You know I’m really behind when I’m writing about the solar eclipse of last month ago, right?
Everyone made such a big deal of the total eclipse in 2017 that I felt terrible that we missed it. It went across the country from Oregon to South Carolina – far from New England. It wasn’t even a blip on our radar outside of the media coverage. My kids were at camp that day, and there might have been 30% coverage. I doubt they noticed anything more unusual than a cloud. Of course, they were 3 and 4 years old at the time, so there wasn’t much to notice. Wow, as I write that, I thought they were actually older.
Way back then, I searched for future eclipses and saw that there was one in 2024. While it would be a number of years away, there was no harm in putting an annual calendar reminder in Google Calendar. So that’s what I did.
I had always assumed that we’d go to Buffalo to see it. While Buffalo isn’t exactly close, it does have Niagara Falls. With kids that are 10 and 11, maybe they’d be interested in a stop at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
When it came time to book in April of 2023, my wife said, “Why don’t we go to Stowe, Vermont?” That’s a lot closer for us in Rhode Island. Her real motive was transparent. She’s always been a huge Sound of Music fan, and the Trapp Family Lodge is there.
With the eclipse falling on Monday, we could go up there and spend the weekend, and the kids would only miss one day of school. The school was more than happy to be rid of our kids. I’m joking, but they had been studying eclipses in science, so it was a perfect field trip.
Costs of the Eclipse
Here’s what we spent roughly. I don’t have the exact numbers because my wife paid for a lot of the expenses. I’ve found that it’s better for me to just do the mental math in my head. I usually underestimate myself to make myself feel good. However, that’s not a big deal. We review finances every month. If spending is going too far out of control, we can just be more frugal for a month. After my last two articles about a two-week vacation and buying a new car, that’s what we are doing now.
As much as my wife liked the Trapp Family Lodge, she didn’t book our hotel there. I think the rates were high because it was a premium weekend. Since we were booking super early, the place we booked probably didn’t realize it. It’s the shoulder season for skiing, so a price of $200 a night was great. It was only for Saturday and Sunday. We decided to leave just after the eclipse on Monday afternoon to get the kids home.
Hotel: $400
We drove up on Saturday and stopped at Ben and Jerry’s headquarters so that we could pay our respects to all the deceased flavors of ice cream in their famous graveyard. We were too late in the day for a tour. It was also extremely busy. Rather than wait for a long time for a cone, we just bought pints of ice cream that you could have gotten anywhere. Nothing says nutrition, like a pint of ice cream for dinner. Put me in either the Parenting Hall of Fame or the Hall of Shame. I’m not sure which.
Here’s an interesting relevant flavor of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream in the graveyard:
From there, we went to the Cabot cheese store. It’s one of my son’s favorite cheeses. We grabbed a little mac and cheese, cheesy popcorn, and regular old cheese to go.
Saturday Pre-Hotel Tourism: $60
We continued on to check in at our hotel in Stowe, Vermont. I have been to Vermont, but not Stowe. It’s famous for its skiing. Big mountains and skiing everywhere. It seems like a tiny place outside of that. In a way, it’s the Bizarro World of our home in Newport, Rhode Island. Newport is all about sailing. We have a couple of other things like the Tennis Hall of Fame and huge mansions from the robber barons. I’m sure that Stowe has other stuff, too.
My wife was curious about how the skiing worked there. What’s the process? With so many mountains, it’s hard to figure out where to start. We drove by, but there wasn’t anyone official to talk to on Saturday night. We did find a few kind people who pointed us in the right direction.
We then went to Trapp Family Lodge to see what was going on there. Again, since it was so late, they weren’t running any tours. We settled for some drinks at the bar since they have their own brewery. No one wanted any food after all the ice cream. For the second time that day, I won the nutrition award – beer and ice cream aren’t a great mix for the stomach. At least the kids had root beer, so their stomachs must have been a nice root beer float.
Trapp Family Lodge: $35
We got back to the hotel, and my wife decided that we should spend the next day skiing. She’s skied since high school. My kids have been taking skiing and snowboarding lessons for the last five years or so. This was the first year that we didn’t do the lessons. They eat up much of the weekend in the wintertime. That’s one of the reasons why it made sense to go skiing on Saturday.
One problem: I don’t ski. I went with my wife once when we were dating. I took a less and got down the bunny slope once. By that time, I was done. It was too cold, my feet hurt, and I had fallen too many times. That was 19 years ago. Surely, it would be a great idea for me to give it another shot.
What kind of idiot learns to ski at age 48? This guy!
My wife went online and bought the passes and the ski rentals for Sunday. She had thrown her skis in the car at the last minute, so we saved a little money there.
Come Sunday, I decided that I’d go down the easiest slope with what I remember. It’s not much, but I figure that everything you really need to know about skiing was tucked away in my memory of playing skiing on the Atari 2600 when I was a kid. You just don’t want to point the skis downhill, or you’ll go too fast.
It seems like it might not be wise to get life advice from 40-year-old video games. Who could have imagined? I fell down a bunch of times and was just about to quit. My wife suggested that I get another lesson. I was extremely lucky in that they were just starting in five minutes. I had to rush down to pay, but they got me in.
The lesson was about 2-3 hours, but by the end, I was able to get down the easiest hill without falling – sometimes. The lesson gave time for my family to happily go and ski the intermediate slopes they were more comfortable with. My oldest does snowboarding and I was surprised that he could do intermediate slopes. My wife and younger son both just ski.
Just before lunch, we went back to do the bunny slope, and my family was impressed by my progress. They were probably yawning the whole way down. I should mention that the bunny slope isn’t very small like some ski places I’ve seen. It takes a good 3-4 minutes to get down it unless you are trying to race down it.
The price of lunch itself was eye-opening. We soon discovered why so many people brought their own food. A soda was $6. A very tiny cup of mac and cheese was around $15. The poor kid in the line in front of me didn’t have enough cash and had to put some food away. If you had an Epic Pass, their annual ski pass, prices seemed to drop in half. It was drastic.
After lunch, my family tried to bump me up to the next level beginner slope. They said it would be easy. Nope. I fell 4-5 times and ended up walking down the last part of the hill. At one point, my 10-year-old tried to coach me as he was skiing backward down the slope. That was mildly annoying. At least it was better than my 11-year-old and wife, who had ditched me long ago.
A young woman who was in my ski lesson saw me at the bottom and asked how that slope was. I told her that I fell a lot, but maybe she’d do better. I ended up seeing her later on the beginner slope with me. She said she had fallen a lot, too. That’s why we were back at the beginner slope. By the end of the day, we were both very good at that slope. There was no line, so we could just do it over and over again.
Day of Skiing: $1000
That’s not a typo, but maybe I’m over-estimating a little bit. My ski lesson was around $250, so with my rental and lift ticket, I was probably close to $500 alone. Maybe my kids got better rates, and my wife saved some money with her own gear. Even being as frugal as we could with lunch, that was probably another $50.
The good news is that the Epic Pass has a ginormous military discount. It saves a lot on lift tickets. I presume we can buy some used ski equipment cheaply. Future skiing trips wouldn’t be nearly as expensive.
Other than that, we just had Sunday night’s dinner and Monday’s lunch. Our hotel had a free breakfast. Our hotel had a mini golf course that we played Monday morning before the eclipse. It still cost us some money, though.
Remaining Meals and Entertainment: $200
The total eclipse itself was amazing. My wife said to the kids, “Well, that’s it. I can’t show you anything better. It’s all downhill from here.” You probably read enough about the eclipse last month if you were interested in it.
Final Thoughts and Costs
All those costs added up to $1,695. Throw in the cost of eclipse glasses and a tank of gas and let’s round it all up to $2,000.
That’s a lot for one weekend. However, we had a couple of unique experiences with the eclipse and skiing. Without skiing, we could have cut the cost in half. The skiing was a winning experience for all of us. I was proud of myself for not giving up, but even more proud of how good the kids were. It’s one thing to see them take lessons from far away, but it’s another to see them put those lessons to use. They wanted to do more advanced slopes, but my wife didn’t feel comfortable doing them herself and didn’t want to send them alone.
