Weekend trip to Seward to snowmachine into a cabin with my buddy Karl and his two kids Lake and Nora. We get going fairly early and make one very necessary stop before blasting out of town. A hearty McDonalds breakfast is always on the list as one prepares to venture to the unknown.
Quite a few other people had McDonalds on their mind, as it was very crowded. But it was a sunny day, we were doing good on time, so all was right with the world.
The three kids all ready for their adventure. I noticed that the level of noise coming from the back seat had a direct correlation to the charge status on the i-pods floating around in the back seat. i-Pod charged = quiet kids, i-Pod empty = chaos.
Now the trip was planned as a three mile snowmachine ride into a public use cabin near the Lost Lake subdivision near Seward. As we were leaving Anchorage, I was thinking the day couldn't be better for such a trip. We had the sun, temperatures in the 40's and no wind. An absolute perfect day for mid-March in Alaska. Well, I guess the day was a bit too perfect because as we drove into the parking lot were our adventure was to begin, we noticed very steep mountains, with similarly steep trails, covered in quickly melting snow and glare ice. We didn't want to give our hopes up yet, so as luck would have it three guys each riding a snowmachine were coming off of the trail, so we decided to pick their brains a bit about the conditions going up the hill. Now on closer inspection, each of these guys looked like they could be signed up to ride their machines in the X-games. The contrast between the three testosterone twenty somethings and Karl and I; mid-lifers, beaten down by work and commitments, toting three kids under the age of 7 was one thing to keep in mind. Then there was the fact that each of the three guys was riding a 2011 or newer, 163 inch long two inch paddle track sporting a high rev 4-stroke engine, capable of speeds in excess of 100 mph and able to climb 45 deg slopes of deep powder all day long, contrasted quite a bit with Karl and I's two decade old machines, that were set-up more for trails or quietly cruising on a lake, with speeds in excess of 14 mph, while pulling a sled, full of ice fishing gear, or in our case pulling sleds with 500+lbs of gear needed to keep three kids fed, safe and entertained for one night. Despite these glaring differences, we decided to take there advice that the trail was good, and that we would have "no problem" getting up the hill. Our long track machines would do fine. Well . . . we'll see. To play it safe, Karl and I unloaded ONE machine, and Karl, being the more skilled rider, backed his machine off the trailer and after a quick thumbs up, headed up the trail to scout the conditions. He didn't get very far. The kids and I watched as Karl buzzed up the hill less than 100 yards from the parking lot, spun out on the ice, got the machine sideways, unable to make any more forward progress, almost lost it, go turned around only to try it again, this time with more gusto, and still . . . nothing. This "trial" mind you was sans kids and minus the sleds full of "necessary" gear.
Karl headed back to the truck with a dejected look. In talking with the other snowmachiners, they indicated that the steepest and slickest part was right at the beginning. Maybe if we could just get the machines past this hard part, we could make it the rest of the three miles to the cabin. WRONG! The kids and I headed up the hill to see what the trail was like past where Karl had gotten stuck. Yeah . . . more steep, slippery slopes. I was glad that I had snowshoes with crampons on them. Poor Zach fell on a rock and cut his hand. He was a bit upset, but then I reminded him that "chicks dig scars" and after that he was fine.
Having fully resolved to the fact that we were not going to get up the mountain, we packed up the one machine and decided not to waste the day and head into town for some; lunch, rock throwing, playground fun, and dock walking.
We had an awesome time exercising our "plan B" option. It was a great day in Seward, clear skies, warmish temps, and best of all, no tourists!! We headed home that evening tired from our fun day. The experience got me thinking about getting the camper ready for some early spring adventures. We made plans to get our families out camping as soon as the girls got back and we had a clear weekend. Good times!!
Kids had pizza and lemonade.
Sammy insisted on eating the rhine off of two lemon slices.
After dinner the Red Robin Crew came over to sing Happy Birthday to the boy of the hour.
They made him stand on the chair and we all sang in honor of Jake turning 7. Happy Birthday Jake!!
Now on the way out the kids were each given a balloon by the hostess. I tied the balloon to each of the kids wrist to prevent it from well . . . flying off. So as we walked outside so say good-bye and head home, out of the corner of my eye, what do you think I see?!? an orange balloon over Sammy's head about 12 feet in the air. I don't think Sammy has ever let go of a balloon outside before. At first he was fascinated as he watched the balloon float up . . . and up . . . and up. Quickly this fascination turned to freaking out. You could see the light bulb go off when he suddenly discovered that the balloon wasn't coming back. He kept yelling "Dad . . . get it!!!!!!!!!", followed by Zach screaming "Sammy, Dad is not Superman, he can't fly up there and grab it!!" Very true, I wasn't able to retrieve that one, so we watched it float up and up and followed it until it was a tiny orange dot in the sky. Sammy of course was screaming and crying the whole time, but I eventually got him a new balloon (although this one was yellow, and clearly not in the same league as the orange one.", and this time I carried it out to the car and didn't give it to Sammy until the car door was shut. Chalk it up to a lesson learned. Now try to think back, where were you when you lost your first balloon??
