The last weekend in January I headed up a ski trip for Kairos. Of course, it just so happened to be the same weekend that the "once every 7 years" snowstorm decided to roll through the state of TN. Now granted, "snowstorm" in southern slang (i.e. 5" of snow total) is definitely not the same as what I grew up with, BUT I also have to point out that we in no way have enough trucks/equipment to adequately prepare or clear roads. Also, because of the bizarre weather that we tend to get in this area, that 5" of snow quickly became a hazard when 1/4" of ice decided to seal every last inch of powder on the ground. You couldn't even scoop your driveway without taking an ax to it first. Craziness. Take all of that and combine it with people who panick and drive 5mph on the interstate when it starts to rain...and, well, you can only imagine the chaos that ensued. So, needless to say, our trip that was intended to take off at 5pm and reach our destination 6.5 hours later, ended up scrambling together to load cars at 2pm in the midst of some major snowfall...and proceeded to take almost 10 hours instead. All that to say...we made it...and it was well worth it!!!
We stayed in some quaint cabins in Pipestem State Park...which is tucked away near Athens, WV. It had already been snowing pretty hard when we arrived, and proceeded to snow all through the night and into the next day. We easily got 6" while we slept (the maintenance guys had to come dig our car out of the driveway!) and then another 12" while we skied on Saturday at Winterplace. While it was definitely cold, it made for some "epic" ski conditions (I apparently overused the word "epic" throughout the weekend...but epic and skiing tend to go hand-in-hand in my vocabulary :)). We skied until about 8pm each day and then built a fire in the fireplace, ate dinner, roasted s'mores and played games together until we could barely keep our eyes open. Pretty sure that's Webster's definition of epic (or at least it should be).
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday with even more skiing (and sunshine!) and almost ended without a hitch...but one of our guys took a small beating on his last run and ended up with a bit of a head wound. God was good though - and we were able to get into a walk-in clinic rather than the emergency room (with only 5 minutes to spare!) and what would have cost a lot of money and taken hours, was very inexpensive and took only minutes. We were all back together at the cabin before we knew it and finished off the trip with hours of Nerts (my favorite card game)!
We had one last breakfast/devo time before Monday morning before we loaded the cars, took a few more crazy group shots and headed home. The trip back was definitely much easier and quicker than the trip there...but the company was just as much fun as on the way up! I definitely recommend picking up a pack of "Would You Rather" cards when you get a chance - definitely makes for some hilarious conversation on roadtrips :).
I hate to tell you, but I was having so much fun enjoying the moments, that I forgot to capture most of them! Thankfully my friend Steph always has her camera handy and took a ton of pics. Here's one of the group at the top of the mountain...minus Brandon. As Steph said, he was probably in the singles line - getting on the lift faster that way.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment