The end of March seemed downright Spring-like here. It was sunny and each day seemed warmer than the previous. Since the weather was getting better and the days longer, Ed constructed a fenced-in area for Scout around a small section of the yard off our backdoor. Because Scout was going out, we started going out as well and sitting on the patio while Scout was patrolling the border. We eventually decided that it would be really nice to actually have a place to sit (aside from the ground) and maybe have a place to eat few meals in the summer. And thus the hunt for the perfect outdoor table ensued. After literally visiting every single store in the Kolding that had any type of outdoor furniture, we picked a table. The table was reasonably priced but none of the reasonably priced chairs looked right sitting next to the table. (trouble with dining chairs seems to be a re-occuring theme for us) But, like the last time we had a table but no chairs, I didn't worry about it. I figured the chairs would find us. Ed picked up the boxed and disassembled table on a Friday afternoon. We were going to Ikea the next morning to buy a mattress for the baby's future sleeping cage so we figured we'd check out their outdoor chairs while we were at it. Saturday morning rolls around. I crawl out of bed expecting to see another sunny, blue sky day...but no. It was sleet-snowing (a wintery mix if you want to be technical about it) Yes! More sleet and a touch of snow!! On the day that we were going to set up our new table, a table purchased with sitting in the outdoors in mind! Well, I wasn't going to let that put my Ikea trip on hold so we set off despite the gray skies and rain (it changed to just rain after awhile). We ended up finding chairs and shoving four of them in the back seat of the mouse car (yes, that alone is a miracle-I should have taken a picture of that! I should mention they were already assembled--I wasn't shoving boxes in the car, it was a stack of chairs) Somewhere between the morning winter-fest and our return from Ikea, the weather went back to being spring-like! Ed set up the table, I attached the feet to the bottoms of chair legs and now the outdoor dining set is complete and ready for warmer weather!
See Scout. He loves his new space and has managed to not destroy anything yet.
So, the shortened version of the post: The morning we chose to assemble outdoor furniture was the same morning the last unexpected wintery weather arrived. Irony.
Over winter break, Ed and I returned to Austria for another few days of skiing. After our last trip to Kitzbuhel, we decided that we should get them most out of our new skis and boots by heading back to Austria one more time this winter. I don't recall why we picked Alpbach but we figured that a place voted 'most beautiful village in Austria' in 1983 had to be alright. It is at a lower elevation so I think we both were a little bit worried that we would arrive to find no snow....we couldn't have been more wrong! There was more than enough snow and we had a memorable week!
We arrived on Monday around noon after spending the night somewhere in Germany. We checked into our hotel and decided to relax the rest of the day. At first, everything about our room and hotel was great.
Not a bad view right?
The room was large, clean and had a nice view. It did seem a little cold though. Ed discussed this with the front desk and they explained that the temperature went down during the day when everyone was out. Fine. I understand that. They brought us a small space heater to warm the room up for us since we were staying in the room for awhile. So after cranking up the space heater and turning the radiators to high, we kicked backed to relax and surf the internet for a bit...but there was no internet service to be found. Ed made a return trip to the front desk to inquire about the lack of service, to which they replied "We've never had a problem with your room before but we are having an internet specialist come tomorrow so if you need the internet tonight, you may use the 2 hour internet voucher (that we paid for at check in) here at the lobby computer" To skip to the end of the story, we ended up checking out of our hotel in the morning because of that pesky heating issue. They turned the radiators off (yes, completely off--they came back on at 7a.m.) at night as well so by midnight, the room was so cold that even the thin cotton duvet didn't offer much comfort. In the night, while we were huddling under our duvets in attempt to stay warm, Ed found a nearby guest house with a 2 person room available. The cost for the remaining nights was a third of what we were paying at our first place and our room was about 100 times better. It was cozy, warm, had fluffy down duvets and a great view of the valley.
After checking into room number 2, we went skiing. Alpbach has a great little ski resort. I think that if I didn't know how to ski, this would be where I would want to learn--which is probably why there were hundreds of ski school attendees on the mountain while we were there. Our first day of skiing was nice, uneventful, pleasant even....Enter: day 2. I guess that it began snowing at night. When we woke up, our car looked like this
and it was still snowing. We have winter tires but did not have chains so we ended up walking to the ski bus and leaving our car in the safety of the parking lot. Day two of skiing was a bit different than day one. It was really windy and nearly white-out conditions. After lunch, we left the restaurant to find no one on the slopes (which was very strange-feeling to me) It was snowing and blowing even more than before lunch so we decided that we should just ski to the bottom of the hill and call it a day. We found a run that we both thought we had skied before lunch and headed down---I would never make this up--the entire run was untouched powder to our knees. As it was even more white than before, I was nervous that I would lose Ed in the storm. Every time I would fall in the powder I would try to keep my head up so I wouldn't lose sight of him. I will add that falling in powder is definitely more fun than a normal fall on skis :)
The next morning, we planned to drive to Innsbruck and walk around for the day but upon attempting to drive down into the valley, (and sliding on very slushy, and icy roads with no snow chains) we turned around and thankfully made it back our guesthouse parking lot without being involved in any accidents.
The most snow the mouse car has ever seen-we never did find out how much snow fell but apparently it was a lot even for Alpbach
It was still snowing so we opted to go tobogganing instead of skiing. We walked uphill for over an hour to reach the start of the run. The trail hadn't been plowed yet, so we were walking in several inches of snow and following a set of footprints from earlier in the day. I have been warm while skiing but I have never been so warm that I wanted to take off my jacket. I guess walking uphill is an entirely different animal because I would have been happy in a tshirt!
I can imagine that in the summer, Alpbach would be a beautiful village
Ed did make it into a tshirt
We finally made it to the lodge at the top of the hill where we had lunch and visited this friendly fox. When preparing to leave, we discovered that they only accepted cash as payment for meals. Ed pulled out his wallet to find the cash clip..empty. Fortunately, I had left my little cash purse with 20euro in it in my jacket pocket so after scraping all of our coins together, we had enough to pay for lunch and our toboggan rental.
We collected our toboggan and set off down the hill.
Ed, the one with a cat allergy, stopping to make a friend...
We had no prior tobogganing experience before our trip down
The snow had finally stopped, but the low-hanging clouds stayed
And look, a video! Taken by yours truly as I screamed...possibly cried down the mountain.
The tobogganing turned out alright so we continued to sled for awhile after we made it back to the main road. It was my first time to use one of these disk sleds--they are fast on a steep hill!
We left the next day. The roads had been cleared so we had no problems. I would like to just add one more thing to this post...if you ever visit Alpbach, I would highly recommend that you stay at Gästehaus Larch. It is owned and operated by a family. Most rooms include a kitchen (ours did not) so it would be a perfect place for a family to stay. They serve breakfast only. Other restaurants (and the ski bus) can be reached by an eight minute walk.
If I were blogging on a regular basis, you would have known that it snowed here. And for this Texan, it snowed a lot.
The apple tree in our backyard after the first snow...
Several more inches fell in the following days so this snow ended up quite deep, I'd guess 8 or 9 inches?? Just a guess
The greatest part about the snow was that I was able to walk Scout in the woods again. The trails had been wet and muddy from the rain and cool but with the below-freezing temps and snow, they were usable again! So we headed out to see our favorite sites in the winter.
'Sleepy Hollow' trail in the winter
Scout's favorite ground covering: Snow...
Did I mention Scout loved it? This picture makes me think of a book my friend bought me about a boy and his beagle.
The frozen lake from one side
and the other
I'm sure you get the gist
Scene of my first ever fall on ice. Yes, I slipped and actually feel while walking down this hill. The funniest part was the noise Scout made...I guess me falling scared him and he made the noise scooby doo always makes when he's curious or scared...I have no idea how I'd type that noise but maybe you get what I am saying.
