Tim’s Missed Flight to Berlin

"Well, I thought I would be back, but not this soon," Tim said as I threw his suitcase in the back of my Honda CRV.  His Covid test came back negative two hours after his flight black to Berlin was supposed to leave.  With frustration, he opened the passenger door, sunk into the seat with a sigh and took off his mask.

 "At Least the weather is nice," I said as wet snow piled up against the windshield and I pulled onto I-205 north heading over the Glenn Jackson Bridge into Washington. "I wonder if its snowing at the Cone?"

Somewhere around the eight-hundred feet above sea level,  the slurry of snow and rain turned to snow and started sticking to the grass around the Douglas Firs.  By the one thousand foot mark, the snow was sticking everywhere. 

 "I think it's time to finally fire up the hot tub." Tim had been home since before Thanksgiving and we hadn't hot tubbed yet.

 "There's nothing like hot tubbing in the snow."

Grabbing a bunch of 2x4 cut offs from the Movie Mountain shop, we started both stoves. As the stoves heated up, falling snow sizzled when it hit the anodized stainless steel chimneys. The smoke turned from a thick grey to a heat mirage and the occasional flame blasting out the top of the chimney contrasting with the twilight. Once we had burned through a wheelbarrow full of cut offs, we switched to Douglas Fir cordwood.

Six years ago, we erected the twin turbo wood burning hot tub in its original form. Since then, the tub's got a lot use; from relaxing after long days during the building of the tree houses to summer parties and solo tubs during the fall and winter. It's starting to show its age. The red of the cedar has given way to a combination of grey and green from algae. The cedar top cover is slowly losing tongue and groove slats. Dents from windstorms and BB gun pellets cover the stainless steel chimneys. Despite all this, the stoves still hummed and twanged, melting the slush floating on top of the 400 gallon stock tank.

Over the next few hours, Andrew, Tim and I took breaks from watching Trading Places and Two Mules for Sister Sara and made the trip from the house to the tub to stoke the fires and check the temperature. Each trip, the new snow had covered our footsteps from the prior.

For the record, I think Trading Places might be Eddy Murphy’s best movie, especially in light of this recent bullshit with Hedge Funds and Game Stop. Dan Aykroyd is a maniac genius and Eddy Murphy is something else.

"Think it's ready?" Tim asked.

 "Ehh its getting there. I'm going to give it 10 more minutes," Andrew replied, stirring the water in the tub with an old wooden canoe paddle.

A hot tub, a cold beer and the first snow of the season.

I pulled half of the hot tub cover off and hopped in. Laying flat in the tub, I floated, keeping my body in the hot water at the top. Snowflakes hitting the tinging hot chimneys sizzled. From the house came Tim's signature cackles.

"How is it? Is it hot enough?"

"It feels great, It's definitely hot enough," I said as Tim pulled the other half of the hot tub cover off and got his 6'8 frame in, one leg at a time.

"I'm glad I missed my flight."

"Me too."

“I wonder when we’ll Tub again?” I asked fanning the hot water from the exhaust jet.

“Shit, I don’t know. Eri’s talking about coming back in September, but that seems so soon.”

Laying back I looked up at the tree houses above, tracking snow flakes as they missed the suspension bridge and fell towards the steaming tub. I guess that is soon I thought to myself.