First Published in the Tri Town Transcript, Jan 7, 2016
When is a vacation not a vacation?
We had reason to find out when we drove to Jay Peak Resort in Vermont over the break. It’s a fabulous complex with restaurants and stores and an amazing indoor water park. Oh, and of course, it’s attached to the actual peak of Jay Peak, which we’d say has the best skiing on the East Coast.
Just not this year.
Is a ski vacation not a vacation when there’s no snow? Well, when you’re holding a fruity drink, in a bathing suit and flip flops, and your children are swimming and happy, it’s hard to complain.
But perhaps when someone is sick? Our eldest daughter had been running ragged at the end of the school semester and had a cough that seemed increasingly less like ‘winter allergies’ and more like an actual bug. And you know what really exacerbates a cough? Chlorinated air, kinda like what you might breath in the world’s greatest indoor water park.
But that’s what cough drops are for, right? So, that didn’t derail us.
Would an injury steal our mojo? I provided the data to check that theory after watching a group of regulars surf the indoor wave. They were so good at it, and I knew I could TOTALLY be good too . . . despite having surfed exactly zero times. It’s possible I had a fruity drink (or two) when I felt that bit of boldness. My husband thought it was a very bad idea, but I knew it was a great one.
The first time I wiped out, my neck hurt a little. But I understood what I’d done wrong, and I was ready to correctly showcase my amazing natural talent. My husband continued to feel it was a terrible idea. I continued to feel . . . semi-conscious for a short second.
That was because the second wipe out was more like a car crash involving a wall of water and a 40-something year old mom who should have stuck to the Lazy River and her Kindle. Instead I ended up with a neck mobility akin to Batman.
But that’s what Advil is for. So, the vacation was still good to go!
In case you lost count, we weren’t skiing, we were sick, and we were injured. Still, we were away and I was not making dinner. Best of all, we were relaxed.
Until the hotel fire alarm went off.
Our girls grabbed their iPads (priorities!) and hit the staircase, obviously more practiced from the thousands of school fire drills they experience each year. We lurched behind trying to think about coats and electronics and car keys should the building come down around our ears leaving us in the cold, if not snowy, northern Vermont air.
The excitement made our eldest start wheezing, and the speedy exit made me jerk about in ways that were less Batman and more Joker. We emptied into the hotel lobby where we learned, not surprisingly, that it was a false alarm. But though false, the siren couldn’t be shut off for a while, so we’d need to return to our room using the stairs. We clambered back only to be met with shrieks (overlaid by the hotel alarm) from our youngest daughter.
“My bed is full of slime!”
Slime!? What did that mean? Why was everything so loud??
We rushed in and saw that our daughter had, in fact, left a tube of ‘slime’ that she’d won at the family arcade, on her bed, in her haste to exit. During the ensuing tour of the hotel stairwells, it had melted into her sheets. It looked like an alien had been vaporized into the bedding.
The alarm blared, our older daughter coughed, our younger daughter was hysterical, I was in pain, and my husband stood grimly by the windows that overlooked the mountain upon which we could not ski.
“I think we should leave a day early,” he said.
And that’s the answer. When your husband has to utter those words, the vacation has failed.
It’s ok though. There’s always next year, by then I’m sure I’ll have perfected my surfing technique.