On the 30th of December 2017, Rachel and I drove up to Holland, Michigan to meet up with John and Melissa at John's place to celebrate the New Year.
We arrived a little past 3pm on Saturday December 30th, through a bit of snowy driving weather. Once we settled in, we got on our boots and snow gear and headed out again. John drove us over a half mile to a little parking spot near the boat dock. Once parked we set out on foot for another half mile, this time uphill through a neighborhood and then downhill to Lake Michigan. John's place is on Lake Macatawa, which feeds into Lake Michigan. On our walk to the lake, which included a heavy downfall of snow, we passed many a summer home, most empty due to the winter months, but some with beautiful Christmas lights and a snowy topping, making it even more picturesque. Once we made it to the lake, I took a slide down the slide while others looked on. I hit a big pile of snow at the end with a soft plump. Exciting stuff. It was pretty damn cold out, so my phone died right as I was making a video going down (peep the vlog). Minutes later, John and I headed towards the lake's edge. I felt nervously scared as we stood on what we eventually figured out was a frozen Lake Michigan, with waves crashing up and splashing high. It was a crazy feeling to have the waves hitting so high. It honestly felt as if i was on the edge of the cliffs of Moher, but with the water coming to the very top. It was cold, windy, and was quite exhilarating. The water was rolling, similar to an ocean, and we were certain it would be instant death if one fell in. Rachel and Melissa joined us at the frozen lake's edge before we all scurried back to safety towards the snowy mainland. I know it is hard to understand, but we were probably a good 100 feet out on the water, and a good 20 feet uphill, which was entirely frozen, but then it was not frozen at all once you hit the edge. That is where the water was still water. You never know when the ice might break off and fall in. Similar to if you stand on the edge of a cliff. The risks we took!
Once we stopped tempting death, we walked back through the blizzard, trenching through waist high snow drifts, eventually we made it back to our Cabin in Holland. We slipped out of our wet clothes and hopped into some dry ones to head to downtown Holland. Land of the dry. As we were driving on the highway, we saw some advertisements about how it was a snowless Holland. We didn't really get it until we were downtown and saw that the sidewalks were entirely rid of snow. How is this possible you may ask? The sorcery of Holland? Nope, just heated sidewalks, which means no snow on the sidewalks, but plenty of hobos sleeping. Jokes about the hobos. We parked downtown and walked along the street to New Holland Brewing Company. We had a few drinks there a couple summers ago. Once inside, John and Melissa took us to the sampling room, where we sampled some whiskeys, gins and tequilas before being sat down for dinner. We ordered a beer and some bean dip as an app. Dinner came out and it was pretty good. I had a burger and some chips. I would say it was an average tasting burger, nothing too crazy to talk about. After dinner we headed back to John's place to play some some O'Hell and Hearts. Card games for the uninformed. Didn't stay up too late, and headed to bed in our twin beds.
We woke up the next morning, December 31st, 2017, New Years Eve, ate some breakfast and headed out for some cross country skiing. We headed out to the Pigeon Creek Park trails, and it only cost $8 per person to rent the ski's for two hours! What a deal. It was my first time cross country skiing, well actually skiing at all. I went water skiing about 10 years ago at my buddy Andrew Mewborn's in Georgia, but have never done any type of skiing or snowboarding on the snow. In fact, I've only been sledding down the Patterson hill near my childhood home.
Anyway, we got the skis and I immediately had difficulty getting my snow boots to stay on them. I had to get my skis swapped out, and the new pair worked! Once I had my skis on I immediately fell over. Good start. I think I ended up falling down at least 20 times within the two hours of skiing. I was pretty terrible, but it was super super fun. I dressed up like a drunk local man (corona hat, shades, sweat pants, and a jacket), and performed like a local drunk man, stumbling about the trails. Rachel was the skiing expert and did well. John and Melissa also performed at a high level. Like I said, I fell over almost every 5 minutes, struggle bus.
There was a layer of fluffy snow over all of the trees and over the trails, it was a beautiful sunny day to go cc skiing. I did a mediocre job as everyone else succeed, but it was a fantastic time. At one point we attempted the pigeon plunge, a very steep and narrow trail that was similar to downhill skiing but between a 15 foot gap of trees. If we veered off too far to the side, we would surely crash into some pine. We all sat at the top of the plunge debating whether we should go down or not for 20 minutes. Finally I strapped my camera under my jacket, and went full steam ahead. The worst skier was on his way to death! It was an adrenaline filled descent that ended up with me eating it hard. My skis got crossed up and I slammed into the snow, but this is a survivor story and I live to tell the tale. John and Rachel followed suite and Melissa traveled around to meet us for the walk back to the lodge. Super fun cross country skiing. When we got back to return our skis, there was a super long line to get into the trails. It appears we finished at the perfect time. Great success!
With our boots back on, we drove over to Meijer to pick up some groceries for the evening festivities. John somehow managed to lose his wallet, and we were in kind of a funk, but then it fell from the side of the front seat and hit my foot in the back. Wallet found, day saved. It must have fallen out of his pocket when we were getting in/out of the car. Phew.
We made it back to John's place and fired up the grill. Time for a little snowy cookout. We cooked up some brats, Melissa made the famous corn dish, Rachel got some broccoli and onion together, and the boys grilled some brats to enjoy for the New Year's Masterpiece.
After celebrating with our tasty dinner, we hung out for a bit, playing hearts, 3 man, and some other games. Melissa played us some cover songs and amazing originals! Check out her new music page here! Later that night, around 11pm, I put together a delicious buffalo chicken dip to enjoy while we played more card games. Finally, we counted down to midnight in the Eastern Time Zone, then again in Central Time Zone. Happy New Year x 2! Celebrate everyone!
I stayed up later than all in the house, as they fell asleep just after 2a Eastern/1a Central. Since everyone fell asleep with a drink in their hand, I took each drink one by one and finished them off! Safety first. A little bit after that I woke everyone up and sent them up to bed. I spent the next 2 hours editing some videos and working my blogs/vlogs. Definitely missed out on the opportunity to celebrate New Year's a third time for the west coast. I packed up and headed to bed just after 4a. What A Snowy New Year.
We woke up in the morning, January 1st, 2018, and ate the rest of the buffalo chicken dip from the night before and headed out on the road back to Chicago.
Happy New Year everyone. More videos from this weekend to come soon. Here is the vlog! It's a snazzy one!
Let's do it big in 2018!
Josh
