Snug in the Tower

We had a most excellent trip! We hiked/snowshoed in on Thanksgiving day with packs bulging with good stuff to eat, making the hike up and in a little challenging, but not undoable.

It started raining at the end and we hiked in the rain for about 15 minutes. It made us very glad to see this sight (picture taken on Friday):


We had a little trouble undoing the lock to get in, which, after the rain and climbing the steps and the wind blowing on us and Davan worrying about having to abort the mission, Davan showed her relief in tears when we opened the door to the lookout and found warmth due to the still burning woodstove from the occupants of the night before:


We settled in for an afternoon of card playing. It rained and the wind blew all the rest of Thanksgiving. That was okay, though, because we were warm and dry and well entertained by one another.

After a short while, we enjoyed our feast:

We had all the good food we could possibly eat. Davan was so excited about all the food and kept saying, "I can eat everything here! I don't have to worry about if it's vegan or not!" The big napkin looking thing next to my plate in the picture is my birthday present from Davan, which she hauled up there for me.

After clean up (Anthony did the dishes for me because it was my birthday), we played more cards, until we got hungry enough for pie:


The one down side of the trip was that I didn't sleep well, especially the first night. Davan also had trouble sleeping the first night. But, then, Friday came and we had another great day. It snowed a lot in the morning and we had to shovel the stairs:


as well as in front of the outhouse and the wood shed to keep them accessible. Then we played! We built things in the snow,
snowshoed around and sledded for hours on end, more than once:

In fact, Davan and I were out until dark on the sled on Friday, just having a ball. After dark, we played more games, ate another big dinner (this time a dip of nonfat refried beans with sliced olives and salsa with baby carrots, sugar snap peas and baked tortilla chips to dip) and finished off the pie.

The morning was cold but nice on Saturday. We went out to sled more, but it wasn't much fun with everything kind of iced over and hard, so we played another game or two, had an early lunch, cleaned the tower and headed down the mountain with much lighter packs:

While this picture was taken with Anthony and Davan walking, Davan and I actually took turns riding the sled down when there was enough downhill (most of the way) until the sled more or less fell apart on us. It was all cracked up by the time we reached the bottom. Considering that we bought the thing when Davan was about 3 and paid about $5 for it, I guess we got our money's worth.

Davan is campaigning to do it again next year, but we'll have to see what plans develop. I'm not opposed...but sometimes there are family obligations to see to.

I hope your Thanksgiving was just as awesome as ours!