Fleeing Nemo

We (literally) escaped to Stowe, VT this weekend. We left on Friday afternoon just ahead of Winter Storm Nemo, which dumped over two feet of snow on the Boston area from Friday afternoon through Saturday. There was a driving ban in place from 4pm Friday through Saturday afternoon for the whole state of MA. No non-essential personnel were allowed on the roads. Craziness.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our weekend:

Of course I have to start with the food. There were a lot of good restaurants in the area, many with a focus on locally-sourced meat, produce and cheeses. We ate dinner at Blue Moon on Friday night. This was the best-cooked salmon I've ever had. 

Saturday morning in the parking lot of Bear's Lair, the hotel we stayed in on Friday night. VT only got a few inches of snow on Friday afternoon and evening. Just enough to make everything picturesque (and to make Taison excited for the "fresh powder" on the slopes).

We visited the Lake Champlain chocolate factory store (and the Cabot cheese store next door) on Saturday morning, then shared a delicious apple-cheddar-bacon panini at a local apple cider mill. 

We spent the rest of the weekend (Saturday and Sunday nights) at Stowe Mountain Lodge. (We stayed at the less nice Bear's Lair on Friday night because we went up a day earlier than planned.) We chose this place because it has great skiing but also a nice spa and non-ski activities. I got a facial and took a yoga class (and convinced Taison to do a couples massage).

I don't have a picture, but we had a nice dinner on Saturday night with friends. We happened to run into a couple that we know at a ski shop in town on Friday. The husband is an intern at MGH (Taison recruited him) and the wife works at the UN. He's black, she's Singaporean. We probably quadrupled the minority population of the state this weekend ; ).

View from our room Sunday morning.

View from the ski lift 

Top of the mountain

This was Taison's second time skiing. Ever. Apparently he's a natural. He went out on Saturday and Sunday, and loved it (and came back in one piece). 

My outdoor activity was snowshoeing. It was fun, and a good workout.

I had a different mental picture of snowshoes. This is what they look like nowadays.

Birthday dessert after dinner at the hotel restaurant on Sunday (which randomly had an excellent crab cake appetizer-you don't expect to find good crab cakes so far from MD). Taison asked the waiter to bring the dessert at exactly the time I was born. He's cute.

We left on Monday morning. I cooked brunch (our suite had a beautiful kitchen), and then we packed up and headed out. It was a nice weekend, and we hope to go back next year.