My Dog and I#5
By Aarav, 13
After Axl had healed fully and was able to have a normal life with no cone around his neck, we had taken him to Lake Tahoe, California. Axl had never been to Tahoe and since he is a husky, he would get to experience snow for the first time. It was the month of March, so there was quite a bit of snow remaining from winter. We always go to Tahoe for skiing usually in February. This time was different since Axl had been bitten. We had to stay back and make sure he was comfortable while he had the cone on.
We looked at the forecast the week before we left to make sure we were prepared in case there was any snow or rain. Sure enough, there was. It was snowing that weekend. We had gotten snow chains for our car and were ready to go. Little did we know we were in for a devastating 10 hours.
At around 3 p.m., we departed to Tahoe on Friday after I had finished school. Thinking we were going to get there in a few hours, I was excited since we were going to be there for the evening. Axl was already in the car adjusting for the next few hours to come. I had started watching a movie since I wanted to pass time instead of doing nothing for the next 4 hours. Around midway of the trip, we had to charge our car. While it was charging, we went into a nearby Target and got a few snacks for the rest of the trip. We had kept in mind that there was potential snow near Tahoe so we got the right amount of snacks to keep us from hunger. We also let Axl walk a bit since he was stuck in the car and needed exercise. Within 30 minutes, we were on our way.
We had started our ascent to the mountains within the hour. I kept on looking outside since one question kept recurring in my mind: “Are we there yet?” Suddenly, I felt the vehicle slow down. This was when I realized in front of us was a huge load of traffic. We had seen a line of red lights throughout the mountains and we were not even close to ready for this much traffic. We had then realized it was snowing. In the next 2 hours, we keep on crawling at a peak of 10 miles per hour. It was pitch black outside except for the fact that there were at least hundreds of cars beaming red and white lights. Axl had woken up since the car kept moving and stopping. He thought we reached our destination. We comforted him and eventually, he got used to it and kept on sleeping. Munching on our snacks, we were waiting or a signal or movement to show the end of the traffic, but it was nowhere in sight.
After waiting for another hour, it was almost 11 pm. Axl was fast asleep and we were still waiting for anything we could catch our eye on. Eventually, we saw men in yellow jackets assisting people. They were helping other people attach the snow chains on their vehicle. We eventually found a spot and we called for a man to attach our snow chains. The problem with our chains, is we had trouble attaching them on the car when we tested them at home. The man helped attach them, but it was not going in. He eventually got a mallet and started banging them in so it would not fall off. After a good 20 minutes, he finally found a way to put all 4 of the chains in and we were set to go. We joined back on the road, and some of the traffic cleared up. We were so impatient we wanted to go quick, but with chains on we had to go under 30 miles an hour so they wouldn’t break. After 30 minutes with the chains on, my dad and I got out of the car to remove the chains. We were allowed to as the ice on the road had cleared up.
After that, we were in Tahoe within the hour. Since we had Axl, we had to rent out an Airbnb. It was 1 am when we reached and we were all hungry. Nothing was open so we had to go to a local McDonald’s and brought it back to our Airbnb. We ate and then slept since my brother and I had skiing lessons the next day.
At around 9 am in the morning, we woke up to get ready for our lessons. I had changed when my dad told us we weren’t going since there was still snow on the road and he didn’t want the struggle to put the chains back on. We had decided to spend the day in Reno as it was very close to where we were staying. We went on a walk and decided to eat at a nearby restaurant. Then we came back and rested for a bit. During the night, we went to a hotel and ate there. We did some bowling and had a lot of fun.
The next day, we got to ski. This was a free ski where we had no lessons. My brother and I had gone to the top of the mountain and utilized our time to ski the most. We had skied for a total of six hours as we wanted to make up for the last day that we missed. We got refunded, but it was the experience that mattered. Overall, it was a fun trip in the end. In the end, Axl did get to experience snow for the first time.
