Pinetop, Arizona, is a cute little community in northern Arizona. My mom has some friends up there, and because we live in southern-ish Arizona, we never see snow. We went to spend the weekend with them to see snow and sled and do things that people usually do in the snow.

My dad went with us in a separate vehicle because he had to work on Saturday and we didn’t want to leave so early. We wanted a nice, relaxing weekend, but that would be too easy, now wouldn’t it?

Past Globe, on the way to Pinetop/Show Low, there is a winding, makes-you-wretch kind of road. It swerves up and down and all around and criss-crosses back and forth over a ravine. It’s a pretty scary thing. My dad was almost out of gas, a semi almost lost his brakes (he pulled off and they were smoking), and it was black out.

We stopped at a Subway to eat dinner. I ordered a Veggie sub because the thought of eating meat at that moment grossed me out. I like dialogue, so here it is:

Me: I’d like a Veggie Delight sub with all the vegetables on it except tomatoes.

[Clerk proceeds to put veggies on the bread. She begins to wrap it in paper.]

M: What’s that, in that bucket? [I point to bucket.]

C: It’s spinach.

M: I wanted all the vegetables except tomatoes.

C: Do you want spinach?

M: Is that a vegetable?

So we finally arrive in Pinetop. We don’t know exactly how to get to this house, so my mom calls them on roaming (No cell phone towers anywhere close. No radio stations to be heard. I tried.) Only she was confused about the numbers and called the lady’s (Amy is the lady’s name, for future reference.) husband who was out of state on business. He gave us directions, but my mom isn’t very good with directions, and neither is he. So we got lost in the backwoods in the middle of nowhere. And we got stuck in the mud. Both cars got stuck in the mud. In the middle of nowhere, both cars were stuck in the mud. So my mom called Amy. Amy has an unreliable truck that her husband bought used 14 years ago. It does, however, have 4-wheel drive. Amy does not have a chain. So by now we have a bazillion dollars in roaming charges and Amy finally arrives. My dad decides to drive her truck to the nearest open store (It is by this time 8:40 at night) and buy a chain. By the time they got back and pulled us all out of the mud, it was 9:30. The ironic thing—we were 1 mile away from her house.

So we spent a (semi) relaxing night in Amy’s house. I say semi relaxing night because Leah and Lily (Amy’s daughter who is also adopted from India) have the same personality. They are power hungry, controlling manipulators. It isn’t pleasant.

The next morning my dad left and we went sledding. That was great. Except for the drive. When Leah and Lily weren’t fighting, they were screaming, “SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!” at the top of their lungs. I had been to the same place before while on a youth retreat, so I knew the best spots. It was fun, and it was interesting to see Henry (exchange student from Ghana) play in the snow for the first time in his life. I met a nice guy from Yuma who was on a retreat with his church, so that was pretty great too. We were about to leave and Henry somehow twisted his ankle. Now, out of all the times I have been in the snow, I never have gotten hurt.

The most damage I ever did was probably when I jarred my back. When I lived in Illinois, back in the day, I went sledding for hours at a time. It was awesome—just me, my dog, and my sled; zooming through brier patches, running into trees, and once in a while finding a good slope. So one day I found a great slope that was a natural half-pipe. I was like, “SCORE!” and jumped onto my sled. I was literally flying through the air, bouncing off my sled, and jarring my back every time I managed to land on it again. There was no way to stop myself because I didn’t want to jump off the sled and have to go running after it later. I hate that. The amazing ride ended when I landed in the creek. That part wasn’t so fun, and my hurt back wasn’t so fun, but the roller coaster itself was, and I was young, so I recovered quickly.

Anyways, Henry twisted his ankle. He can’t walk, and he’s on the track team. He is in pain, but we’re pretty sure that it is just a nasty sprain, not a brake. But he’s mad, and he thinks that he knows better than us, so he’s messing it up more. You are supposed to put ice on a sprain. He is rubbing a hot cloth on it. Whatever; it’s his ankle, and he’s 18.

We had a lot of stuff planned that day too. Like there were dog sled races, ice sculpting, and a bunch of other fun stuff. We just went home.

As we were pulling out of the driveway, Mom ran into a little wall, knocking it down. What a great end.

On the way home we encountered every kind of weather that is possible: rain, sleet, hail, thunder and lightning, light snow and heavy snow, and freezing rain. Gee whiz!

We are now safely at home.

The morals of this story are:

1. Have good brakes when driving on a mountain.

2. Know your veggies.

3. Have 4-wheel drive and carry a chain at all times.

4. Don’t let and inexperienced 18-year-old play in snow.

5. Don’t let two power hungry, controlling manipulators play together.

6. Watch the review mirror.