Rainy Day Shenanigans

Unlike the day prior, the view when we woke up on this day, was not quite as beautiful:

So much for our plans on hiking the trails around Mount Cook!

We decided to check out the visitor's center to kill some time, waiting for the weather to clear.

It's a nice enough visitor's center, but it's not how you want to spend your day.

But they do have this guy:

And This:

There's also a replica of an old hiker's hut

And the view isn't bad, even with the rain.

The weather actually just got worse as we were there, so we decided to go eat some breakfast at a fancy lodge that had reportedly good breakfast (True), but after our delicious breakfast is when our luck really started to tank.

You see, this lodge also has a movie theater portion that shows a film about Sir Edmund Hilary's ascent of Everest as well as an observatory. Thinking we had a lot of time to kill, we decided to just check those out. Sorry, Team! Theater is broken.

OK.  So back to our own lodge to go play cards and watch movies in the big community room area.

Cards were fine. Weather was awful.

So then it's time to try to watch a movie.  We get half-way through some weird movie, and it just stops. Won't play anything past that spot in the movie... What a waste of time! So we then put in a different movie, and it does the same thing!!! So we watched the first half of two different movies before losing our minds.

Suffering from cabin fever, we decide to just venture out in the rain and take goofy pictures. Turns out, there aren't a lot of great spots to take hilarious pictures in the middle of nowhere in the rain, but I think we did a pretty good job given the circumstances:

"Look like a Hooker!"

Senior Pics!

'Look Desperate!'

"Look Thirsty!"  I personally think she nailed this one!

"Act like it's not freezing and raining and the most depressing day ever"

And I have to admit this one was completely without direction... We just walked around the back of that building and I was like "Got it!"  and BAM! It just felt right.  This is just a great lesson in trusting your instincts, amiright????

When we had taken all the cold and rain we could handle, we started to head back to our lodge, but then decided, "Why don't we just drive 45minutes down to the nearest grocery store to buy stuff to make cookies?"

So after a quick pause for the cause, (When Nature Calls, you just have to answer)

we hit the road down to Twizel to get some provisions to kill the rest of this day.

We made one trip through the grocery store to get cookie supplies. On our way out of town, we spotted a dump truck and bulldozer set up as a display you can climb around on, and it was partially covered. Since that was one of the most interesting things we had seen all day, we felt like it was worth a stop.

And Well... I've spent time in worse ways...

But moving along, we got back in the car and decided we should probably just go back to that grocery store and get some stuff for supper too. So we went back and chatted with the cashier lady again and bought some supper stuff and headed back up to Mount Cook Village to settle in for an exciting night in the lounge.

And after one more HILARIOUS photoshoot at the front door, we set to the task of feeding ourselves and making cookies like it was our job.

Grandma always said to 'measure carefully'....

And 5 or 6 batches of cookies later, we had enough cookies to feed the entire village:

They were delicious.

Don't believe me? Ask this English couple that we gave a bunch to. They were stranded there with us all day, suffering through the half-movies, reading their books, worrying about us while we were out on our photoshoot/roadtrip, then eating cookies with us as we watched the Commonwealth Games, trying to decide how many countries are actually in the British Commonwealth... 

And that was the day that did not go according to plan. But that doesn't mean we didn't have a good time. I think the lesson we all learned is that When Life gives you Lemons, you should go get breakfast, attempt to watch movies in a theater, but if that's broken, go play cards, then watch the first half of two different movies, then go play in the rain and take ridiculous pictures, then go on a mission to get cookie supplies, play in the rain a little more, then make a boatload cookies, and give them to anyone around.  Then just go to bed early and hope that the weather is better tomorrow.

Plus, it can only get better from there, right?  Right??? well, kinda...