Mat's Engaged!

Originally Posted 2/19/23

Event Date 2/12/25-2/18/25

Photo of a man and a woman standing outdoors in the snow. The man (Mat) is wearing a white flowery shirt with blue bottoms, and is helping the woman with a ring on her finger. The woman (Abigail) is in a pink dress, pink shall, heels, and holding a boquet of bright flowers

My best friend got engaged! I want to talk about the entire trip, and so will break up this post into a couple of different sections.

History

I've known Mat since middle school. We both were in the same Spanish class, and I don't really remember much more than that. We sort of just started talking and hanging out, and then kept doing that.

Mat moved away after the 8th grade - his parents had only been in the area because they were going to a graduate school in the area, and now that they were finished with that they were moving on to their next thing. For the next number of years Mat moved around a lot - to different places within the US, to fundraising with his church across the country, to his home in Palau.

While Mat was moving around, we were lucky if we spoke to each other more than once a month, or once every few months. We kept up via email for the longest time. For a while we were both interested in writing, so we tried writing something together to sort of force us to stay in contact. While he was in the US, we usually tried to see each other about once a year in person. When he was in Palau however, communication was hard because they had limited internet. But, throughout all the years, we stayed in touch. If there was something important going on usually one of us would reach out to the other to try to find time to talk, usually through Skype or something.

Mat decided to come back to the US for college. He decided to go to a school called Hiram in Ohio. I was able to visit him once or twice while he was in college, and similarly he was able to visit me once or twice while I was in college. Largely though we still spoke roughly once a month or so, as we were both busy with school. There were some times during breaks however we'd talk more, or play video games (at one point we played through all the Dark Souls games! Just took us a couple of years).

Once Mat finished college is when we really started talking more regularly. Probably about once a week on average, though some weeks we talk a lot more. Mat decided to join a program to learn coding, and just recently got a full time job. We've been able to keep up pretty consistent contact since he's been in the program, and working a full time job, and it's been great!

Mat and his fiance, Abigail, met while in college. They've been together I believe 7 or 8 years at this point. It's been really amazing to watch them grow, both individually and together, and they're both really excited about the next chapter in their relationship!

A bit of a funny side story, both Mat and I obviously knew of each others plans to propose, and there was a brief moment where it looked like we might propose to our SOs on the same day. Unfortunately, it did not shake out that way.

Pre-Trip

The original plan was to celebrate Mat and Abigail's engagement on Friday, February 14th (Valentines Day). Michelle and I were going to leave on Thursday to drive to Ohio (about a 10 hour drive nonstop for us), get to an AirBnB, and be well rested to celebrate on Friday. However, as the time came closer, it looked like we were going to be having a snowstorm here in Vermont on Thursday. So Tuesday night, Michelle and I decided to leave on Wednesday instead, to try and beat out the storm. We reached out to the Airbnb host to ask if we could extend the reservation, and they said it should be fine, we'd just have to make the adjustments in the Airbnb app. I did, and let them know I made the adjustments, and then it was up to them to approve the adjustment.

Wednesday morning we headed out bright and early, and began our trip to Ohio. I downloaded an audiobook that I thought Michelle and I would like ("Out of the Woods" by Hannah Bonam-Young) to help us pass the time. We hadn't heard back from the Airbnb folks by the time we started driving, but figured worst case scenario we'd find somewhere else to stay.

The drive there was fine. No real issues. Messaged the Airbnb folks a few times with no responses throughout the drive. It ended up taking us about 12 hours with stops included. The Airbnb listing included a number to call, so we ended up calling it with about 3 hours left in the drive asking if it was okay to extend the trip, and they finally confirmed yes. With that, we drove on to the Airbnb.

Visiting

Thursday we spent the day largely just hanging out, played some Magic, and largely just vibed. Mat and Abigail live with a couple they've known since college, and so it was nice just hanging out with everyone. The Airbnb folks got back with the bill to extend the stay, and wanted payment pretty quickly. While I understand wanting quick payment, especially since we had done things last minute, it just felt sort of bad to basically be ignored by them for a day, but once they asked for money they wanted it paid immediately. It seems like the Airbnb we booked is apart of a larger organization or group of people who own Airbnbs, and so it was the larger group getting ahold of us for payment. So I'm not sure if they were waiting on our host to get back to them? Either way, minor annoyance.

Friday was the big day! We weren't really having the celebration itself until later in the day, so we spent the morning largely playing Rivals of Aether, and again sort of just vibing. In the evening they were having some more friends come over to celebrate, as well as get dinner afterwards. I got a bit annoyed, because I had tried making room on my DSLR camera so I wouldn't run out of space taking photos of people for the celebration, however I forgot with Macs you have to actually empty the trash for things to be deleted. So I ended up having to rapidly do that while everyone was hanging out. Not the worst thing, but sort of beat myself up over it a bit. I did end up getting some nice photos though! Also, bit of a fun side story, when we all went to the sushi place I ordered orange chicken only to remember that I'm slightly allergic to oranges.

Photo of Josh, Michelle, and Mat on a couch playing a video game. They are all smiling, and you can see a Playstation 5 controller in Michelle's hands

Here Josh, Michelle, and Mat were playing Rivals of Aether off of my Steam Deck. Michelle usually doesn't enjoy these sorts of games, so it was great seeing her having a good time!

Another photo of Josh, Michelle, and Mat on a couch playing Rivals of Aether. You can see Mat's face better, and both him and Josh look happy
photo of a napping brown cat with black stripes on a blue pillow

A photo of one of Mat and Abigail's cats, Peacan. A very sweet cat, reminded me a lot of my cat Thor.

photo of Pecan licking themselves photo of Josh and Mat playing Rivals of Aether. You can see Josh with a red PS4 controller and Mat with a purple PS5 controller. They're both smiling
photo of Josh and Mat playing Rivals of Aether, Mat is looking at Josh while in mid laugh

This is the moment Mat beat Josh at Rivals of Aether

photo of Josh leaning on some stairs while making a peace sign and having his eyes closed. he's also smiling slightly Photo of Michelle holding a dog toy, a brown german shepherd mix dog named Jaeger looking at the dog toy while laying down, and another black dog Midna sniffing Michelle's knee Photo of Mat giving Peacan a loving head bop Photo of Mat sitting down with his fiance, Abigail, standing next to him with her hand on his shoulders. Mat is in a white shirt with pink flowers on it, while Abigail is in a pink dress
A photo of Abigail in her pink dress, pink shawl, blue heels, and a boquet of flowers she's holding standing in the snow

I think this is my favorite photo from the whole trip

A portrait photo of Abigail standing in her pink dress, pink shawl, blue heels, and a boquet of flowers she's holding standing in the snow Photo of Mat and Abigail standing outdoors in the snow. TMat is wearing a white flowery shirt with blue bottoms, and is helping Abigail with a ring on her finger. Abigail is in a pink dress, pink shall, heels, and holding a boquet of bright flowers
Photo of Mat, Josh, and Bren standing in a doodrway with Josh's arms around everyone. They're all smiling

We went to an all you can eat sushi place after celebrating a bit at Mat and Abigail's place

A photo of Michelle and Josh looking over a menu at the sushi restaurant

Michelle jokes that this is when she really started to like Josh - because they ordered food that they could share together

A closeup photo of Michelle trying to hold chopsticks, while Abigail tries to show her what to do, and Mat sits in the background looking on

Michelle had never used chopsticks before, and pretty much everyone began trying to explain to her how to do so.

A photo of Mat and Bren using chopsticks to hold up a pencil A photo as the pencil falls from mat and Brens chopsticks A photo of Michelle excited that she was able to pick up the pencil with her chopsticks A photo of everyone at the table with their sushi in front of them

Saturday was back to hanging out. We played more Magic, I took a nap at some point. We played more Rivals of Aether, some Lethal League. Bren told us about this game called Dokapon Kingdom she loved to play as a kid, and so we bought it on Steam and tried it out! I want to say we also played some Jackbox games this night. Michelle and I also decided to extend our trip again - we were originally planning to leave on Sunday, however there was a snowstorm that was going to hit Vermont on Sunday. So, we decided to stay another night to try and avoid the storm, and reached out to the Airbnb lady again to see if we could extend the stay again. It was pretty late at night when we texted her, but she responded saying it'd be fine! This worked out well since Michelle and I had Monday off for a holiday, and so while it wasn't going to be fun immediately going to work on Tuesday, it'd be better than driving in a snowstorm.

Sunday was more hanging out - Magic the Gathering, Rivals of Aether, Jackbox games I think. Kind of annoyingly, the Airbnb pepole/ company that our Airbnb person seemed to be apart of reached out again with a bill for our extended stay, asking for us to pay it as soon as possible. When I got the bill I was in the middle of a Magic game with my friends, so figured I'd pay the bill once we finished up with that. However, they called me 20 minutes later urging me to pay the bill as soon as possible. I ended up just paying it right then and there, but it was again a bit annoying that they took half a day to get back to us, but seemingly wanted us to respond to them within 20 mminutes.

We left early Monday morning, and the roads weren't great. It wasn't quite a snowstorm, but there was a decent amount of snow and ice on the roads. On the interstate, I almost crashed into an Ambulance because the cars in front of me slowed down without me realizing it. By the time I hit my brakes, my car began to slide almost directly into the parked ambulance, who was helping another crash. Fortunately, I did not hit anyone.

We stopped at one point for lunch, and Michelle walked Cooper. We continued on our way and not even 10 minutes later Cooper pooped a bit in the car. This was incredibly frustrating given Michelle had just walked him. It's also tough in the winter walking him because he tries to eat as much snow as he can, which makes him sick. But, you can't keep his head from being near the snow, because he needs to sniff the ground to go to the bathroom. He has taken to even eating the snow while he is pooping. Anyways, the next rest stop was about 20 minutes away, where we stopped and tried to track down towels (paper or regular ones). Unfortunately, this rest stop didn't have any, so we had to settle for some napkins. Michelle cleaned out the poop the best she could, we bought a tarp to put over everything just in case, and we were on our way again.

I drove for awhile while Michelle napped, but eventually I started getting tired. So Michelle took over the driving, and I went to sleep. I woke up about an hour later as Michelle was trying to stop the car but it was sliding a bit down an icy hill. Luckily it did stop, but at that point I was awake. After a little bit, the driving conditions became basically a whiteout. We were caught in some sort of snowstorm, and could barely see anything in front of us. Michelle pulled over into the first parking lot we could find, as we tried to figure out where we were. We were somewhere in New York, past Rochester, possibly near the finger lakes. We had no cell service though with our own phones, and my work cell phone only had about one bar of service on it. I had brought my handheld HAM radio with us, and it gets the NOAA weather channels. Turned it on and started listening and... the forecast was not good. Lake effect snow, whiteout conditions until at least Tuesday, possibly Wednesday in some areas the broadcast covered. We also had somehow gotten emergency alerts on our phones saying the NY Government was telling people to not drive because the roads were so bad. Talking it over with Michelle, we decided to try and find a place to stay and wait out the storm. We'd have to take another day off of work, but it was better than risking totaling the car or worse.

I got out of the car to see where we had pulled in, and it turned out to be the towns bar. It turned out we were in Ohio, New York (Michelle and I have joked a lot that we drove 10 hours that day to go from Ohio to Ohio), and had managed to pull into Haskells Inn. I walked in and there were about 6 or so people in there, plus the bartender. I started asking around if anyone knew about a hotel or motel in the area we'd be able to get to to wait out the storm. Everyone in there was super nice, and pretty much all of them either owned Airbnbs or knew people who owned an Airbnb. Some folks even helped me look on Airbnb to try to find a place. Luckily, someone in there knew a guy who owned an Airbnb up the road, and it was available. The person who helped us I belive his name is Mark, and the Airbnb owner is Chris. The previous renters had left earlier that day, so it hadn't been cleaned yet for us, but Chris said we were more than welcome to stay there if we'd like. We gladly accepted, and followed Mark up to the place. We actually lost sight of him for a moment because of how bad the storm was. The cabin though was absolutely gorgeous! A wonderful cabin and we couldn't be more grateful to Chris for letting us stay there! The place is called "Camp Utter One" if you're looking for it! We stayed the night, and headed home the next day. Michelle and I have spoken about the experience - finding a bar, talking with locals to find shelter. It honestly felt like something out of a video game or DnD campaign to me - roll up on a town and try to get lodging and quests lol.

A photo of a snow covered landscape, looking at a covered bridge, from out a window inside of the Cabin
A photo of a snow covered cabin. There is a lot of snow on the ground and roof. The snow was roughly knee deep. You can see some firewood stacked on the outside of the cabin

You can really see how deep the snow was. It was roughly knee deep for me, and I'm about 5 foot 9.

another shot of the exterior of the cabin, this time a bit closer up
Photo of a Subaru Outback with its trunk open in deep snow

The snow here was coming up to the bottom side of my car. As I drove over the snow to try to get in and out of the driveway, you could see rust and stuff rub off onto the snow beneath my car. Luckily when Mark had driven us to this place, he had a lifted truck and was able to drive through the snow, leaving tracks for me to follow behind. The driveway itself was U shaped, with two entrances/ exits to the road. I had the foresight to get my car turned around the night before, and thankfully I did. The snow ended up getting a lot deeper, and I'm not sure I would've been able to get out had I had to try to reverse out. The tracks from the night before were completely covered when we went to leave Tuesday morning.

We ended up leaving Tuesday morning. It was a bit tough getting out of the driveway, but the rest of the way home was pretty uneventful. It's definitely a trip and story we'll remember for a long time.