My adventures in camping at the cabin took some other twists besides almost dying in a horrific snowmobiling accident because the damned thing was broken.
Eventually, I wanted my daughter to enjoy a weekend playing in the snow. After all, what kid wouldn’t love to play in tons of snow, making snow angels and snowmen to her heart’s content.
Becca isn’t much of a camper either. She’s more of a resort girl, I think. Even in her wide-eyed youth, I think she preferred the modern conveniences, things like power and indoor plumbing.
I certainly learned this early on at the cabin. The first night we slept there, she had to go to the restroom. I awoke half heartedly from my slumber and handed her the flashlight. She asked where the potty was. I told her out the back door. Just follow the path to the wood shack back in the woods.
Her eyes just about bugged out of her head. She refused to go. I told her it was completely safe. I couldn’t tell if she was afraid of being eaten by bears or wolves or if she was afraid of falling into the dark hole of poo, never to be seen again. Kind of a shitty way to die, I suppose. 🙂
She didn’t go all night long. I felt so bad for her. I, of course, offered to go out there with her, but she hadn’t seen it in the daytime and she certainly didn’t want to be introduced to outdoor plumbing in the middle of a dark, moonless night.
At first light, she finally went out. She came back with a big smile on her face. It wasn’t a look of joy, but relief. She never did like the outhouse experience that I simply took for granted.
The trip hadn’t started well for either of us. The day before, I had parked my car at the cabin. The snow wasn’t deep enough yet to require that we park at the Sno Park yet. But that night, the snow did get deep enough, plenty deep. I awoke to find about two feet of newly fallen snow covering my car, the drive and the road leading to the Sno Park. I couldn’t believe it.
Cathy suggested that I wait a bit to try to get out of here to get my daughter. She told me that the snowmobiles would pack the drive and road down pretty quickly. I wouldn’t listen. Being a stubborn Zerr, I was not going to be late with my date with my daughter. If I was, her mother would be furious and there was no way to call her, as there was not only no electricity, but no phone at the cabin either. This was long before cellphones, mind you.
So I went out and put the chains on my car. I hate everything about chains. That’s why I never drove over the pass during the winter. I didn’t want to see that dreaded “Chains Required” sign and have to put the blasted things on in the freezing weather.
As we all know, frozen hands, thick gloves and metal chains aren’t a good combination. But I had no choice in the matter this time. I had to meet my ex-whatever and pick up my little bundle of joy.
I struggled up the drive, stopping every on in a while to tighten the ever loosening chains and push away the mound of snow my Honda Accord was pushing up in front of it as I made my way to the main logging road.
I finally reached it, by shear willpower alone. There was still another mile to go and the snow wasn’t getting any easier to plow through. Finally, my chains couldn’t take it anymore. One of them snapped. I jumped out of the car. I had had it!!!! I took the chain off accompanied by a string of very colorful passages from the Book of Swearing. I think I added a chapter or two that day, in fact.
To make a long story short, I finally made it out to the Sno Park which is plowed. I got my daughter and returned an hour later. By then, the snowmobilers had packed down the logging road and drive, just as Cathy had told me they would. I felt like an idiot.
I wasn’t about to drive back down that road and get stuck again. This time we would walk it, leaving the car at the Sno Park. As we walked, I looked up at the snow covered trees lining the road. They were glimmering in the sunshine. One of them was glimmering more than the others, and that’s when I noticed that my far flung chains had ended up in a tree… a decoration of own stupidity.
Becca did have a great time making snow angels and snowmen. She wasn’t crazy about the snowmobiling part of the weekend. We were back on the now fixed Yamaha. She dug her fingers into my sides as we headed up the mountainside, screaming all the way up for me to STOP! and SLOW DOWN! Every time we did, we’d fall behind, which freaked her out even more, at which point she would scream SPEED UP!
But at the plateau at the top of the mountain, she found little girl nirvana. It was a field of fresh snow that sparkled in the sunlight. We were the first ones up there and there were snow angels to be made. Lots of them. When she was done, it looked like heaven.
It was. For me. I got to spend a great time with my daughter, which looking back, was heaven on earth, albeit a very cold one.
Out on the Treasure Coast, living in a part of the world where chains hold up hammocks instead of being wrapped around tires,
– Robb