After the fire alarm mess was over you'd think the kids would sleep in a bit no? But no. Dom was up at 7 ready for more fun! The water park didn't open until 9 so I took the time to run to the gym while the kids had breakfast we had brought from home. We were at the park right as it opened and secured ourselves a nice table with a lovely wave pool view. Matt took the bigger kids on a bunch of the big slides since Dom really did not enjoy the big splash at the end of most of them. More lazy river. More little slides. More waves.
Now, like I said we could stay there until it closed, which was 8 p.m., but our original plan was to leave early afternoon for home. That is until The Snow Storm. A bomb cyclone? Details. We knew that it wasn't bad at home and just south of us so we just figured we would leave and ya know, wing it. But! It was like... bad, out there. The power in the water park kept flickering. The wave pool's waves stopped working. The water pumps that ran the slides had to keep restarting. The credit card machines were down. The grill had to reboot. More power surges. From what we could see looking outside it was just a whole lot of white and blowing.
So we stayed longer, constantly watching the weather and traffic reports (Dom was napping at this point so that helped with our panicked phone usage). We eventually tried to get a room because we thought well, might as well try. No rooms at the inn. The kids kept playing of course, tearing around and loving their life, probably not even realizing what was happening just outside. By hour 8 of the water park we were quite pruney and water logged so we all dried off and got dressed before finding some dinner. We kept checking with the front desk and checking online and nothing. No rooms. Some people did get rooms, which kept giving us all hope. To me the front desk should have just had a waiting list and as a reservation cancelled they could have called the next person on the list. Instead if you walked away from the counter and someone cancelled they just gave it to whoever asked next. Rude. I must have asked thirty times...
The storm did finally end around 7 and guests were actually arriving, each with harrowing tales of the road conditions. I'm not sure how I'm alive right now. It'll take you five hours to go one mile. The roads are closed. Ectera. Matt cleaned off the car for the fifth time. The kids did another dance party in the lobby.
We didn't know what to do but we knew that with Letty and Dominic crying about not wanting to leave and nowhere to sleep but the lobby floor we had to do something. So we left, living on a hope and a dream that once we got off the higher elevation all would be good. And well, it was. We just had to get there first. Not even seven miles and an hour later. White knuckled the entire way. Accidents and people stranded. Closed highways. Unplowed highways. Hardly any visibility. Signs covered with snow. No service on our phones. I mean. It was not good. I'll tell you what the second we got on cleared roads I clamored over the kids digging through our suitcase so I could get myself a vodka because wow. Seeing people abandoning cars and hoofing it to hang out at a Citgo does not give me pleasant feelings. Can you imagine doing that with your little kids? Anyways we did eventually get home with smooth sailing after that first hour. Kids fell asleep on the way home and everything.
Like I said. An adventure. That'll learn us, traveling just the five of us, right? Just out of curiosity I checked the road conditions the following morning and... still so bad right? The lodge is in Scotrun, right in the middle of that mess.... Oh the adventure!
