You may remember last year at Christmastime we drove to Michigan, Chicago, Tennessee, Atlanta and Augusta. This year we had more exciting plans. Our original plan was to head to Germany for I think 8 full days of travel around Munich, Berlin and Nuremberg, and skiing for a day in the Alps(!). Well everything was planned out, tickets were purchased (airline and eurail) and hostels/pensiones were booked. I ended up getting cold feet a few weeks before we were supposed to leave because there was so much in the news about terrorism around Europe and especially in Germany, with 'attacks imminent in Nov/Dec.' Sounds like a fun vacation, right? Even though many people said 'it won't happen to you,' that was SO not worth the risk for us. So, tickets were changed, returned, cancelled, etc and we ended up in Maine in the good ol' USA. Yes we lost a little bit of money, but now we even have $220 vouchers (each) on Delta to use within the next year.. not sure where we are going yet.
So, Maine. We decided to take a luxurious ski trip in Maine since we had already planned on skiing in Germany and were really excited about that part. We flew up to Portland on Sunday the 12th. First we sat on the airplane for 2.5 hours before it took off.. the irony was that it was snowing in Atlanta and the plane had to be de-iced before it took off. We finally arrived in Maine around 8pm and picked up our rental car. We had a 2.5 hour drive up to the ski resort which turned into 3 hours. We were starving because we were supposed to land at 5 and grab some dinner but we landed around 8 instead. It was POURING rain when we landed and on our whole drive.. we finally found a McDonald's (never tasted so good, haha), and also stopped at a Walmart in the middle-of-nowhere-Maine around 11pm to pick up groceries for the week. We finally got to our hotel around midnight, after a 3ish hour drive in the pouring rain.
Monday we slept in a little bit and headed downstairs for our breakfast. We had booked a package in the nice hotel at the base of the slopes with breakfasts included. The pros/cons of skiing this early in the season were that only about 20% of the mountain was open (~30 out of 150 slopes) but there were practically NO people at the place so we didn't have to wait for anything. It was awesome. No one in the rental place, no lift lines, no waiting for meals, no waiting for hot tubs, etc. First day of skiing was so-so.. still raining a tiny bit so really no one was out and we got our feet wet going down a few slopes. The second day all of the rain had turned the snow to ice and it was terrible. I skied one run and hated it and went and sat in the hot tub. Tuesday night into Wednesday they got about 3 inches of snow so the skiing on Wednesday was much better. I only skied 3 days but Matt skied Thursday morning as well.
Thursday we drove back to Portland to explore the coast for a few days. We went to Portland, Bath, Reid State Park, Kennebunkport, and many lighthouses. Maine's coast is just as beautiful as you would think and we saw many rocky shores and very cute little towns. The weather was perfect for exploring around the coast, sunny with blue skies and about 25-30 degrees with no wind (which is key to staying warm). I really loved the shopping in Portland (where we bought most of our Christmas gifts since we had planned on buying them all in Germany.. oops). They were all about 'buying local' and supporting local artists which I thought was very cool and the art and everything they were selling was fantastic and not overpriced.
After we returned from Maine, I still had another week off of work (17 days total!!). I used that time to enjoy myself at home and prepare some more for Christmas. It was fantastic :) We spent Christmas day with Matt's family at his parents' cabin in Jasper. Of course everyone knows that it snowed on Christmas day; we got 5-6 inches up there! It was so beautiful. We got up to the mountain around 11am and it had already snowed enough that the roads were closed at the top of the mountain and we had to wait to be shuttled up in a truck with chains on the tires. We were a little worried that we were going to be stuck there but the day after Christmas we were able to be shuttled back to our car (with the chains) and drive down the mountain to get home (so I could go to work on Monday).
And finally, we went to Augusta last weekend for our 'Christmas' there. We had lots of fun with my family which included staying awake until midnight for New Year's ;) haha. I wasn't sure if I would be awake or not. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:
Our hotel at Sugarloaf
Me with Sugarloaf village and mountain behind
Mountain, before we got a few more inches of snow
On the lift
Most of the way up the mountain, no one there! and you can't see the top or bottom!
My favorite pic I took. Reid State Park about 40 min north of Portland.. that's Matt in the pic
candlestick bowling :)
Portland Head Light - so pretty!
Snow in Jasper, GA - molly sniffing the reindeer
Moffitt cabin in Jasper
Brothers sledding - notice helmet cam + cookie sheet
the girls made cookies :)
molly getting into the winter spirit
