Okay, anyways. So that was Thursday.. Friday Eighmee and I got up around 6:30 or so, and loaded up the car and hit the road. We picked up Andrew, then Kitt, and we hit Jack In The Box for breakfast. Then we headed north and picked up Ryan, and were officially on the road. Kitt and Ryan slept most of the way up. It was a very peaceful smooth drive up I-5, then 70 up to Marysville, then 36 to Chester. It was a beautiful warm day, and transition from city, to forest, to snow.
When we got up there we parked on the driveway, and put on some warm clothes. We opened the garage door, and Eighmee, Ryan and Kitt went inside. David had the driveway plowed before we got there (thank God), but Andrew and I shoveled the last little bit of snow at the top of the driveway, and parked the car in the garage. We brought in our stuff and claimed rooms.
For the first couple hours we just sat around watching TV, and looking the snow on the back deck, eating the random-ass snacks we brought up. Everyone was pretty hungry. A little while later we all climbed back into the car and drove back to Chester to the 'Holiday' supermarket for food for the remainder of our trip. Eighmee got a ready-bake vegitable lisagne (sp hehe) for that (Friday) night. We got back and I shoveled a bit of snow off the back deck so there was walking room, then we all crashed and slept for what seemed like hours.
When we woke it was only like 6:30pm but dark as hell. Eighmee put the Lisagne in the oven and I made coffee. Andrew and I played guitar and bit and the others watched TV. Later we all played a full game of UNO. I think I won again. W00t. :o) More TV then hit the sack for the night.
Normally the house is rented out to random people, but since it's family owned, we had the keys to the locked personal storage closet in the basement. So we had clean sheets and towels for everyone with the only prevision that we wash everything before we left.
The next (Saturday) morning, Eighmee and I were up first. After everyone was up I was elected to cook breakfast. It was quite hardy: Bacon, Eggs, Sausage, Pancakes, English Muffins, Coffee, and OJ. We destroyed breakfast and Kitt and Andrew went back and finished cooking the little remainder for seconds.
Today was our outdoor adventure day. We all got our snow clothes one and went out to the back deck. We made snowballs and threw them at the trees trying to knock off the blankets of snow that had formed on the branches of the trees. Andrew started assigning point to each person who successfully knocked all the snow off a particular branch. Eighmee came out and started trying to cleck up the snowman that was built by David and Nancy the last time there were up. Unfortunately the snowman had hardened to a solid ice cube.
About that time Andrew had gone down to the ground below the deck, and pulled out a sled from the garage. We all threw snowballs at him and vice-versa. He used the sled to block our throws but we definately had an advantage being above him. After a bit we all headed out to play with the sleds. I went to put on some warmer clothes and everyone had found and started using a small snowy hill for sledding on the side of the house. I came out and tried it 3 or 4 times before we all decided to go find the 'big hill'.
Being on a country club, when the golf course gets snowed in, everyone uses the courses for cross country sking, and they use the driving range for a huge sled run for the kids. We had no idea where it was, but we started walking the icy roads, and sure enough my spider-sense took us straight to it. There were already a lot of people there, so it took us a while to find an area of the hill that we could use that was away from everyone else. But we did. I think Andrew went first, but after a few runs we had a good groove in the snow, and we sailing a good couple hundred feet down the hill. Unfortunately, there was no lift, and it was a long, cold walk back up the hill after each run. We each did about 4 runs or so down the hill before we were all tired as hell and wanted to go back home.
We scurried back home and changed clothes, throwing our wet ones into the dryer. Everyone was beat and didn't want to move, so I decided it would be me to make the soup everyone was wanting. Three large cans of Campbell's Vegitable Beef. We ate then all crashed and watched TV and slept a bit. About 10 that night Kitt started cooking his famous Italian Breadcrumb Chicken, and Eighmee made mashed potatoes and zuccini. We were all pretty full from the big breakfast and soup, but food was abundant on the trip and we ate a lot. Andrew put in the movie Old School, and we all started watching, but about half way through Eighmee and I hit the sack.
Sunday we got up and had a few doughnuts and pastries for breakfast, and Eighmee made some biscuitts, and I made coffee. After everyone was up and showered I started the work of collecting sheets and towels for washing and storage. Ryan did the dishes and Eighmee did a lot of packing and general cleanup. By about 2 pm we were about ready to go. I argued a bit for us to stay an extra night since everyone had Monday off from MLK's birthday, but as much fun as everyone had, the group decided to come home. We loaded up the car once again turned down all the heaters and hit the road. We stopped back at the store for a styrofoam ice chest for all the eggs and such we'd bought.
Everyone agreed that we wanted to go see the guisers up at Lassen National Park which was 27 miles west of the country club so I started heading up that hill. And man what a hill. That Yukon was wimpering by the time we reached the summit. I stopped at the entrance and was informed by the park ranger that the road to the "close" guiser was snowed in, and the closest one was a mile away and would require snowshoes or cross-country skis to reach. We denided the invitation and made a U-turn. It was a very long, but fast descent down the mountain. Andrew was getting pretty car sick just before we hit Chico so I stopped for a bit.
You can check out the photo album of some other pics of the lake house we took around Thanskgiving 2004.
A few hours later we stopped in Marysville to use a restroom at a Jack In The Box. Ryan and I waited outside the restroom, and finally a ghetto guy came out laughing. Ryan went in, and immediately came back out saying, "He clogged the fuckin' toilet." under his breath. The whole group of ghetto ass people he was with started laughing, and we left. We hit the toilet at the gas station next-door. More driving. Finally we made it back into Stockton, and we all decided to stop at Jack In The Box for dinner before I dropped everyone off.
We had a damn good time. :o)
