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Trains and Goodbyes.}
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 | 7:37 PM | 1Comment

Internet, the trip was, in a word, AWESOME.

The resort we went to was in a little ski town in the mountains, and let me just say, it was gorgeous up there. Absolutely gorgeous. And when I say it was in the mountains, it was way way in the mountains. Due to traffic and an added pit stop (at Starbucks for the bathroom, and at McD's for fries because we were all STARVING.), it took about 3 hours to drive there.

But every second up there was amazing. I'd never been to that part of my state before, and it was great to be able to see how beautiful it was up there. We were so high up, that the very highest mountain peaks there still had snow on the their tops.

Which, of course, meant that it was much cooler than I was used to this time of year, and stupid me, I only packed one hoodie and one long pair of pants (the pants being white. White. Don't ask me please, I have no idea.) So while I was up there, I bought this pair of large fleece men's pajama pants from a thrift store (it was called Thrift Store. Gotta love small towns!)

They're black and white, and they have fly fishing patterns all over them, including compasses and fish and a guy holding a net, and they're ugly, but I love them for the reason that I'll always look at them and remember Best Friend Rose's 18th birthday trip.

Everybody up there is super athletic. Super super athletic. Almost everyone rides bicycles, and it's like the county-wide dress code is Nike and Adidas. And I do not recall seeing anyone even a little bit remotely overweight up there. None. It's like they all came out of the womb with 5% body fat.

We all stood out with our 'city clothes', and I guess our regular muscle mass index, and there were people staring at us all the time, but part of me liked it, because they were strangers, and we were strangers to them, and we could have been anything we wanted. Anything at all. It felt good.

We stayed in a condo, and me and BFR and I shared a room. It was a nice little condo, with cable and WiFi and a nice back porch with a great view.

...However, it was also directly next to a train track. So, every hour, it would chug on by, honking a honk that echoed throughout the entire area.
Which is kind of cute at first. Until you're trying to sleep at 3am and all of a sudden there's a wake-the-dead honk splitting your eardrums.

I swear, the entire first night we stayed, I got no sleep whatsoever. Every time the train would pass, I would have a near full blown panic attack because I wouldn't even hear it approaching that clearly until all of a sudden there would be this "CHOOOOOOOOO CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and I would jump about half a foot off of my bed.

And not only THAT, but also on that first night, there was a friendly neighborhood bear searching for some food to eat in our dumpster. Only I didn't know it was a bear. Because the first thought you have when you hear a violent clanking and banging somewhere nearby at 3:30am is that a ghost/burglar/serial killer is coming to kill you.

So I was laying there wide awake in a strange bed, my heart pounding hard in my chest, terrorized by this train, and terrorized by this bear/ghost/burglar/killer. The end result was me getting 1 hour of actual sleep and getting out of bed as soon as the sun came up. The other nights were better, though. I ended up sleeping with my iPod earbuds in my ears, and they worked decidedly well as earplugs.

All day Saturday, we were riding the alpine slides (SO fun), playing mini golf, running through a maze, and jumping on one of those bungee trampoline things. Rosie and her nephew Adam (reference point) rode one of those round-spinning-defy gravity thingers, but I preferred to watch them shriek inside it and then laugh at them both when they came out all cross-eyed and cross-legged.

We also, incidentally, spent some time at the on-site hospital they had. It turned out, on our first ride down the alpine slide, Best Friend Rose's mom went way too fast, somehow wiped out and ended up dislocating her pinkie and breaking her ring finger. We were all shocked, because apparently it's difficult to get an injury on this particular ride, but somehow she'd managed to.

We all felt terrible for her, but she was a trooper and spent the rest of the day with us all with a partial cast and sling.

The trip had its sad moments too, however.

Very shortly before this trip, Best Friend Rose's oldest sister, Ashley (reference point) had decided that she was going to move to Texas. Soon. As in, she told everyone on Friday and then she was leaving on Monday soon. And granted, she's lived here all her life with Adam, so this came as a huge surprise.
Link
So, seeing as she had to move down there soon to get Adam to his new school, which started on Tuesday, they had to leave early, on Sunday, instead of Monday like us. Sunday was an emotional day for everyone. Basically, from breakfast on, it was nonstop tears.

Even from me, which surprised me, because even though I've felt close to Ashley and Adam, I didn't really think I'd cry. But after we all started talking about them leaving, like actually leaving, it hit me that they weren't just my best friend's family members, they were like my family too. And that I would miss them. A lot.

When it was time for them to leave, at first Adam refused to leave with his mom, begging not to leave, crying. Have you ever seen a 10 year old boy cry? I don't recommend it. Because it's heartbreaking. Truly heartbreaking.

So we all said our goodbyes by their car, all of us still crying. I tried very hard to hold it together, because I felt like I didn't deserve to be so sad. After all, I was close to them, but for Rosie, that was her family. Adam is practically her world. I've never seen her love any child like she loves Adam. And Rosie's mom was losing a daughter and a grandson.

But I could hardly look either of them in the face as I hugged them and said goodbye, because it hit me that I really was saying goodbye. And if there was anything I learned about this trip, Internet, it was that I'm awful at goodbyes.

After they left, the three of us settled in the condo living room and watched chick flicks for the rest of the day. And it was just what the doctor ordered.

The last day, it mostly consisted of running around and packing everything up, making sure to clean this and clean that. And I took pictures of everything, because I had finally grown fond of everything, and I wanted to make sure I didn't forget it. I even wanted to take a picture of the train by the end, but ironically, the one time I wanted to hear and see it again, it didn't show up.

So after all was said and done, we drove home, and left that small ski town behind.

It was a short trip, but it was great. I don't regret any second of it, and I couldn't have asked for a better way to end my summer.

And thanks to it, I can add a few more items to my list of firsts from this summer:
  • Rode a chairlift for the first time (I was a bit nervous at first, but it wasn't bad at all. Not even the height got to me, and I thought it would. It was actually kinda fun. Now to actually go skiing one of these days, to see if I can handle it with skis on!)
  • Listened to the same song on repeat for 5 hours straight (trying to block out train noise, of course.)
  • Flirted with a cute ride operator (medium length curly black hair in a ponytail, russet skin, and the greenest eyes I've ever seen in my life. So hot.)
  • Ate creamed chipped beef (normally anything mushy and foreign looking, I wouldn't touch with a 20 foot fork, but I've been trying to broaden my food horizons lately, so I tried it. SO GOOD. It looks like melted brains on toast, but it's SO good. Trust me.)
  • Watched someone get their middle finger pierced (Rosie got hers done. Me and Ashley watched it and cringed through it. Personally, I would never pierce any part of my hands as it would get in the way a lot--as proved by Rosie bumping and snagging hers every five seconds--but that's Rosie for you. I wouldn't put it past her to turn down a skydiving lesson one of these days.)
  • Went to a public place with pj's and no makeup (previously a fear of mine. Now that I've done this, I seriously feel INVINCIBLE. I got strange looks, of course, but nothing terrible happened. The world didn't end. No one unabashedly pointed and laughed. I didn't even feel gross. The truth? I felt awesome. Because I felt okay with looking like that, and it didn't even matter what they all thought of how I looked, because I felt great. And that's all that matters.)
Summer 2011 was great, Internet. In fact, it was the best summer I've had in my recent memory. And it was great because I took charge and made it great. Summers before, I just always stayed indoors, hardly ever did anything, because I just expected something great to just happen. But you have to make great things happen if you really want them to happen. Let's hope this is a precursor to how my Senior year will be.

Goodbye, Summer 2011. You were good to me.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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