Blue Mountain Girls' Trip (January 31-February 2, 2020)

Blue Mountain is known to be Ontario’s winter wonderland village. I had never been to Blue Mountain, nor did it seem like my type of place since it is a main attraction for skiers. Nonetheless, when my girlfriends asked if I would be interested in a girls’ trip, I didn’t hesitate. It was a little bit challenging for us to all get the day off of work - since we all work in the same department - but we managed. This was apparently much to our coworkers' despair, however we were unaware of this at the time, so everything was “peaches and roses” in our minds. We all took the Friday off and Amy picked us all up around 9 a.m. Friday morning and we headed up to Blue Mountain. I find that, on the departing trip, everyone spends the whole ride talking and laughing, but on the return trip, everyone is so tired, it’s usually pretty quiet. So, on the departing trip, we were all laughing and joking and having a wonderful time! Amy has roughly done this drive multiple times, so it was an easy trip for her.

It took us approximately 2 ½ hours to get there. We stopped shortly before arriving to have lunch at a pizza place called Pie. Apparently this is a chain restaurant in the area, but I had never heard of it. It was pretty good. Then, we headed to Blue Mountain. It was still a little early for us to check in, so we decided to drive up to the top of the Blue Mountain hills to go snowshoeing. Lucky for us, Lorelle brought 3 sets of snowshoes, so we only had to pay for 1 set plus all of our access passes. We hiked up to their main lookout point. We didn’t do the whole trail, but opted for a short cut. It wasn’t until we arrived at the shortcut, labeled “Steep and Deep”, that we second guessed our decision. Nonetheless, up we hiked. Amy and Lorelle had no problem getting up the hill, but Mollie struggled. I’m sure Amy has either a video or tons of pictures of Mollie and I screaming at each other while she attempts to get up the hill. It was hilarious. Once we were at the lookout, we took a mini break. The lookout was a little disappointing since it was a foggy day, so there wasn’t much to look at. It didn’t stop us from taking photos though! We decided not to go back down the “Steep and Deep” shortcut, but instead cut around another shortcut down towards the suspension bridge trail. It was a long hike, but it was a beautiful day. At moments, it would lightly snow and it was picturesque. Mollie made us stop and take a couple pictures around the “perfect tree” - her words, not mine.

I look silly in a couple of these photos since I’m wearing my big warm dirty white hat. I’m all about warm vs. style during the chilly winter months and I know myself well enough to know that if I’m not warm, then I’m miserable and that means no one will have a good time. So, I wore the hat just to be cautious. We were lucky that we had arrived mid afternoon on a Friday because the trails were not busy at all. There were a couple of other groups, but we barely saw them, so we felt like we had the trails all to ourselves. We even had time for a photoshoot on the suspension bridge!

… our album comes out next year!

After we finished snowshoeing, it was time to check into our hotel. The address that I was given was the address of the Blue Mountain Village, so it was a struggle to find our hotel before I realized that we were staying at the Blue Mountain Inn just outside of Blue Mountain. Once we arrived, I checked us in while the others found the perfect parking spot. Not sure how we got so lucky, but we were only a few cars away from the front doors of the hotel, so we didn’t have far to trek with our luggage. We hung out in the room for a bit and, shortly after we had arrived, there was a knock on our door. A man handed Lorelle and Amy an envelope and a teddy bear. Each room is set up with a cute polar bear on the bed, so this was another one of those, which Amy loved. The envelope had a “K” name written on it. It was nowhere close to my name, but they thought maybe the hotel had just gotten it wrong, so they opened the envelope. Inside was a birthday card for a little girl’s 8th birthday! We had a good laugh about it before calling down to the front desk to tell them about the mix-up. You bet we kept the bear though! The hotel had a ton more, so it’s not like we stole a teddy bear from a little girl.

Once we had settled into our room, we headed downstairs to play a couple of games of pool in the main lobby. I’m not sure that pool table has had as much use in one weekend as it did that weekend. We played pool like there was no tomorrow! While we were playing, we noticed a bachelor party checking into the hotel. Apparently, they were booked in the rooms next to us, which we would find out later in the evening. After a couple of games, we headed upstairs to start getting ready for our night out. Our room faced towards the ski hill and it was memorizing to me to watch all of the skiers coming down the hill. I found that some of the most fun was had while us girls were getting ready to go out. We played music and drank (I had a juice and ginger ale concoction) while we got ready.

Suddenly, there was another knock at the door. Lorelle answered it this time but it wasn’t an employee delivering a birthday card. This time it was a naked man - he had a towel wrapped around his lower half - asking if we had any soda. Lorelle was so nice about telling him no, but I think we were all surprised by his appearance. Definitely not what we had expected when we opened the door. We were also surprised when we eventually decided to leave and our bachelor party neighbors were all standing in their doorway in a sort of boy band album cover pose. “Hello ladies”, is all they said to Mollie and I, but, apparently, they were a little more forward with Amy and Lorelle when they walked by.

We caught the shuttle to the village and quickly tried to find a place for dinner. We hadn't planned our dinner location ahead of time, but I wish we had because it turns out that we chose one of the lowest rated restaurants in blue mountain. It was an Irish pub with the normal pub style food, but I was less than impressed. I ordered the chicken pot pie, which I love and make on a regular basis so I know it's not all that difficult to make. However, it was awful. Not only was the pot pie cold, but it was smothered in gravy. I only ate ⅓ of it, but the other girls ate the rest so it wasn't wasted.

Afterwards we headed across the way to a bar called Smash. I had heard good reviews about this ping pong bar/nightclub. Unfortunately, Friday isn't their "bumping party" night. It was underground and it was COLD! Also, the ping pong tables completely obscured the dance floor, so there was no dancing to be had. We ended up asking the bouncer where the best place to go to for dancing was and he pointed us in the right direction. I think the bar was called Rusty's, but it has been a while since this weekend, so don't hold me to that. We spent some time warming up before the bar started really filling up and the night got going. The music was great and we all had a good time dancing. It was packed though! While you were trying to dance, you were also trying not to rub elbows with the person next to you. I think we stayed until around 1 a.m. before heading home. I was the only one that brought my jacket - coat check was free - so I was nice and toasty while the others, specifically Lorelle, froze her buns off in a tank top. It wasn’t long before we were all tucked into our beds and fast asleep! It was a great start to our girl’s weekend!

The next morning, we went downstairs and had breakfast at our hotel. They had a buffet option, but we all ordered off of the menu. Mollie and Amy ordered chocolate milks and Lorelle ordered a coffee with cream. All of which took longer than expected to arrive. Mollie was not happy and was having a hard time sitting still while we waited. It was funny and also embarrassing at the same time, but mostly funny. Nonetheless, the breakfast was good. Another funny incident was that Mollie wanted some ketchup and requested WAY too much. The waiter looked at her like she was crazy, but it was all a big miscommunication. More of a “you had to be there” sort of moment, but it was definitely funny … trust me.

After breakfast, we headed back up the mountain to go skating. I brought Lorelle an extra pair of skates, but unfortunately they didn’t fit, so I had to wear Blake’s skates. For someone that doesn’t know how to skate, having skates that were too big definitely didn’t help. I think the fear of falling really holds me back from living up to my full potential, so it was a rough start. I was 100% an embarrassment to the girls. They were all very supportive and Mollie even skated back to get me one of those little red skate assistants...that are definitely meant for children, but I saw other adults using them so I was only slightly embarrassed. I felt much more confident with the assistor, but it was a challenge because I had to bend forward in order to use it. I was able to keep up with the rest of the girls and was feeling great. I was feeling good up until the moment that a small child tried to steal my skate assistant … then I wanted to bury my head in the snow and I decided to do the last run around without the assistant. So, on the 2nd (or maybe 3rd) skate loop I did it all by myself. I fell a lot! And every time I slightly panicked, I would always veer to the right and go into the snowbank. Amy even got a video of me falling hard on my bum. It was still fun, but after that stressful loop, I sat down at the end and timed the girls while they went around one last time. It took them less than 5 minutes to do the loop without me. At the very end, Mollie fell so hard, we decided it was time to go.

We took a couple of pictures up at the top of the mountain in front of the fantastic view, then went back to the hotel for a quick nap. Before returning to the hotel, we grabbed hot chocolates, coffees, and booster juice. We each wanted something different. After a short rest, we all got our swimsuits on and went for an afternoon hot tub to relax our sore muscles. The hot tubs weren’t great because they weren’t crazy hot and the bubbles were almost non-existent, but it was still relaxing. Afterwards, the other girls went for a mini swim and a brief sauna before we went back upstairs to get ready for dinner.

For dinner on Saturday, I chose one of the highest rated restaurants in Blue Mountain … which might have also been a more expensive restaurant. We went to a restaurant called Tholos and, since we were having an earlier dinner, we got a table quickly. At this rate, none of us were worried about the money we were spending, we were just thinking about eating good food and having a good time! Amy ordered the flaming cheese and they set it on fire right at our table. Honestly, it tasted like Cheez-it crackers to me, but everyone else seemed to like it. The three of them all got the same pasta dish, while I got a beef souvlaki which was DE-LI-CIOUS! Probably some of the best food I have ever had. I ordered the rice side dish instead of the lemon potatoes (I dislike lemon potatoes, which is why I ordered the alternative), but they ended up bringing me both since they messed up my order; which I definitely wasn’t mad about. The servings were also very filling and again, it was all very delicious. After dinner, the girls were nice enough to walk around the village with me as the Blumination event was occurring which just means that the village was lit up with different light exhibits. I also spent WAY too much money at a chocolate shop, but it was nice and relaxing to walk around and take in the village, even for a little bit.

Once back at the hotel, we got ready to go back out for another night in the village. However, we never made it back out … mostly due to Mollie and I just being too lazy. Amy and Lorelle got all dressed and went downstairs to play pool while they awaited Mollie and I to get amped. While they were gone, Mollie and I had a dance party of our own in the hotel room, but we never got up the energy to go out, so we all spent the rest of the night playing pool. I think we played until around 2 a.m. At 1 a.m. we had a couple of super drunk guys come and converse with us which was funny because the pool table was on a higher landing and this guy climbed over the railing up to us. Also, his (very drunk) friend got distracted by us and walked directly into one of the building pillars; it sounded painful, but they were quite entertaining. We were playing pool for hours and I’m not sure what made us end the night, but eventually the night came to an end. It was low-key fun, but I really enjoyed it and had a ton of fun!

On the last morning, I woke up before everyone and cleaned up our hotel room. Amy said I was being noisy, which is definitely true, but it was like 9 a.m. and no one was awake! Also, I didn’t want anyone to have to worry about cleaning up the mess when they woke up. I just wanted us all to have time to get dressed and get our stuff re-packed without feeling rushed. Once I checked us out and we packed up the car, we caught the shuttle one last time to the village for breakfast. We went to a hotel restaurant called Oliver and Bocini. It was super expensive … we were starting to feel the burden of Blue Mountain at this time. However, it didn’t stop us from all ordering the eggs benedict. I mean, it tasted good, but I’ve definitely had better for a lesser price (hello Electric City Bread Company in Peterborough). Once we were sufficiently full, we all filed back into Amy’s jeep and headed home.

Amy made a quick pit stop at a mall to buy makeup and, while she did that, we all split up throughout the mall and wandered for probably close to 30 minutes. I made it all the way around the mall before Amy called us all back so that we could head home. The ride home was quiet. It was relaxing to be able to sit and reminisce on the weekend that we just had. It was fun and is definitely a weekend that I won’t soon forget. It was great to get to have a girls weekend together and it will probably not happen again with these gals for a long while, since our workplace probably won’t let it happen again! I’m glad we went though! Sorry, not sorry work!