Today I took CJ and ET skiing. It was our first time out this year but they were zipping around like the pros they are.
Skiing has always been a part of my life (I started when I was three) and every year we would take a ski vacation with the same family friends. Some years other families would join in but the nine of us were the core group. The memories from these family trip are some of my most vivid and are absolutely among my favourites.
This is a picture of our gang (minus Dad who was taking the picture.) I’m in the green pants in front of Mom and The Sister is on the far right.
Very early in the morning our family cars would be loaded to the brim and we’d drive all day from Nova Scotia to Maine. We would get into Bangor late in the evening and check-in to the White House Inn which was just off the interstate.
We would then troop across the road to Dysart’s truck stop for dinner and homemade pie.
We would also breakfast there and I’d have been looking forward to the stack of pancakes all year long. This is how my child’s eye remembers them…
Sometimes a few hours would be spent shopping at TJ Maxx, but we would then be quickly back on the road to Sugarloaf. It would feel like home when this view came into sight.
We would take a lesson every morning and free ski in the afternoon. Once we were old enough, the kids would be set loose and we would cavort and act like idiots until they closed the lifts. Truly great times.
One year we spent a whole afternoon staging mock “ski accidents” to see how many fellow skiers would stop to offer help.
There was also the time I couldn’t stop on some ice and skied backward off a cliff. Luckily my skis got stuck between two trees and that halted my plunge. Ski patrol managed to extract me, but not before my mom found out.
Over the years, as I’ve taught my boys to ski, all of these memories have come flooding back. Only now do I realize how much preparation and physical effort went into these excursions and I need to take this opportunity to thank my parents.
They gave so much of themselves so that we could have these amazing experiences. Now it’s my turn to keep the tradition alive.
Do you have favourite childhood vacation memories?
Escaping Elegance 
We have family outside Boston so there have been many trips through Maine over the years with stops at Bangor for shopping and Dysarts to eat. Keira, my niece, had a pink hot dog one time, just cus. When Darrell and I travel with another couple it is my cousin from Boston and her husband. My memories of the trips to their place and with them I treasure. Packing a lunch, stopping at LLBean, telling everyone I knew exactly how to get there and getting us lost more than once. Good times! So lucky to have a partner that loves to travel and loves my family!
Lucky indeed! Glad to hear the next generation is discovering Dysarts. 🙂
Thank you for sharing your wonderful memories. It’s beautiful that you’re passing on the skiing tradition to your own children. 🙂
Thank you! I feel very fortunate to be able to pass the torch. 🙂