Snowmobiling and Lost Cows

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Yesterday was a day of relaxation, or so it was supposed to be. My knees were in much better shape--my calves not so much. Apparently the pain from the knees superseded the soreness of of my muscles, and I was feeling it. I woke up at the joyful hour of nine (but probably didn't reallysleep more than five or six hours), had some breakfast, and then waffled into my snow clothes before being loaded in with the rest of the motley crew to head off to go snowmobiling. It was cold that day, and windy, sending snow across barren fields and freezing already frozen spindly weeds and bushes. Yet surprisingly people were outside along these stretches of land and walking pretty briskly with their dogs and children in tow. If you can't beat the weather, might as well go with it I guess!

We arrived at the snowmobile barn (because other than a garage and an absurd amount of snowmobiles, that's all there was) and hustled inside against the wind. After getting helmets and adjusting snow clothes and goggles, we all marched out with a few other people to go riding. I have never EVER ridden a snowmobile, but anything I do I like to do all the way! So I hopped on one and Izzy got on behind me. After a two minute lecture (and I couldn't help thinking 'really? Only two minutes? this had better be easier than its sounding right now.') we revved our engines and took off! The handle to make the mobile go fast was large, and I had to use the pad of my hand rather than my thumb to get it stay a consistent speed--otherwise it kept jerking the snowmobile and made steering it harder.

After ten minutes of test driving in an open field, we all fell in line and began our snowmobiling adventure! After a few minutes of adjusting to the speed I was zipping along like a pro--even Terry was impressed! We dashed through woods (but never did find grandmother's house) and flew down hills before heading up a mountain on a rather slender trail. The views were beautiful. Every once and I while I'll think to myself 'jeez it all looks the same' and then I'll see the mountains and leafless trees from a different angle and see the wonder in the snow all over again. The wind was pretty strong on top of the mountain, so we quickly went back down.


While I loved snowmobiling I wish we hadn't had to go so fast. Every once and a while I got to slow down and look around. We went through several groves of aspen trees that made me think of all those woods you see people riding their horse drawn sleds through, and when we were on the sides of mountains you could see beautiful valleys below (not that I got a great look, I kinda didn't want to you know, DIE.). The only places we stopped were either on top of very cold wind blowing mountains, or valleys with nothing but scrub brushes to look at. The highlight of the tour for me was when we (Izzy and I) were driving up the hill at a fast pace, and were expecting it to level out. Instead we were met with a sharp decline, and our screams could be heard miles around as we flew down it. Not to be outdone, the couple a few mobiles ahead of us revved too fast and both went flying while their snowmobile went on without them before plowing itself deep into a ditch. I didn't get to see the spectacle myself, but Terry assured me it was vastly amusing. The tour in total lasted three hours, and by the end of it I was ready for a break.

Since we were all cold and hungry we headed to the main street of Deerfield and it began to snow, which made the old buildings look like something out of postcard. The main street is filled with old fashioned looking buildings (some legitimate, some made to look old) and if you follow it, will lead you to the nice hotels and the Deerfield Ski resort. All around it are old houses however, charming and well taken care of. Looking at their victorian detailing and then comparing it to the very modern condos and rent-a-houses around them, they seem to represent Utah far better than their contemporaries. We ate in an Irish pub (which surprisingly, or perhaps NOT surprisingly, didn't actually HAVE pub food in it, Irish or otherwise) and then trekked around the town a bit, stopping for a bit of ice cream along the way. The place sported a cow that had wandered in from the cold, and try as I might, I couldn't get it to leave! Since the people around it didn't seem to mind, and since it wasn't breaking anything, I felt safe in letting it stay as we left.

To conclude the night, Terry and Albany went out for dinner and I stayed with the kids, who decided to watch Americans Funniest Home Videos and make brownies. They turned out delicious if a little undercooked, and then after a movie and some tears and cries of "if I have to sleep with Audrey one more night I'm going to scream!" by Izzy, we moved her and Savannah downstairs with me, where they both took couches. I told them some Irish folk tales to get them sleepy, and by 11:30 they were out. I was pretty worn out myself and went to bed at one, hence my inability to write in the blog yesterday. Expect another post tonight though!

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Photos

mainstreet
the mountains in the back are the beginning of the skiing.