Cristin planned out a ski trip for MLK weekend to Wachusett with a  two-night stay in Great Wolf Lodge. It was an easy drive up the to the Lodge and we checked in and made our way to the “Wolf Den” room which could probably serve as a decent model for any family hotel room in terms of the layout.  The Den is in a part of the hotel called the Howlin’ Timbers play park which features a mini golf course (and eventual cause of Ellie meltdown #3) and other activities which included an elevated rope course.

The kids and I were both keen on this and we somehow convinced Cristin to go with us and I could tell she was thoroughly entertained. Before they started climbing at Carabiners, there isn’t a chance the kids would have tried this but here there was no hesitation. After descending we decided to eat an early dinner while most families were at the waterpark and then hit the waterpark while they were at dinner.  Aside from carrying a 7% chance Ellie’s weak stomach was going shut down the entire hotel, this seemed like a good plan. We ate at the bar and then while digesting, the kids got to pick out their toy (budget $15) from the several shops.

 This is an activity where you really get to see the difference in their personalities.  Phoebe mimics me completely.  She gets very anxious about the choice, it has to be the best choice and thus we went in every shop two or three times, all the while not able to make any kind of gut decision.  Ellie made her choice roughly 12 seconds after we entered the shopping area.  She decided on a “draw your own T-shirt” activity and Phoebe decided on, well, I can’t even remember what it was now even though I spend half an hour with her trying to pick it out.   After this we got bathing suits on and hit the two waterpark areas.   In one area the water was a bit chilly but we managed to get in the lazy river which was mostly filled with 12 year old boys pushing each other around and running into an elbow or knee that might have accidentally crossed their paths at the right moment.  After, we crossed over to the larger waterpark where it was decidedly warmer.

They have three slides in this area, one which involves a literal free fall where you are flushed out of some tank that looks like something they would have put James Bond in, another which we rode on 27 times, and a third which did not allow kids the height of Ellie to ride.   Phoebe started to get second thoughts right as we climbed in the raft but we just pushed her into it knowing exactly what we would hear when we hit the bottom.  It was a pretty good ride and I ended up being the one to go backwards as Cristin’s two glasses of wine were not mixing well with that particular perspective.  After this we had ice cream and the kids were in bed by 9 for a 7 a.m. reveille to make ski school.   Nobody in our family functions at this time of day so we were fortunate that there is someone in the family (dad) who likes to get organized the night before.

After breakfast in the main restaurant we drove to Wachusett and dropped the kids off at the Polar Bear club.  Cristin and I worked as best we could in the completely crowded lodge and occasionally went outside to check on the kids who were out in front in a small area built for beginners that had a magic carpet and 11 instructors forming a circle on the hill.  They would pass the kids from one to another and in the few minutes I was up there, I had a good vision of what was to come in the afternoon.  Phoebe was focusing more on completing a turn or two.  Ellie was just pointing her skis straight downhill.  There was no concern at all.  Zero.  Each time she was stopped by either a net or an instructor.   After class we had lunch and I could not wait to get out on the slopes away from the masses.  It was just hideously claustrophobic with bags and boots and skis and gear and people and trays of fries and chicken fingers everywhere.  We rented equipment and went to the nearest hill, a small beginner slope served by a magic carpet.   The wait was a bit long and the hill was ridiculously small so I quickly declared we were leaving and we went to the beginner quad that serves the left side of the mountain.  The line here was also bad but at least the journey down took longer and we managed to get in a bunch of runs.  Phoebe took off with little problem and was able to turn and stop on her own.  Ellie was just scaring me.  She just pointed her tips straight downhill and her approach depended entirely on me (1) noticing, (2) catching up to her and (3), being able to grab her while moving fairly quickly.   At one point she shot through a lineup of students in a ski class and I had to talk her into holding onto a pole that Cristin lent me.  This was pretty exhausting but at least kept her reigned in.

Ellie and Cristin turned in early and Phoebe and I made a few more runs before we got to have that wonderful moment where you take your boots off which is probably the main reason people ski in the first place.   We went back to the Great Wolf and repeated more or less the previous day’s adventures, except the digestion time was taken up in the arcade where you got cards with “paw points” on them which is an extremely effective way to destroy retirement savings.  We hit the rack around 9 and by this time Cristin had made a critical decision in pulling them from the polar ski school in the morning.  This allowed us to sleep in and hit the slopes at a much more reasonable time of 10:30 a.m. after having purchased a backpack harness thing for Ellie which essentially allows a parent to steer a child down the hill.  It was a good purchase but not enough to stem off the rising storm.  At this point we had pushed the kids to the brink.  It is one thing to ski two days in a row but combine this with two days of a waterpark/arcade/zipline and marginal sleep and you have just pulled your control rods out of the core.  Phoebe was on the fritz early, producing a torrent of tears when Cristin promised waffles and came up short but it was Ellie who would come to rule the day.   After a makeshift breakfast we got all our equipment and went back to the beginner quad.

I steered Ellie down a few times and she was oscillating between pure joy on the slopes and red hot anger in the lift line.   Having paid an exorbitant amount for this outing we were determined to get as much bang for the buck as we could but there is no place for this kind of reason when Ellie is showing early signs of eruption.  We agreed to one more run and tentatively two and when this became definitely two, Ellie lost it.  We were completely jammed in line in the middle of a big group of people and Ellie started yelling incoherently and tearing off her clothes.  Strangely it made me think of a rather tragic scene in Krakauer’s Into Thin Air where four of the climbers are huddled behind a boulder, having missed the tents in a blizzard on the South Col and a Japanese climber was losing her grip on rational thought and just started shedding clothes.  Cristin did her best to keep Ellie in check but not before everybody in the entire lift line was completely aware that Ellie wanted to be done for the day.  I would conservatively estimate the broadcast radius was 200 feet.

Cristin tried everything including promises of a good lunch but Ellie does not stand for coercion or punishment of any kind.  She simply cannot be reasoned with and we were trapped and all we could do was wait it out.  I did notice we moved more quickly then usual and I am fairly certain the lift operator was pulling from our line a bit more frequently then the others.  We finally made it back to the lodge and to the car where we had some peace.  All in all it was a fun weekend but a bit tiring and more than a bit expensive.  I am not sure what I think about skiing.  It is expensive and is probably not remotely responsible from a carbon point of view.  It was also very crowded at the mountain and did not feel very much like we were getting away from it all.   It is, however, an activity that New England families can do together in the winter and given our ridiculous work schedules we need specific reasons to plan and go away or else the four of us will not find ourselves together in the same room at any point in a given week.   Our next venture will likely be North Conway.   We will have much more opportunity for downtime which will hopefully provide a better experience on the slopes.