I haven't given up. Not by a long shot.
But I know my Oktoberfest last weekend was costly. I've spent most of this week losing the weight I gained during this experience. And the thing was, it wasn't the best experience in the world.
First of all, Big Bear is absolutely beautiful. So much green (and when you live in the desert, that is a huge deal). We drove up, stopped by the place we were staying (a little two bedroom cabin that was a little outdated, but clean and had its own working stove), dropped off our things, and went straight to Oktoberfest. I already knew I wasn't going to stay clean this weekend, but I figured the fun I'd have would be worth it. Once we paid our admission and got in, we claimed our steins and my son (who I was wearing on my back) started getting antzy. There were no places to sit and we couldn't find the booth that was doing the food that we wanted to eat (roast beef, rosemary chicken, and potato dumplings), so we ended up settling for a chicken apple brat (which was amazingly tasty). The beer sucked too--no real German beers, all Budweizer crap products. So we finished our beer and sauages and drove back to the room to figure out what our plan would be.
We stopped by the store to get supplies for breakfast (I made French Toast) and went to the village for dinner. I had done some research and we stopped at a Mexican restaurant where I had a cheese enchillada, a shredded beef taco, rice and beans, then headed back to the room, where we discovered that the heater didn't work. We called the front desk immediately and the desk manager came to investigate. She said she would send maintenance to check out the heater in the next half hour. In the meantime, we started bundling up (the outside temps were hovering around 40 degrees and don't forget, we had just came from the desert).
An hour later, we called the front desk again and quickly discovered that they don't employ a 24-hour front desk person (which blew our minds because literally every place we've stayed before has). So we tried calling the emergency line from our room with no answer. My husband finally had to call the emergency number from his cell phone, where he got in touch with the building owner who apologized and said they would send someone over immediately to fix the heater.
Ten minutes later, 2 maintenance guys came to the room. By that time, our son was asleep so they had to try to light the pilot light to the heater in the dark as quietly as humanly possible. When that didn't work, they said they'd get us space heaters.
They got us ONE space heater, which we kept in the room my son was sleeping in. Luckily the bed had a bunch of heavy blankets, but that room was freezing the rest of our stay there.
The next morning, I showered, made breakfast, then checked out. The hotel offered us no apologizes and no compensation for our crappy stay. Needless to say, we'll never stay there again.
So, I gained 3 pounds for a crappy weekend. What a trade-off.
But I'm back, I'm focused, and determined to make the most of the next 9 days! It ain't over till it's over!