Another notch on the ol' belt...

Sunday Dec 30th 11:09pm

a-c-c-u-w-e-a-t-h-e-r-.-c-o-m

The radar looks like this:



With the prospects of first tram at Jay Peak with full on winter conditions in Decemeber on my mind, I call Cordell in hopes of the typical Mid-Atlantic, 50-degrees-and-rain weather spelled an early ending to the day's training at Liberty. No luck - I leave a long winded pointless voice mail.

Immediately, I call Amanda:

Hello?

Haaayyyyyy gurrrrrrrrl!

haha What's going on Dave?

Nothing. Just loking at the weather, I think we need to leave as soon as Chad gets home, not at 9pm. Can you get home motivated when he gets home?

Fine, I don't think that will be an issue haha

Sweet. I'll see you at 4.

Cool, later.

Ok, bye meow.

3:24pm
The house phone rings. I usually never pick it up, but for some stupid reason I did...some dood that had an appointment to do an appraisal on the house at 4. With mom and dad no where to be found, I was at a bit of a loss. Call them up, turns out they're in Frederick shopping for furniture...jesus christ...Long story short, I end up sticking around the house til 4 to let this jackass appraiser who parked on my dad's precious new lawn into the house.


5:00pm
Arrive at Cordell and Company's. Strictly business mode - quick hugs all around in between tossing skis in the box and the strategic game of packing the car.


5:30pm
All packed, and in a cloud of good-byes and I-wish-you-were-coming-with-us', we pile in the Element, Amanda at the helm, Cordell shot-gun and I'm in the sleeping seat.

The road trip starts out with the typical Vermont-shred-trip vibe filled with anxious conversation about skiing, biking and getting radical, to photography and counting how many times Matt yells at Wishard in a day...all is well, we're slated to arrive at Jay way early to just on time - dependent upon the weather, err the condition of Pennsylvania high ways.......


Around 7:45pm
The Element gets rocked by a pothole the approximate size of Delawhere...like the rockstar she is, she takes it in stride.

Around 8pm
We FINALLY find a god damn Taco Bell. While ordering, we notice the potent scent of fuel...figure it's just the Taco Hell, we go top er off with fuel.

Around 8:10pm
The fuel scent is still pretty strong...we pull over to inspect and find a massive hole in the bottom of the fuel tank. Shit. 2hrs from Greencastle, 8hrs from heaven...Get Wishard on the phone, he thinks we're joking...sadly we aren't. We quickly come to the conclusion that we need to get the hell back to the Castle, transplant all of our gear, and see if my car lives up to it's winter-killing-mode look.

We pile back in the Element - the anxious conversation has ceased, as we all watch the gas gauge die and focus on getting the hell back. I go straight into sleep mode as the snow hits in anticipation of the most ridiculous road trip to date.

10:45pm
After the longest drive ever from Allentown to Greencastle, we finally make it back. Move everything from the Element into the Scooby in record time, tell Wishard what went down, and we're off.

11:00pm
On the road again. Northbound 81 is in alot better shape than Southbound was. I pretty much rocked that high way with an average speed somewhere in the 65-75mph range...from here out is basically a blur....stopped in Jersey for gas around 1 or 2, started puking snow on the thruway, passed a ton of cars upside down, snagged first tracks on the highway through 3 or 4" of powder snow, blew by a cop that putting along in the right lane, bumped elbows with death everytime I passed one of them big rigs and my windshield was plastered with 3inches of snow, and starred into that annoying Windows star screen saver for what seemed like forever.

3:30am-ish Monday Dec 31st
Hand over the reigns to Cordell and totally pass out in the passenger seat - Amanda is still sleeping in the back...


More to come later...I have to get some work done hahah