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Four young college girls on a skiing vacation have to find other things to do when an excess of new snow traps them in their cabin. This is the eighth in this series and continues the adventures of The Three J's and Sara at Mountain Lodge Resort.
This story might make more sense if you have read the previous days of "Three J's and an S Go Skiing"
For the most part, the stories in this series are pretty mild.
If you are looking for heavy duty stuff, try one of my other story series.
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Ron and Judy, Kevin and Julie, Joan and Sara were sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast when Ron's cellphone rang - his regular cellphone, not the snow rescue satellite phone. He stepped away from the table to answer it and came back several minutes later looking upset.
"Well," he said, "do you want the good news first or the bad news."
"Let's go with good first," answered Julie.
"The lodge will be open for business as of 9:00 this morning. They are booked solid and expect to be full to capacity by nightfall."
"And the bad news?" asked Judy.
"They found a problem in the cable for the chair lift on this side of the mountain and it will have to stay shut down for another day at least. It looks like it took a lightning strike in that thundersnow we had just before Christmas and there is a burnt spot in the cable. It takes a special machine to cut out a section and re-splice, so they have to wait for the repair people to get here tomorrow."
"So what does that mean?" asked Julie.
"It means that you have a choice between the bunny hill with its rope pull to get up the little slope or the black diamond slope on the other side. The Mogul Hill is more or less open, but that is 'expert only' even when it has been properly groomed. We can get you up to the lodge, and you can ski back down here to the cabin, but the chairlift on this side is a no go until sometime late tomorrow."
"The bunny hill doesn't sound like much fun, and I don't think I can handle the expert slopes," said Sara. "I will just stay here and watch TV or whatever."
"I'll stay with Sara," said Joan. "We'll find something to do."
"I'll bet you will," snickered Judy.
"Everything doesn't have to be about sex," harumph Julie. "Two people can just sit and watch TV together."
"Maybe the Sara and Joan we knew last week before we came up here could just sit and watch TV together all day," responded Judy, "but I think we have all changed - a lot - in the last few days. "
Sara replied, "There's satellite TV and a strong internet connection. Joan and I are going to research some of her genealogy that we were talking about the other day. It looks like there might be some interesting stuff hidden away in the closets of her family tree."
"Hope you don't find too many horse thieves and ladies of the night buried back there," said Judy as she repressed a laugh. "Who knows what you might turn up if you started digging through my family's closets."
"We could come back early for lunch and see if you have changed your mind." said Ron.
"You four have fun on the slopes," said Joan. "We'll expect you back in about three hours. Sara and I will be OK here."
"We'll be more that OK," started Sara, and the rest joined her to finish with "we'll be fine... mighty fine."
Ron, Judy, Kevin and Julie were still laughing as they walked out onto the deck and down into the yard.
After they had left, Joan turned to Sara and said, "So, does this genealogical research begin with getting out a key that my aunts have hidden in that strange bench of theirs?"
"Like I said," replied Sara, "I'll bet there's some interesting stuff hidden away in your family closets. Why else would they go to so much trouble to hide the key?"
"Maybe so we wouldn't play with their toys like we have with the Jurgensen's." answered Joan.
"It probably isn't dishwasher safe," suggested Sara, "because whatever is in that closet wouldn't fit in the dishwasher. If it wouldn't fit in those big drawers, it has to be something big."
"Shall we begin our research?" asked Joan.
"After you," replied Sara with a bow and a sweep of her hand.
When they got downstairs, Sara said that she would go get the key and walked out into the area under the deck. When she returned, she was carrying the entire bench. "I was thinking...," she began, "This weird bench, or whatever it is, was probably expensive to have made. It has a lot of expensive looking hard wood in it. The very top portion adjusts up and down, and it is reinforced with steel where the wood joins together. I'll bet this has something to do with what is in that little closet."
"So let's see what is in the closet," replied Joan as she set the bench on end and pressed the dark knot in the wood that opened the secret drawer.