Hi folks. Hope you had a great weekend. I spent it up in West Dover, Vermont.

As one of my Christmas presents Mr. SOTSS got us a lovely bed and breakfast ski weekend trip. He’s such a great travel companion and thoughtful gift giver too. This was our first road trip without our furry kids. While it was hard leaving them behind we really enjoyed ourselves.

We arrived in the late afternoon on Friday to the The West Dover Inn. The Inn was established in 1846 with just 3 guest rooms and has remained in business ever since. They have since expanded to 11 rooms. After checking in to our room we went for dinner at The Roadhouse, a local establishment just a few miles away. They served homemade bread that arrived at the table nice and warm. And they also served homemade apple crisp which we both had for dessert. Any place that specializes in homemade carbs….yeah I don’t even need to finish this sentence.

It had been snowing most of the day and night and really set the mood for what a ski weekend in Vermont should feel like. After dinner we went to the bar at our Inn to listen to some live music and have a drink. And their bar recently got a makeover too. It was quite crowded and lively.

The weather was brutally cold and windy on Saturday. It was -1° when we headed up to Mount Snow to ski, and winds were between 25-40 mph gusts forcing the closure of the lifts that went all the way to the summit. So everyone basically started about 1/3 of the way down the mountain.

I enjoyed 7 solid runs before my knee started to feel sore and then I sat by the fire in the lodge and let Mr. SOTSS get in a couple more runs in the last 45 minutes before we called it a day.

Mr. SOTSS snowboarded while I skied in my retro (24 year old) straight skis.

We were on all intermediate trails and I never fell. I was really in my happy place. The sun was shining down on me and the conditions on the trails were powder. Beautiful white powder! Really the only challenge was trying to keep my fingers and toes warm. 🙂

After we got back to the room and changed out of our 3,456,210 layers of fleece and wool we hit up a sports bar type place (well there was a pool table and two televisions each with a college sports event on so I think that satisfies the quota to call it a sports bar) called the Saloon.

We fueled up with burgers and fries and then went back to the Inn for a repeat of live music and a drink to end the night.

Oh, and of course the Breakfast part of our Bed and Breakfast weekend…how could I forget. I had the most amazing french toast and eggs. The french toast was drizzled with raspberry syrup and sugar. Heavenly.

Yesterday after we had breakfast, we checked out and then headed back to the mountain. But this time instead of skiing we decided to rent snowmobiles.

It started out great!

I had never been on one before but thought I was doing ok. But then there was a section of a public trail system called the Vast Trail System with two way traffic and I got nervous (the trail system actually connects all the way to Canada!). While trying to turn the snowmobile on a curve I lost control, panicked and eventually drove off into a ditch. I looked up after I landed and saw the snowmobile literally hovering over me. I instinctively reached my arm out to catch it if it fell although gratefully it didn’t fall on me because apparently I wouldn’t have been able to hold it. They are significant machines that weigh about 500 pounds. At first I felt fine and was actually laughing so after Mr. SOTSS and a few other guys got me back up to the trail and got the snowmobile turned back up, free from the embankment and back up on the trail too I just hopped back on. I thought I would be fine but within a few minutes my shoulder and right arm started to hurt (It eventually got so bad that I couldn’t lift my arm up at all). You really need to use your arms to control the steering and I felt so unsure and nervous then too. So our awesome guide found a spot that I could park my snowmobile and then I just hopped on the back of Mr. SOTSS’ snowmobile. That was was awesome! It gave me the opportunity to take photos of the most beautiful scenery that I wouldn’t have had a chance to do had i continued driving my own sled. So there is the silver lining. I’m currently taking Advil and feel pretty confident my shoulder will recover fine in the next couple of days. And then I’ll just have a bruised ego. But it could have been so much worse. Apparently a women the week prior broke her pelvis! Ouch!

With all the winter fun I really didn’t even miss running. Meanwhile I don’t know if my body feels bad for me but after hurting my shoulder, my knee is feeling really good! In any case, I’ll be taking it easy this week. It’s been snowing, raining, sleeting, slushing and icing for the last 24 hours so basically my goal this week is to not slip and fall. I’ve got enough to deal with. I told the boy last night that I think I jinxed myself when I played “Calamity Jane” in a play in the 4th grade. Well, I’m going to leave you all now so I can go spend some QT with the doodle. He missed me. Have you ever gone snowmobiling? Have you ever had an accident while doing something adventurous? Do you ski? Can you handle freezing temperatures or are you a hot weather person?