Mountain Escape

After a half-hearted attempt two years ago, this past year at the CKS auction we got serious and made a successful bid on a weekend in the mountains. We dragged the Francos into this experience with us, and we're so glad that we did (and pretty sure they agree)!

We had been warned by the home's gracious owners that the dirt road leading up to the house is best traversed by a vehicle with four-wheel drive. Well, none of us had that, so we put our Odysseys to the test. The Francos made it up fine. The Seymours got stuck, twice. In the end, though, with a little nudge by Luis and I, the Vanimal made it to the top. From here we thought we were home free, only to discover that the housekeeper had left the alarm on, when we had been told by the hostess it would not be on and thus had not been given a code. It seemed like forever, but probably only took about 30 minutes until we eventually made contact with the owners and got the alarm shut off for good. Now we were home free!



The house was truly spectacular, high atop a mountain with glorious views (including the above photo) and lots of privacy. It had plenty of space for all of us, and an A-frame layout with a loft that reminded me of the cabin we used to rent in the mountains when I was a kid (except this was about four times bigger). Glorious.

Bolstered by the light of a new day, we even ventured back down the mountain for an outing. (We did decide to all pile into one of the vans, thinking it would be best to have a car at the top just in case.) Tim did some quick research and found a kid-friendly one-mile trail for us to explore, with a lake-side playground across the street and then a waterfront restaurant for lunch just down the road. Perfection all around, especially since Laura was so agreeable in the hiking backpack.





After a successful run back up the dirt road, we settled in for the rest of the afternoon and night, which culminated in a long-anticipated Euchre match between the four adults. The kids spent a lot of time inventing various games with glow sticks, drawing pictures and making books, some video games and a couple of movies - and above all, staying out of our hair! As we exclaimed many times, we were a very compatible match of families for a weekend excursion and hope to make it a repeat event.