Winter Wonderland, Part 5

I must have gotten some sleep, eventually, because I was awoken (or awakened, or woken up, or whatever the grammatically correct way of saying THEY WOKE ME UP) by the children giggling and running upstairs. The last thing I wanted to do was get out of the bed, which had achieved some level of warmth.

I eventually dragged myself upstairs to the family room. It was 6:30. Beneath the down comforter wrapped around my body, was a sweat outfit, on top of wool thermals. And I. WAS. STILL. COLD.

It was an understatement to say that My Honey and I were a bit peeved. We grumbled a bit about how horrible it was that the landlord never called us back. We reminded each other that we needed to keep our happy faces on for the kids, who were having a great time in spite of the chilly temperature. He decided to go down to "tinker" with the heaters again, only coming back up to announce that, "they arent working." (grand revelation!)

I peaked at the thermostat, which was now at a whopping 58 degrees.

My Honey and I couldnt wait to call the landlord, and My Honey even said he would tell the landlord he would need to come up and fix these things right away! We decided we would wait until 8am, so as not to be rude.

The time never ticked so slowly! I couldnt wait to call him and get these matters resolved.

It was at this time, I called to commiserate with Grandma J. (she gets up at 5am, so there was no harm in calling her early.) Of course, instead of an understanding ear, Grandma J. reported that it was only 45 degrees in her house, and she felt just fine in her robe. She was lying, and had no sympathy, so I hung up.

8am arrived, and we called the landlord. and left another message.

Long story short (in an effort to protect you from my utter frustration)....the landlord called back at around 10am. He talked to My Honey, and I could tell by the depressed look on his face, that the landlord had no plans to fix things.

So, I took the phone and it went something like this:

Me: Hey T, yeah, the cabin never heated up last night, it's 58 degrees.

T: Well, you are in the mountains, it's not going to get HOT.

Me: Oh sure, I know, but it's pretty cold.

T: We usually wear our sweaters
when we are in the cabin.

Me: we all have 3-4 layers on, and are still shivering. We arent people that need to have a lot of heat, I mean, the 60's would be fine, but it was only 55 when we went to bed.

T: I dont know how reliable that thermostat is, they are notorious for being unreliable, so, that might not be the actual temperature.

Me: I dont know, but I know we are freezing. Havent any other tenants had a problem with the heat? If this is how it usually is, I would think you would have heard before, so maybe something isnt hooked up correctly.

T: nobody has ever complained. I mean, it's not hot, we keep a sweater on, but that's how it is in the mountains.

Me: (resigned re: the air temp) OK, well, what about the water? The water is ice cold too, the water heater isnt on.

T: I dont know about that, Ive never had it go out. I told your husband to see if he can figure it out and call me back.

Me: Ok. He has already spent a lot of time trying to warm things up, I know he doesnt want to spend our entire weekend VACATION on home repairs. He'll give it one last try.


When I hung up, I was fuming. Not enough to emit any steam to warm the place up, but I was really mad.

After another hour of tinkering, My Honey did get the water heater lit, no help from the landlord.

Im pretty sure if we wanted to have a "home improvement" weekend, we would have stayed home and done some jobs on our own house. It was ridiculous that so much of our time was being spent on things that, come to find out from everyone we talked to, should have been taken care of before our arrival.

We finally decided that the best plan for our day would be to get out of the icebox, er, I mean cabin.

We forced ourselves out from under the comforters and blankets and got dressed to go into town.

The kids had a great time, looking at shops, and a little patriotic show for the Presidents Day Weekend. Beauty was excited to see Uncle Sam and she and Pooper talked about him much of the rest of the weekend. They wanted to know who he was, how old he was, and was he everyone's uncle? how could that be?



We bought some bird food to feed the pigeons on the lake.....got some candy from the homemade candy shop, cause it's a vacation after all, and by golly, we were going to have some good times, even if I gained 8 pounds!



The second night was much like the first.....loaded up the fireplace with logs...ate a bunch of our ding dongs and popcorn.... went to bed pretty early because it was the only place that would eventually get warm.

On the final morning, we couldnt pack up fast enough! The sun was shining and we wanted to get out into the warmth and enjoy our last day. We took the kids to a large innertubing area on the way out of town, and we all had a blast! On the way home we listened to our folk music.

I cant say it was the vacation we had planned for, or hoped for, or needed....but it wasnt short on memories, no, we will always have lots of memories of living the mountain life.

Stay tuned to read my letter to the Landlord!