The hotel itself is a sight to see, with or without Christmas decorations. It is HUGE:
A large portion of it is an indoor garden with a river inside; we even saw people on a little boat tour.
Our evening was lovely and almost ended without a hitch.
We saw lovely trees, some even made from poinsettias, a nativity out front and LOTS of lights.
We decided - unfortunately - to take one last stroll through the indoor garden.
We rounded a corner and saw this lovely gazebo that I snapped a picture of:
I noticed that couple with the man trying to take his wife's picture. As we passed them, I asked if they would like me to take their photo. The wife eagerly said, "Yes! Thank you."
Well, as it is said: no good deed goes unpunished!
I took one photo, no problem.
However, I realized I didn't get the top of the gazebo in the shot so I said I would take one more picture to get the full picture.
I didn't think to look behind me before I took a step back... right into the little river behind me.
Yes. I fell in!?!
Fortunately, it was only like 2 and a half feet deep and once I got my feet under me, I didn't panic but hopped right back out.
My main focus was to NOT drop their phone in with me. By a miracle, I didn't drop their phone or mine or my jacket in the water.
However, my entire hiney and both my legs were soaked. Scott wasn't too embarrassed to take a picture of me after ;)
This is the little part of the river that I fell in:
My bum hit the bricks of that little island where the plants were. Pictured below is the stain left on the backside of my bluejeans. Not pictured is the dark purple bruise left on my bum.
The lady felt awful and they said they saw it coming but not in time to warn me, and felt awful. Scott saw it coming too but he thought I would look back to see where I was stepping or would take a smaller step and be able to catch myself. But, no, I took a huge step back, right into the river.
The look on that lady's face was pretty priceless. I told her not to worry, that this sort of thing happened to me all the time; I even told her my nickname is Sarah Grace. Scott said that he felt more uncomfortable and embarrassed for her because he knew I did this often but she clearly felt bad.
We laughed it off and wished each other a merry Christmas before parting ways, both with a great photo and story!
I was just grateful I wasn't really hurt and hadn't ruined either of our phones... and that the lights were dimmed so the whole hotel couldn't see my soaking wet pants as we had a long walk back to the exit of that ginormous hotel.
It was cold outside so we rushed home to get me out of my soaking bottoms so we could slip into warm pjs and then we warmed up with some delicious hot cocoa!
It was a cold, wet Christmas memory and I learned my lesson the hard way but now I know to look behind me before I take my next picture ;)
Merry Christmas from Sarah Grace!
