Christmas Part 4

The final edition:

Thermals are my Best Friend

So I mentioned that we went up north in Minnesota. The big thing that we did was go snowmobiling!!!!!!!! Oh me oh my it was delightful. Tuesday we had three snowmobiles for the 8 of us (even Nathan went on the snowmobiles). We had a fun time cruising around this huge frozen lake for a while, then decided to go on a trek on some trails and go up to a lodge thingy about 30 miles away to eat and stuff. 

The trails were absolutely beautiful, and it was fun driving around with my handsome hubby. 

 

This is us, if you can't tell

This last picture is from the actual trails. Like I mentioned it was absolutely beautiful. We were out in the middle of the snow-covered wilderness. All the snow was white, none of this yucky dirty snow that you find everywhere else. There were tons of ice covered lakes and the primarily evergreen and birch trees had snow on the branches. It was cold, but we wore tons of layers and had thermals and stuff, so we stayed pretty warm, actually.

After this last picture was taken is when our trek became really interesting. So we had three snowmobiles, and Matthew and I were on the last one. My parents and Nathan (in the first snowmobile) had a map, as did we, of all the trails, but my dad still had been stopping whenever there was a fork or turn just to make sure we were taking the right turn. The maps weren't that fantastic, that's all I'm saying. 


So we started going along again, and since we were going on a long stretch without turnoffs, we didn't stop for several miles. During that time, Matthew and I got quite a bit behind everyone else. We were going just a little bit slower, and then stopped for a few minutes to get another scarf out of Matthew's backpack for me. We got to a spot where there was a turn in the path, but we figured dad would have stopped if he had turned. So we kept going, but then looked at the map and realized we should have turned, and the snowmobile tracks in the snow didn't look like fresh tracks so we turned around and went back to the correct trail. We kept thinking we'd eventually catch up with the family, but we never did. We decided that instead of taking random trails to try and find them we'd just go to the rendez-vous point at the Hungry Jack Lodge. Well, we got there, and they weren't there. Hmm... so we talked to the bartender there, called a couple of other places where they might have gone to, ate, filled up with gas, consulted the bartender about the path back and went on our merry way. We figured they were probably doing the same thing at a different location and that we'd see them back at the cabin. Well... we get back to the cabin and they aren't there. In fact, they didn't get home for another 2 hours. Turns out my family had a much crazier time than we did after we got separated. 

This just cracks me up. Such a big helmet on such a small boy.

After we got separated, my family kept going along the path that Matthew and I had deemed was the wrong one. However, they thought they were going the right way, and they got pretty dang lost. Then they got all worried because we never showed up, and they thought that we were lost. Then, when trying to turn around to maybe come find us, their snowmobiles got stuck in the snow drifts. When they got unstuck, they left Aaron and Ryan on the side of the trail, in the snow, in the dark (this trek ended up taking many hours of the afternoon and evening--about 8 for my parents, and 6 for us) at an intersection just in case we drove by. The rest of my fam kept going to try and find... I don't remember what. Something. Then, one of the snowmobiles ran out of gas, so my dad and Nathan stayed with the snowmobile while my mom took the running one to try and find someone or something. Keep in mind that at this point, its dark, my family doesn't really know where they are and they are in the middle of the deserted wilderness with no cell phone reception. Luckily, within a few miles my mom came across a random B&B that very nicely gave her some gas to take back to the other snowmobile and showed her exactly where she was and how to get to a Trailcenter. So they fill up with gas, get dad and Nathan, pick up Aaron and Ryan and finally make it to the trail center. By the way, they totally are worried about me and Matthew, whether we know where we're going and whether we've run out of gas and whatnot. When they're at the trail center, the nice people there decide to call up to the lodge where we were and the nice bartender we talked to told them we were there, ate and had left half an hour ago. 

Trying to keep this long story short, they stop worrying and are able to get back to the cabin where we were waiting for them just fine. When Matthew and I heard their story and how potentially they could have been in a really bad situation and how worried they were about us, we felt a little bad about how not worried we had been about them. We just figured that they were fine and just in a different spot than we were. We had no idea the crazy adventure they'd been having!! My poor dad felt so bad about losing us. It took a long time to convince him that it really was ok. Luckily, Matthew is a very fantastic map reader, although seriously, the maps we had were not that great. We took a couple of wrong turns ourselves, although we figured out our mistakes pretty quickly.

Anyway, despite all that craziness we still agreed we had a really fun time. It just makes the trip that much more memorable. The next day we had a lot of fun on the snowmobiles again, cruising around the lake and nearby trails. We even found a little hut thing on the side of a trail with a firepit, and so we made a fire and cooked up some food and stuff for a few hours that night. It was beautiful. And amazing. And not that cold, actually.

 Yes, that is all of us on the roof. We are so cool.

I've never been to northern Minnesota in the winter, and I've never been snowmobiling before, but I have to say this trip has made me a believer in both of them. It was nothing but the best of times! 

Thanks for bearing with me on the long, long-winded post :)