Well, I didn’t quite fall off the face of the earth. But almost. I was here:
This is the “road” to the house I stayed at. Aka, “the lane”.
The driveway to the house.
Overlooking the lake.
No internet. No computer. No cell phone signal unless I got in my car and drove for an hour and a half.
Just snow. Glorious snow. Beautiful sunshine. The sound of Whiskey Jacks and Blue Jays, Chickadees and Woodpeckers. Wind stirring the tall pine trees. Beautiful sky.
I love it up there. I really do.
It was a fun trip. The drive up there only took us 7.5 hours. We did stop for a full hour. It was just myself and the kids. The kids were *amazing* travellers. We don’t believe in the portable DVD player, in vehicles. They kept themselves amused with books, books on tape/cd, music cds, and their Leap Pads. I do have to admit though, that at times I totally used the “moose/deer crossing” signs to steer them away from teasing each other. I would just call out “moose crossing!” and they would immediately stop what they were doing and start looking for moose. Or whatever else the sign said. In one case it was falling rocks. You do what you have to do….
There was a tonne of snow for the kids to play in. One of the things that I love about that place in winter is that I can just leave the kids outside and not worry at all. They don’t go far and with the lake being frozen, I don’t have to worry about water danger like I do in the summer.
We made a snow-fort of sorts, used snow shoes, and climbed over the mountains of snow that the tractor had made. Then we went for walks in the laneway where there were even higher mountains of snow. Only 3 or 4 houses/cottages on the lane have permanent, year-round residents. They actually take turns plowing the lane with a loader. Yes, you read that correctly – a loader. Driving in the lane, I wished I had a truck. We made it all 7 hours without incident and then we got to the lane. I got stuck. 3 times. As I was trying to make it up the smallest of all hills (and going nowhere fast), I was mentally calculating where I could leave the van where it would be out of the way for other traffic, where our snowpants and heavy boots were and how the kids would feel about walking 10 mins to the house. I ended up getting up this hill and over several more and then got stuck in 6″ of very soft snow, about 20 feet down the driveway. Close enough you could taste it. It was quite ironic and comical actually. With the help of a few shovels, a John Deere tractor with a snowblowing attachment and pure willpower, we got the van close enough that I could unload it without carrying everything farther than I wanted to.
The visit was short but enjoyed by all. My grandparents are aging and I’m coming to terms with that. I figured out that my grandparents were 43 when I was born. Depending on your age, you’re probably saying, “wow” or not getting the significance of that. Now I understand how they were able to care for myself and my 2 cousins up there, every summer. I think we went up every summer until we started working – maybe younger. I’m not sure I was up there after age 13. Anyway, part of the issue I’ve had with them aging is that I always think of them as being young – 60′ish, 70′ish. Grammy turns 80 next month. That’s the average life expectancy. Or so I read somewhere. That hits a point with me.
My dad’s side of the family has certain perceptions of myself, my husband and my kids. My husband and I jokingly said that the reason Grammy and Grampy said we could come was because I was leaving my husband at home. Yes, there are issues there. It’s sad, really. Now there are walls built on both sides (him and them). And when I think of how old my grandparents are and how much time we might have left with them, I think this family stuff is all quite stupid and it makes me sad. We’re going to try and mend some fences this summer. Grammy said we should come up (all of us) for a week in the summer. She wants to enjoy the kids while they can (her words, not mine). So we’ll go and hopefully everyone will get along and I’ll get another phone call like the one I received a day after I had been home. It was my Dad, telling me that Grammy called him as soon as we had left to say we were on our way home and how much she and Grampy had enjoyed the visit.
Oh, and the ride home? Slightly more eventful. It took us 8 hours and we didn’t stop for an hour like we did on the drive up. We stopped for about 20 minutes. Intermittent bright sunny skies (damn, where are my sunglasses!?) and white-out conditions (damn! I can’t get my glasses off fast enough so I can see through this stuff!). Oh, and the kids? Not nearly as well behaved on the way home (partly due to sleep deficits from the trip) and my daughter decided she’d had quite enough about an hour away from home and she puked (and I mean PUKED!) all over herself and her carseat. She was actually sitting in a pool of vomit. And of course, we were 10 mins away from the next exit. I had to scoop the stuff off her with my bare hands. Nice way to cap off a trip, eh? Yeah, I thought so too. Now, I can laugh at it. At the time, with my son holding his nose on the highway, yelling “mommy you need to stop, this really stinks!” while I was freaking out internally and looking madly for exits, it wasn’t so funny. Hearing my husband’s exclamations as he dismantled and cleaned out the car seat – now *that* was funny too. Up until that point he had brushed off my “ooooo this was sooo gross” story of cleaning her up on the highway. He was suddenly enlightened to how icky clean up could be.
