Happy New Year!

This past week, I had the pleasure of spending New Year's with 16 of my very good friends on Long Lake in Bridgton, Maine. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this small lakes region town and for those of you that are fans of the infamous Stephen King, Bridgton is the scene of his horror novella, The Mist. Very briefly, "The Mist" tells the story of how the small town of Bridgton becomes enveloped by an unnatural mist that releases strange creatures which attack the human population.

As luck would have it, there was a light snow storm, but a thick fog hiding the lake on New Year's Eve Day. Fortunately, the house has huge windows which helped to makes these natural elements even more real. And even more fortunately, I was left alone in the house for about an hour after we had watched a couple of scary movies, while several of my friends went to go New Year's Eve shopping. And perhaps even most freaky, there was a strange man working on the hot water pump on the outside of the house. Needless to say, all of these elements combined inevitably led to twisted & gruesome thoughts in my head. I'm ok though - don't you worry.

Anyway, hope y'all had a Happy New Year!

A Festivus for the Rest of Us

I get EXTREMELY restless this time of year. Over a month of shopping and listening to Christmas songs - it is enough to DRIVE ONE INSANE. The only times I have enjoyed Christmas is when I have been fortunate enough to wave goodbye to Santa Claus, Christmas lights, eggnog, mistletoe, caroling, Christmas trees, chimneys, stockings, hung, and care - okay, well maybe not the last two, but you get the point. Back in my college days the fam and our closest family friends spent one or two Christmas eves packing and Christmas day on a plane down to Key West, Florida. Which is a brilliant trip  that I would highly recommend, but a story for another day.

This year money is a little tight and "the mom" is planning a Christmas at home. So, the travel plans are a lot less tropical, and doing a lot less to get me away from the Santa Claus. This year the plan is to head up North for New Years Eve to a little place called Maine, for 5 days of skiing, sledding, Wu-Tang Clan-ing, and hot tubbing. 

I've never done anything quite like this for New Years, so I'll have to let you know how it goes. However, pulling together this type of trip really proved to be rather easy. You see there is this thing called the internet - ahh kidding - most ski areas have Ski & Stay packages that are semi-reasonable. Or, if you are willing to stay off the mountain sites like VaMoose.com,  VacationRentals.com, and VacationHomeRentals.com will provide pricing, descriptions, availability, and pictures for houses & cabins in the surrounding areas. There are definitely some great deals to be found.

Stay tuned for pics & tales.