That Other February Vacation

  Back in those days, it must have been usual not to carry a camera because we have not a single picture of these vacations. Who wanted to be bogged down with a camera: we were only interested in enjoying the moment.
   So one February evening probably after work, I picked up B. and set off for Lake Placid, where we were to meet a girl I had become friends with during my summer courses at Oneonta. She was traveling with four of her friends, and had made all the hotel arrangements for our group of seven girls.
   But the weather was bad, and they postponed their travels until the next morning. On the other hand, I drove with B. at night through a snowstorm over uncertain roads to get to where we were to vacation. The route to Lake Placid was not what it later became, but a course of winding secondary roads, with no GPS or cell phones to clarify our destination. But we made it, and found the hotel that Dee had reserved.  It was a decrepit and ancient structure, located out of the village, on a hillside, dark and deserted looking, its better days clearly in the past, and all too clearly evoking memories of the Bates Motel from Psycho, though bigger and more rambling.  Chilling.
   So we decided to forego entering it that night. There is safety in numbers it is said, but the number was not high enough; we'd wait until there were seven of us. We drove back into the village looking for  less creepy lodging.We saw a Vacancy sign on one of the many motels, but were told they had no vacancies. We tried another and got the same result. They didn't want to rent to two young women in the middle of the night evidently. Our third effort was successful, though the manager warned us the heating system was defective and the room would be cold.  We didn't care by then, survived the night, met up in the morning with the Oneonta five, and checked into the Psycho Hotel for the duration of our stay.
  And what a vacation it was. It's odd how you can sit home and do nothing, days rolling by all the same, but when you decide to vacation, you fill every moment with what the venue has to offer.  And we did. We drove to Whiteface Mountain, and to Mt. Van Hoevenberg for the bobsled run. The mountain was steep and cars couldn't make the grade, so we drove part way up, where we were loaded onto an open-bed truck, which drove all customers up to the site. A driver was at the front of each sled, another at the rear, and  we passengers were nestled  in between.  All I can say about the bobsled trip down the mountain is that it was sideways. It seemed the sled was never on the flat part of the run, but on the sidewalls. We wore helmets but all we could see was flying icy snow that  the sled runners threw up. They told us that the Rheingold Festival's Miss Rheingold had been hospitalized the weekend before when her sled overturned. She had survived though, so that didn't deter us.
   On our later trip to New Orleans, we'd been provided with "dates," thanks to the many social connections our English friend had in this country. But this trip we found our own, or at least some of us, well two of us, did.
  Our party of seven needed to find a place to eat dinner. Someone suggested we try a restaurant called The Teahouse, but I said why not try another close by, The Steakhouse.  So we did.
   We were seated at our own table, all seven of us. As luck would have it, the table next to us was occupied by a hockey team from Montreal, all members of the Montreal police force. Difficult to believe now, but rather customary then, I gather, after dinner they offered us  (some of us, well two of us) cigarettes.  Canadian cigarettes they said, a little different they told us. That was a real conversation starter, as anyone who'd ever seen me try to smoke would know. So we talked and they invited us (well, two of us) to the hockey game they were playing in--it must have been the next day.  I think they left our tickets at the box office.  I remember we (two of us) went into the arena and the team was lined up on the ice where  they all greeted me by name. I've never been so publicly acknowledged before, or ever after for that matter.
   I can't remember who won the game, though I think they might have. I do remember we drove to another city and went dancing and drinking. I can't remember where it was but I know I was driven back to our Psycho House, which was no longer creepy at all.
  We stayed in touch by letter for quite a while, but I never took advantage of  an invitation to visit Montreal. I remained friends with  Dee for some time after that trip, though she told me her four Oneonta friends thought us Valley Falls girls to be "fast."  I think that term used to have a specific meaning. I know we (two of us) had way more fun than the other five.