My Crazy Beautiful Life: Wednesday

When I woke up Wednesday morning, there was absolutely no way to know how the next two days would turn out or the string of emotions I would experience in such a short 48 hour period. It really started about a month ago when we bid on a show at a ski resort a couple of hours away. (I'm not mentioning the name here because I don't want it to be googled!!) To make a long story short, after several negotiations, meetings and e-mails, we signed a contract and agreed to do the show for much less than we normally would because there is always a fun-factor built into these types of shows that makes it worth it. They also agreed to pay for our lodging (4 people for 6 days) and to give us 4 VIP passes to this national snowboarding event.

We made all the arrangements for the trip, including lining up pet care (thanks, Lori!) and were planning to leave around 8:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. I had taken the Subaru in Tuesday afernoon to have our snow tires put on but the Les Schwab guy found a crack in one of them and had to take them all off. Their store across town had the tire we needed in stock but since it was almost closing time, we'd have to wait until Wednesday morning to try again. They always have great service and said they would do everything they could to put on the tires first thing in the morning.

We woke up Wednesday morning to about 6 inches of new snow which caused all kinds of delays. The driver for Les Schwab spent about 2 hours just driving across town and back so the tire didn't arrive back in Meridian until after 10:00 a.m. The tires were put on fairly quickly but then I got the first of a string of bad news: not only were the other tires cracking but the brakes were so bad they said it was undrivable. They handed me a quote for $500 + but didn't charge me a thing for all of the time they had already spent on my car. I called Rob, who heard the catch in my voice, and quickly made other arrangements. His mom and dad willingly loaned us their Jeep, gaining a little peace of mind in the process, and we gratefully took them up on their offer. We finally rolled out of town at 12:00 p.m. with Rob taking the lead in the big truck, Dale following behind him, and me bringing up the rear.

The roads weren't too bad until after Banks and then I kept having to peel my hands off the steering wheel to keep them from cramping up from gripping so tightly!! This well-traveled road was eerily deserted and eventually, I even lost sight of Rob and Dale.

We finally made it to our hotel around 3:00 and checked in. We were supposed to have one big room or two smaller rooms with kitchenettes. The two rooms they had for us were on opposite sides of the hotel and the one with the kitchenette was a smoking room. The room smelled so bad that Zach and Gloria wouldn't even go in the door. We told the front desk we just couldn't use that room so the four of us (with a week's worth of stuff) moved into the other, much smaller room with NO kitchenette. We were planning to cook all of our meals to help keep expenses down and now we were somewhat limited by the lack of space and appliances. The staff at the hotel was very helpful and they were trying to find a solution. In the meantime, we all headed up to the resort so we could quickly set up and Dale could get back home before it got too late. Rob had been in very close communication with his contact at the resort and so we were expecting everything to be ready. Unfortunately, the best planning still isn't good enough when the expectations of the people we answer to don't match the expectations of the tour manager that gets to make the call in the end. While everyone tried to get on the same page, the kids and I wandered around taking pictures. This is a huge snow cat that grooms the "super-pipe". It was pretty amazing to watch.

This area has received what must be a record breaking amount of snow.

We were definitely in hurry-up-and-wait mode.

Even after a long meeting between the staff at the resort, the tour manager and Rob, everything was still up in the air, Dale had to go home to prepare for a trip and Rob was summoned to a 7 a.m. meeting the next morning. By this time it was getting late and the final word pretty much was, "I want it my way or no way" from the tour guy. Fortunately, the people we had been working with backed us up and acknowledged that Rob had originally bid on exactly what the tour manager required and the resort didn't have it in the budget. We went back to our cramped hotel room knowing that even if we stayed and set up what we brought, Dale was gone and Rob would be setting up alone.

I know I had a real sense of dread for what the next day would hold and, while Rob knew that we had done everything we were asked to do, he still had to get up before it was light out and face whatever we had to face, alone. It was snowing hard outside, making things seem even more bleak. . .