Let the Vacation Begin!

Well, our vacation has started, and we had a really nice time. We are in Blowing Rock, at a place called Homestead Inn. Its just past the major season here, so while things are still open, its quiet. We ate at a little pub called the Six Pence Pub and Restaurant, and had a really nice meal. After, we walked around the town a bit and wound up buying some gloves and some thermal pants for me. Since everything was closing, and we had to be at Hawk Nest by 7, we left with plans to go back tomorrow.

We came home an changed into warmer clothes, and then drove to Hawk Nest. That was a pretty scary drive. The road is VERY curvy (several hair-pin turns), and didn’t have any street lights, and just to top it off there were a lot of curves that didn’t have guardrails.

We got there and it was really pretty. We could see the different trails, and the people all going down. We got our tubing tickets since Bionca was worried about skiing. Its actually a good thing, since we were not prepared for skiing, equipment-wise. I wasn’t prepared for the experience really. I thought that it would be a pretty gentle, but it was like shooting down a flume. There was very little control that I had. Basically, I could adjust my rotation only when I was near the side, and then in a rudimentary manner. We only got to go down three times because we for there a bit late, and we also we had to recover a bit between runs.

They had the snow machines running, so there was freezing water flying all over us. The first time that I went down the slope and I started putting my feet down to slow down, I got a face full of ice and was basically blind for the end. The second time, I wasn’t going at the right speed, and almost wound up going off the track and down another hill (sans snow, but with plenty of hard ground). The third time, snow went up my left pant-leg all the way to my thigh. So, it was fun, but cold. Next time we need a ski suit and goggles.

Speaking of which, after we took some pictures, and Bionca had the bright idea that I should stand in the line of fire of the snow machine. So for some reason I agreed. At first it was cute. I was getting snowed on, but then I was really getting iced, and still Bionca hadn’t taken the picture. I felt like my face was dunked in a cooler full of ice and ice water where it sort of goes numb and sort of burns. Ya, not fun. Well, she finally did take the picture, and when I got out, I was covered in like 2mm of ice. My glasses were completely frosted over, and my face was burning from it. It was pretty fun to knock it all off though.

Afterwards, we went back to the car, and stripped off our outer layers since they were pretty much soaked. It was lucky that we had put on 3 layers of pants, so we had two left. We made our way back down the mountain, and stopped at BoJangle’s Chicken and Biscuits. We got take-out and came back to the room.

So, that’s it. The real start of a vacation. So far, so good.