3/21/09

Day 38

Conditions: 40 degrees with a chance of crazy
Location: Nubs Nob, MI

The sun wasn’t out. It wasn’t warm. The conditions weren’t anything that resembled fun. But, apparently when Nubs Nob declares that it’s Mardi Gras day people feel compelled to act as if they are college students on Spring Break.

We ventured to Nubs to break up the Boyne Mountain monotony. Little did we know that it was some kind of party weekend, complete with 12-piece, steel-drum band. A few things in the parking lot should have tipped ups off: a 50 year old woman with her hair spray-painted blue, an assortment of bead necklaces, and a teenager in a full-sized Winnie the Pooh costume. Things only got worse from there.

The craziest things was that the conditions were not very good. There were two inches of very sticky, new snow on top of ice that wouldn’t melt because it wasn’t warm. We did our best to have fun, but we longed for Boyne. I guess Lonnie’s theory was true: we would only appreciate Boyne if we went to other resorts once in a while.

We rode for two hours and just couldn’t get into it. Then came the real fun.

Highlights:

- People watching. And leaving for the day.

Lowlights:

- Nubs doesn’t have a high-speed chair, and all their chairs swing violently for the first half of the ride. At one point, Dirk compared it to a county fair ride, which was pretty accurate.

Après Ski:

The previous night, Dirk decided to book a hotel in Petoskey via Hotels.com. I am very picky when it comes to hotels. In general, I hate them. The only ones I can stand are Marriotts or other hotels where they change the comforters every day (the kind with washable, white duvets instead of crusty pillow shams.

Despite my apprehension, Dirk booked a Days Inn that got good reviews and cost less than $70 per night. Since we finished early, we had the whole day to spend in the room. I planned to watch basketball and Dirk was going to study for the GRE. When we keyed into the room, I started to tear up. Warning sign one was that the hotel had no hallways – it was the kind where we drove right up to our room and keyed in. The room looked like something out of a mob movie where the bosses take people to beat them up and leave them for dead. Yes, it did seem clean…for a place with one of those paisley, grimy comforters. There was no way I was going to spend 18 hours in that room.

We discussed several options that included just driving home. But, we wanted to board the next day, so I paid for a room at a nicer hotel. We spent the day watching HD TV in our wonderful room. We also had a great dinner at the City Park Grille.

Days to go: 12