As we head on out on this glorious, beautiful day, you probably are thinking of birds chirping, smiling faces, pleasantries abound. You'd guess wrong. It first started with getting in the car. We have a four door SUV and only one of the four doors works as intended. It was two doors until a couple of weeks ago. Because one back door doesn't open at all (from the inside or out) our two girls must both climb in one side. And because of the reason the one back door won't open at all, one girl must sit in the middle and the other by the door that does work. As you can imagine, to a 14 year old and 11 year sitting in close proximity to each is the equivalent to eating poop pie. So the arguments began. First over who would sit in the middle. Our 14 year old, Maddy, had a convincing argument. She was taller and therefore should sit on the end because the driver needed to be able to see out the back window. Autumn, our 11 year old, had a crafty argument as well. She argued that since it was Maddy who had slammed the door shut on the metal part of the seat belt, rendering the door permanently stuck closed and the seat belt useless, that Maddy should suffer and sit in the middle. Great argument and it would have won under any other circumstances, but seeing as we needed to have a clear view out of the back window and Maddy's fashion choices (which as of lately have included anything black, dark, creative or out of the norm) rendered her height 6 inches taller than usual (blame it on the large furry wolf-like creation on top of her head), Maddy won the argument. In they went, Autumn grumbling, moaning and complaining about "fairness" the whole time.
As we pull into the state park, my husband decides he would first like to go look at the campground area before we get out. Never mind that big "DO NOT ENTER" sign on the road. We have a truck, it can drive through force fields, right? Wrong. I am a "play by the rules" type of girl and immediately started hounding on him about getting kicked out of the park, ticketed or wait! Maybe it says "DO NOT ENTER" for a reason. Maybe it's dangerous with all the snow! Maybe we will die if he doesn't turn back as our truck slides off a mountain! None of the above happened but it was a rocky road and when we finally turned back onto the "main path" our truck was making a horrible grinding sound. John blamed the brakes.
We finally make it to the destination that will allow us to park and explore! This is what we came here for! To get rid of cabin fever! To breathe in the fresh air! To admire the beauty, close-up, that God has put before us!! John notices the paths aren't shoveled, so to speak, but instead they are paths of packed down snow from previous visitors. We haven't even parked the truck yet and he decides to inform us that he can't walk in snow in tennis shoes and we should just drive around some more. He parked and I took the opportunity to pile me and the kids out of the truck and pretend I didn't hear him. Being sneaky in doing this was sort of impossible as I have to roll my window all the way down in order to open the door from the outside. And since he controls whether or not the truck will have power to do this (him and his magic keys) I must say I didn't have the element of surprise. Nevertheless, he let me escape. Since the girls have the same problem as me with their door and their window only rolls halfway down in order to prevent them from accidentally falling out of the moving truck, I proceeded to help them escape as well. John sat in the truck tinkering with his phone and we ran like our lives depended on it into the open wilderness....well, state funded manufactured appearance of wilderness.
Indeed the paths were not shoveled, but they were walk-able. And it was only a matter of time before John followed. Everything after that was completely picturesque. Well, almost everything. There was one bridge by a dam we were crossing that smelled like raw sewage, but we plugged our nose.
All in all it was a great start to the upcoming new season.
Welcome spring! (almost)
