Weekend Getaway

John and I both had this past Monday off for Martin Luther King day so we decided to take a little weekend trip. We rented a car and drove about 5 hours up to Vermont to go skiing. It was a little bit of a long drive and there are certainly closer places to ski but John was excited about driving after almost a year without any. We also choose to go to Vermont because my sister Emily is in a town close to Montpelier right now and we were able to swing by and pick her up so she could ski with us too.It was Emily's first time skiing and I decided that I wanted to try snowboarding for the first time so she and I both took lessons the first day. John usually skis but has snowboarded before and decided to give snowboarding another try. Of course he was able to just pick it right back up with no problem because he's naturally athletic. I'm not jealous or anything :)The second day of skiing didn't go as well as I would have liked, the conditions weren't as good as the first day and I was pretty sore. Both of the pictures are from the second day by the way, you can see the visibility was pretty poor and it was really cold. We ended up calling it a day early but no one really cared because by that time we were all sore and tired.

I love ski trips because besides the crazy physical exertion, they are pretty relaxing. You ski during the day, take a nap when you're done in the afternoon, eat a big dinner, soak in the hot tub and then go to bed really early because you're so tired. The places you ski are also usually in quaint small towns so the people are always really laid back too. We stayed in this tiny town right around Sugarbush, it was a beautiful area. This is the creek that ran behind the inn.
Rosie got to come with us on our little weekend excursion. The inn allowed pets and since we drove we figured we would bring her along too. She didn't get to go skiing with us but she certainly enjoyed walking around the creek. Vermont as a whole was much more rural than I was expecting. On the drive up we saw signs for moose and bear crossings. Before heading back on Monday we hung out in Montpelier; it was an adorable town but I was not expecting the capital city to be so small. I guess I have it in my head that the Northeast as a whole is really densely populated. I was very shocked when I looked up the population and Vermont's is less than a quarter of what Arkansas's population is! Apparently we will have to take more of these little weekend trips to explore the Northeast so I can get a more accurate picture of the region :)