This past weekend some of the members of V.I. took the weekend off and headed to Western Maryland for a fun & relaxing weekend in Deep Creek. The trip started off as me, Wendy, & Mike B. met up @ Toys R Us around 7 or so and started on our way to meet up with Dan & Lauri who were already there waiting. Though we were excited to go, we didn’t look forward to the 3.5 hrs. drive in front of us. I personally never been to that part of Maryland & I didn’t realize how big Maryland was. The drive also consisted driving through large mountains, driving at elevations over 2,000 ft., seeing warning signs of bears on the side of the road, and Camelot. Camelot you ask? Well, if you never been to that part of Maryland, as you are on I-68, you pass through a city called Cumberland. As you drive through it, to the right either Buckingham Palace or the Castle of Camelot appears. It is actually a church but it is awesome looking and monsterous. It was a real nice site, especially at night all lit up. ¾ the way there we had to stop for gas. This was a bit unusual because we had to go from 3,125 ft. high to ground level there which was still 1,200 ft. above sea level. It was the coldest fill up I ever had to do. It was also a bit unusual because our cars are not known in that area. There all you see is trucks & wagons. Literally! We felt like we were in another world, kind of awkward. As we got back on our way and drove up the mountain again to the moon we were almost there. Every time we thought we were close, we were wrong. The ride was forever long. Around 11 we finally got there. We were to tired to really do much, so we ate some food, thanks to Dan’s mom who completely hooked us up, and decided to hit up the hot tub. Even though it was 25 degrees there, it didn’t matter. We changed into our bathing suits and hopped in. After about an hour some of us got out, stood there wondering why we were not cold, we were wet, just about nude, and in about 15 degree weather by now. But, we were so hot from the water it didn’t matter. So from there we decide to get some sleep for the day tomorrow. We woke up to mounds of food, pancakes, cream chipped beef, toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, scrapple, & some. From there we decided to go horseback riding. A first for me! Everyone else has done it before but me. It seemed everyone’s horse was a decent size, mine came out, it was huge, but then Mike’s came out, he was the King of Horses. He weighed over 1,800 lbs. & stood over 7 ft. tall. He was a monster, how Mike got on top of him, I will never know. Anyway, we started our trail with our guide and the tailess dog. Poor Wendy’s horse didn’t feel like moving & mine just wanted to race, especially when Lauri and her horse taunted him. After we were done, we went back to the house and took a rest and then got up and washed up to go to dinner at UNO’s. After dinner we didn’t know what to really do. Deep Creek is more a summer place to go and everything was closed so we just decided to hit up the hot tub again and start a bonfire. The next morning we got up and cleaned up to head home for the meeting. Overall it was a great weekend and if you didn’t go, you missed out on a lot.

Mel Grupp - V.P. Vivid Images