of trees and valleys

The following is a true account of the events that conspired during the weekend of April 7th through April 9th, in the year 2006:

So, last weekend, The Shamana and I went to Massanutten to escape from the craziness that has been our lives since the beginning of the year. Right after work, I bolted home, hoping to see The Shamana waiting in the parking lot outside of my apartment. Alas, her SUV was no where to be found. So, I putzed around the apartment, kindofsortof finishing packing, but in reality, just tossing a few things into my suitcase every five minutes in between playing with Rue, begging her forgiveness for leaving (which she seemed to know I was about to do) and watching the news. I also tried calling The Shamana, but she wasn't answering her phone. From the news I learned that there were an abnormal amount of accidents on 64W, which of course caused a delay because all you need on 64W anyway is for someone to look at a tree as they are driving by and then there is a 6 mile back up. Anyway, The Shamana finally arrived and I finished packing and we set sail . . . minus the sail part. And the water.

Gas was needed for "Becky" (The Shamana's name for her SUV) so we went to a gas station down the road. While The Shamana got gas for Becky, I recounted to her my amazingly fun anecdotes about how this gas station was normally inhabited by sketchy Mexican men with a penchant for blantant staring at anything female that is mildly attractive. Well, I guess just anything female. But of course, no sketchy Mexican men appeared when we got gas this time so my stories were unsubstantiated. After getting gas, we needed to get ice for our cooler - and friends, events occured with the getting of ice that I have never seen before. Mum's the word on that story, however.

As we were leaving the gas station this occured:
*SUV drives over large metal object, creating unnaturally loud noise*
*Kelly jumps ten feet in the air and by reflex utters a string of profanities that would make a veteran sailor drop his jaw in shock*
*The Shamana stares at Kelly and starts laughing. Continues laughing and reliving said experience for rest of trip. Even goes so far as to make an acronym of said bad words for easy use*

Anyway, so we're driving to the mountains and it's dark because we were late leaving. Then, of course, we drive right into a torrential downpour. Great lightening show, but we weren't too fond of the driving on mountain roads in the dark, in a near rain out with trucks in front of us splashing water onto the windshield. The Harry Potter audio book that we were listening to offered relative comfort, but as mentioned in the previous post, thoughts of imminent death were not far from our minds. At one point where visibility was in the lower 10 percentile, we were screaming things like "AAAAHHHHH" "Dear God!" and "If you survive, you can have my stereo."

We finally make it to Massanutten and head into the check in area, which surprisingly was full of extremely attractive male workers our age, minus one female who looked like a man. As is our life, we get the gender-ambiguous check-in lady and therefore can not put our powers of flirtation to good use in order to obtain free perks. After obtaining our keys, we get in the car and wander aimlessly up and down summits until we find our condo, which we initially miss, causing The Shamana to have to do a K-turn on a tiny mountain road with a plummeting cliff on one side. Up until that point I had been singing "Climb Every Mountain" (something that I had been waiting to do all evening) but my serenade was then interrupted by me praying that we didn't fall off the cliff.

We eventually find our condo at the top of the summit and it was amazing. Nicer than any hotel that I've stayed in. It was absolutely huge - had a master bedroom with it's own bathroom and tv, another bedroom with two twin beds, a massive bathroom with a huge jacuzzi (seriously you could fit 6 people in there, and the walls around it were covered in mirros . . um . . yeah . . .), a kitchen, dining room and living room with a gas fireplace and big screen tv. We also had a screened-in balcony with a gorgeous view of the mountains and the valley. The rest of the night we just chilled out. Watched tv, relaxed . . . made smores.

Saturday it rained all day, so we stayed in for most of the morning and afternoon. It was sooo relaxing. We watched movies and each did a painting. That afternoon we went to The Shamana's sister's house to visit her brother-in-law and nephew because they live close by. They took us to a local book fair, which was my heaven on earth. It was a warehouse full of new books that ranged in price from $1-$4. !!!! I bought two books for $6 - one containing Oscar Wilde plays and Vanity Fair. Yeah, I stuck with the literature genre. Then we went back to the house and ordered Chinese, played with their kitty Ezzy and with The Shamana's little nephew (who by the way is adorable). On the way back to our condo, we checked out a movie at Blockbuster, where I decided to make friends with/scare shamelessly the cute checkout guy:

Blond check out guy: Ok, let me get this over with. *ahem* Would you like to buy a tub of our popcorn to enjoy with your movie? . . . Sorry, I have to ask.
Me: We just ate, but thank you.
Blond check out guy: Sometimes it's a good snack . . .
Me: We just had Chinese.
Blond check out guy: Oh. Maybe it's not such a good idea then.
Me: Probably not. Chinese and popcorn . . .mmm . . .
Blond check out guy: This is due back next week.
Me: Well, we're only here for the weekend. *WINK*
Blond check out guy: Um . . . ok . . . uh . . . have a good night . . .

After we watched the movie, I took a nice, long bath in the jacuzzi. Oh, it was soooo nice. Sunday morning we decided that we wanted to go for a hike. So we pack up my bookbag with water bottles and granola bars, a camera, a map . . . and we can't find the dagon trail for the life of us. Here we were, all prepared to scale mountains and brave the wild and we couldn't even find the trail. So, we decided on the next best thing . . . putt putt. In order to pretend like we are hiking and getting at least a little bit of exercise, we decide to walk to the putt putt course from where we parked our car looking for the trail.

We get to the putt putt course and get our clubs, balls, etc. The man at the front desk was a little unclear as to how we were supposed to get to the "lower course" so we end up walking around the outside of the fence that surrounds the entire course, having to scale rocks and traverse over grassy knolls, all the while looking like idiots to the cars passing by and the putt putt players on the other side of the fence. Eventually, us two college graduates figure out how to get to the first hole (which really just involved walking into the actual entrance to the course). We pretended like we were on a vigorous hike during the course of the game, stopping for water and granola bar breaks inbetween holes, garnering the raised eyebrows of numerous people around us. I got two hole in ones (very unusual for me) but only won the game by one stroke.

After putt putt, we get back to the condo, clean and pack up, then hit the road. We decide to take the back country way (as it was sunny and nice outside) and stop by a pottery store/studio that was off the road in the mountains. It has gorgeous pottery, and I wanted the entire collection, but decided that I should hold off on such a big purchase. We managed to head the wrong direction on the road that we were traveling but eventually figured it out . . . the rest of the drive was uneventful. Although, I have to admit, that after a few hours of beautiful countryside and back country roads, we were more than ready to hop on an interstate. We managed to find 64E and got back to Richmond in one piece.

Ah . . . but we didn't want to return.