Far and Away: Part 1

I have to split up this post mainly because I have too many pictures. I'll try and keep the words to a minimum, because I do tend to blather on and on and on.....

We left for the mountains on Sunday around noon so that we could time both Maddie and Charlotte's naps. It mostly worked with Maddie taking about a 40 minute nap and Charlotte getting two hour long naps, but broken up......so good planning on our part if I do say so myself. And I do. Both girls were really really good the whole way there which was such a blessing!! We get to the end of our journey, its around 4:30 and there is one last road that we have to take to get up to the cabin and it is a very steep and narrow, rocky and muddy road. To the right the road falls off about 30 or so feet to a creek. We get about 3/4 of the way up and our van won't climb anymore. The tires are just spinning in the mud and whenever Dan lets off the gas we slide backwards. Freaky!!! We end up getting stuck in the muddy ditch directly on our left that hugs the side of the hill which we didn't know was there because it was filled with leaves and the undercarrage of our van is stuck on rocks. Dan guns it and we get unstuck but the result of all of this tire spinning is that our tires are now bald. (we needed new tires soon anyway) We back the rest of the way down the steep hill and head to the nearest place that will sell us tires.....granted it is now after 5:00 on a Sunday in a small mountain town. Yeah. The local market dude tells us Wal-Mart is our best bet and their service station closes at 6:00.

One hour and 4 new tires later (and a run in with the Cuddle and Coo baby doll) we are headed back up the mountain to our home away from home ready to tackle the dreaded hill with new tires. I don't know if it was because it was now dark out and our headlights caught the reflection of the street sign so that we could see it where before it was invisible to us, but we realized that we were supposed to turn left 500 feet before we even got to that steep hill!!! So we didn't need to drive up it in the first place.....getting stuck, slipping backwards, driving to Wal-Mart.....totally unneccessary! So we turned left and wound our way up the side of the mountain on a much smoother and easier to navigate gravel road.

We got to the cabin right in time to feed the girls, put charlotte to bed and eat dinner ourselves. Not exactly what we had expected, but we were very grateful to be there safe and warm. The cabin was really small. Enough space for what we needed, but very cozy indeed. The main living area, kitchen and dining area were all in one room and about the size of our living room at home. There was a bedroom and bathroom off the livingroom and stairs that went up to a loft with a full size bed. Thats all folks. It was a bit tricky to figure out who was going to sleep where because the bed in the bedroom was the nicest one (Dan and I should have), but the bedroom was the only room that had a door (the girls should have), and the bathroom was inside the bedroom (Dan and I should have) and sound traveled everywhere so no where was really quiet for sleeping babies. So needless to say there was a lot of whispering on our part while the girls were sleeping.

We spent a lot of time indoors becuase it was really cold outside. The warmest it got the whole time we were there was 40 degrees and I don't think that thermostat was acurate because we went outside while it was so "warm" and it snowed on us. We watched Dumbo many times and colored and played with poker chips (kids are easily entertained) and went outside for little bits of time. The property had chickens which were fun to visit and of course sticks and rocks are always a good time for Maddie. Day one was pretty relaxing although nap time was hairy and neither of my girls really got enough sleep the whole time we were at the cabin. Neither did I though......I think its just being in a new place, and a different bed.

Stay tuned for part 2.

A one lane bridge we had to cross at the base of the mountain.
Part of the steep rocky hill. See how the ditch to the left is disguised by leaves? Tricky.

View from the cabin deck

At times the sky looked like this

Nearby pond

Playing outside

The chicken coop
Its too too cold out


She plopped right down in the leaves
Bundled up


Playing Inside

This photo is called: The lighting is perfect & I wish there wasn't an a/c unit in the background
Not so happy


Poker chips, Yea!