone and lay it on me when he finishes reading this and I don't tell on myself....fine, fine. I tried to be a hot shot too. (imagine, me? A daredevil?) I zipped my tush down one of those trails too. And it turned a corner and suddenly there was a jump, like a big 5 foot drop in elevation kinda jump. And I didnt jump. Needless to say, I was walking to pick my own poles and skis up too. I even lost a glove I fell so hard. Once Jeff knew I was okay, and my tears dried up (it actually scared me...) my name changed to "Crash" the rest of the day. ha. ha. ha. At least I didn't break my tailbone this time.

2 comments:

  1. Wow! Awesome. The hotel should pay you for the advertisement. I really want to go there right now! So glad the ski weekend was great! See you very soon!

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  2. Love the recap...but what I might love most is that I can hear you saying every last word that I just read. :)

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