A week ago, we were snowed in at Avalon. Thought I would put together a trip report. It has been quite a couple of weeks here in frozen Virginia. I will start out on Friday, Valentine’s Day. We had planned on going up to Avalon on Saturday and staying through until Monday each of us having President’s Day off. Given the forecast of a small snow and ice storm early Saturday, we changed our reservation to start Friday night. By Friday they were predicting sleet Friday night, and a few inches on Saturday with another 6 inches on Sunday. We packed Thursday night, hoping to get up to Avalon before the sleet. <br><br>We succeeded and were on the road by 5:15 heading west on dry roads. As an indicator of how inaccurate the forecasts were, we never ran into any precipitation of any kind all the way up. We arrived about 7:30 and settled into the lodge room, then went to dinner. While the “official” Valentine’s Day dinner was scheduled for Saturday night, it was an excellent dinner nonetheless with each lady receiving a red rose. Patrick and Phyllis, the managers, joined us for dinner, and we had a great time catching up and generally solving the world’s problems. <br><br>After dinner, Jody and Phyllis started decorating the dinning room for the Valentine’s Day dance scheduled for Saturday night. I just found a seat by the fire, and read and talked with some of the other guests. Oh I did help put up one piece of decoration, but that is not my forte. <br><br>That evening Timothy Dale, a blues singer, sang for us. He is a regular up there and he and his lady were staying over so that he could sing again on Sunday night. Everyone was enjoying themselves. We turned in reasonably early, after a quick dip in the outdoor hot tub. Still no sign of snow, sleet, rain or anything coming out of the sky save a cold wind. We figured the weather-guessers had blown it again.<br><br>Saturday morning I awoke to a strange sound. I was thinking that the people in the next room were being awfully noisy, but once the fog of sleep had cleared a bit, I realized that it was Doug, the maintenance man, shoveling off the front steps. There was four inches of newly fallen snow on the ground. Avalon had become a winter wonderland! There was snow on the branches of the Mountain Pine making it so picturesque and lovely. Of course I was inside in the warmth and enjoying this from a window.<br><br>We went down to breakfast, and along with most everyone there, stared out the glass doors out back to the bird feeder. It was swamped with juncos, sparrows, and titmice, with two pairs of cardinals, a downy woodpecker, and a red-bellied woodpecker. Some folks claimed they saw a palliated woodpecker, but I missed it.<br><br>After breakfast, it was pool time. We settled in on two lounge chairs alternating between reading and soaking in the hot tub. Ah, the rough life we were leading! Soon, Kip and Linda, two friends of ours showed up, and joined us. The rough schedule of soaking and reading continued with interspersed talking. Early that afternoon, Todd and Ingrid showed up. We had not seen them since we were snowed in with them over a year ago. We quickly caught up on lost time, hearing about their wedding and honeymoon.<br><br>Around five we wandered back into the lodge for the social hour. The snow had stopped that morning and all were enjoying the pretty views. We knew we were supposed to get 6 inches on Sunday, but most weren’t overly worried. Lots of people had arrived by now, the lodge being full that night. I quickly found a chair by the fire, and ended up talking with several folk gathered there. <br><br>The Valentine’s Day dinner was soon served and it was quite a production. Kip, Linda, Todd and Ingrid joined us for a sumptuous repast. Jay, the chief, is not only an excellent cook, but placed the food on the plate as though he were creating a work of art. We ate, and talked, enjoying each other’s company.<br><br>Dinner being done, and their being an hour or so before the dance started, we all headed for the outdoor hot tub. The conversation continued as we sat in the warmth of the water while it was in the low 20’s outside. That is perfect hot tub weather, and we all stayed until we were turning into prunes. Happy prunes I might add.<br><br>We headed back to our rooms and got ready for the dance and were soon back in the dinning room getting a round table. They had tried and tried to get a band for the dance and had come up short, so there was a DJ. No one seemed to mind a bit, and everyone was dancing right from the beginning. As usual, the ladies were all made up with a few strategically placed pieces of cloth. As the dance wore on, less and less cloth was visible on the dance floor. The dances at Avalon are social nudity at its best.<br><br>Sunday morning, I awoke again to strange sounds, this time the plow driving up past the lodge. I looked out and the predicted six inches was pretty well there, with a light snow continuing. We headed into breakfast at about 9 taking our time as we planned to stay over until Monday. Many of those who were planning to leave that day, left early, including Todd and Ingrid. A good thing for them too, as we began to notice that it hadn’t stopped, and in fact we had about 12 inches by noon.<br><br>After breakfast, several of us headed outside to the hot tub. While cold and hot tubs go together it is even better in the snow. Every one ages fairly quickly their hair turning white! Yet, you are warm and cozy despite your white hat. Even our eyebrows turned white. We all talked and watched the birds darting around the bird feeder. One poor junco landed on the top and lost it’s footing, and slid down the side on the snow.<br><br>After the hot tub, I sat by the fire in the lodge, reading and talking. It was just a nice quite, peaceful time to relax at Avalon. In the early afternoon, I went back to the room, got out the laptop, and reviewed the new camping lease that Avalon is going to implement. Since I did the handbook, Patrick has used me as a sounding board for new rule changes etc., which I’m glad to do. I ended up filling a page with comments, notes, suggestions, and questions about the lease.<br><br>Once I was done with that, I headed back to the lodge room. My neck had been hurting for a couple of days and was quite stiff. I’m not sure what I did, but it seemed to be getting worse. I was ready to yell “uncle”, and sought out Jenny, a guest there, who does messages, but is also a chiropractor. Within a few minutes she had me fixed up. My neck was still in pain, but a different pain, this time from the manipulation, and not stiff. <br><br>For a while longer we just hung around the lodge, watching the birds, and the snowfall. Someone had put the weather channel on and we knew that it was not supposed to stop for a while. We had over a foot and it was still coming down. So much for our six inches of snow!<br><br>About 3 pm, Kip, Linda, and I, headed up to the condos. The road was freshly plowed, so it was an easy. We stopped off at Jenny’s condo, as she had invited us up to see how she had it arranged, then went over to Bev and Jim’s. Jim is an armature wine maker and he wanted my opinion on his wines. Actually they were some of the better homemade fruit wines I’ve tasted. He managed to keep them from being overly sweet with just the right amount of residual sugar. He also had a concord wine, which he managed to suppress most of the foxiness from. I was impressed and gave him some good feedback, with a few criticisms.<br><br>We headed back to the lodge at around 5 pm, and there was four inches of snow to wade through. The snow was really mounting up. By then, Critten Owl Hollow Road was impassible, and everyone was there for the duration.<br><br>We had dinner that evening, and there was a “were all in this together” attitude. People were helping set the tables and help out where they could. The chief and two waits and the bartender were the entire staff, everyone else not being able to get there. Joe, the bartender was on his last legs as he had had three hours sleep the night before. He had gotten up at 5 to help shovel. I finally talked him into stopping, and with Patrick and Phyllis’ permission, took over as the bar tender for the evening. An old sailor as a bar tender, now that is a scary thought!<br><br>Tim Dale was singing again that night, and the resort was down to about 30 people. It was a light night for bar tending, but I did enjoy it. About the most difficult drink I made was a rusty nail. Everyone was quite mellow, and just enjoying the shared hardship of being snowed in together. <br><br>Monday morning I awoke to silence. I looked out the window, and it was still snowing. By this time we had about 36 inches of snow and down it kept coming! While I can remember large amounts of snow growing up, I don’t ever remember it snowing for 36 hours straight! <br><br>That morning there was a free breakfast of pancakes, because they knew then that no one was leaving that day. The TV was tuned to the weather channel and snow was the topic of conversation. We watched the pictures from DC of their two feet of snow, and looked out to our mounting piles that would eventually reach 40 inches. One woman went out to re-supply the bird feeder and it was thigh high.<br><br>That afternoon everyone was just taking it easy. Many took naps, myself included, lounged at the indoor pool, soaked in one of the three hot tubs, read by the fire or generally did nothing. I must admit, that Avalon is one of the best places to do nothing. As a matter of fact, nothing is an art form at Avalon. <br><br>After that hike, I was back in the hot tub loving life. Several others including Joe, the bar tender, and his new bride joined me in the hot tub. She was one of the wait staff, and this was the one break they had had in several days. He was thanking me all over the place for taking his bar tending chore the night before. This was all new to her, but she was taking it all in stride.<br><br>Just before dinner, they announced that Critten Owl Hollow Road had just been plowed. Absolutely no one chose to give it a try in the dark. We all figured that daylight would be better. Therefore we had to suffer through another gourmet dinner, with a nice hot tub soak afterwards. Yes, being snowed-in is such a hardship!<br><br>Tuesday morning the snow had finally stopped. There turned out to be two groups there. Those with four-wheel drive cars that decided to head out early, and the majority who decided that noon to one would be better. This would give the road crews more time to working on the roads, and we would still have five hours of daylight for our two-hour drive. So we had breakfast, and the, by now obligatory, hot tub soak. Then it was out to shovel out the car, move it down to the lodge, pack and load it. Once all that was done, a shower was in order to put it mildly.<br><br>So long about 1, wearing clothes again, we headed home, wishing that our snowed-in interlude had not come to an end. <br><br>Reggae Rob