75th Diamond Jubilee at Greek Peak: Willow's Perspective

Once again, we've asked Willow Riston to give her perspective on a Land Rover club event. Willow is a twelve-year-old Land Rover enthusiast, who grew up around Rovers with her father, Eric Riston, Atlantic British's Senior Retail Sales Representative and Land Rover Club Liaison.

Hello, I’m Willow, the newest ROVERLOG writer on the Atlantic British team. I've been tapped to cover the 75th Diamond Jubilee at Greek Peak from a kid’s point of view. My dad went to the 50th anniversary and told me all about it, so I was really excited. My dad and I have been working on his Series truck for many a weekend and had gotten it all put together just for this event -- and for more in the future!

After a long ride to Cortland, New York, we finally made it. The event sprawled to take up the entire Greek Peak Ski Resort, and I don’t think we could have rented a better house (three floors and a gaming room!) Couldn’t be better. My friends and I had the whole basement for us to play games, watch movies, and be closest to the hot tub.

That first morning is always the hardest. it’s either you wake up and forget where you are, or you wake up at the crack of dawn. By the time my roommates had awoken, I was up and ready to run, though I was still in pajamas. So, I was the one making everyone wake up, get dressed, and get ready for the full day ahead of us.

Once everyone was finally motivated to get upstairs and join the rest of the crew in the kitchen, it was about 8:30. By that time all driving adults had run out of the house for the drivers meeting, and we hadn’t even had breakfast yet, so we then had to really get moving - like get shoes on grab something quickly to eat and leave. Somehow, we had enough time to braid each other’s hair, and we were off.

We finally got down to base camp. By noon I had gotten in my father’s truck and had taken off to the mountain. Slipping and sliding through the trails we went! We saw lots of amazing views, and from the top of the mountain, you could see the whole event! I have to say, sitting in the back of a Series on an aluminum box is a lot of hard work, I had to brace myself for every little bump we had to get through.

Thankfully enough, by 3:00pm we had returned from the trails and had found a place to sit and eat a late lunch. By the time we got to lunch, I was starving, so we got to ordering pretty fast. We ordered an amazing appetizer - it was the biggest pretzel I had ever seen! After lunch, I was super tired, so we drove back to the house to finish our afternoon in the hot tub, but our day wasn’t over yet! We ended the day with the big dinner with everyone to celebrate the event!

Saturday morning it was time to awaken, and we got ready to get on the trails. I decided to go on the trails with my mom and her friends. We drove down to camp to pack up and get on the mountain. We ran into a problem, however. One of the trucks in our line had broken an engine mount, and his truck was overheating. So that was a setback, and back down the mountain we went. We got that figured out finally, and headed back up the great loop trail headed to the top. Finally, we arrived at the top with the most amazing view, but man was it windy and I get cold easily so I did end up staying in the truck.

After about another hour and a half later, everyone had finished lunch and had started to group back up to head back down the mountain and relax at the house. I hopped in the hot tub to warm up and loosen all those stiff muscles, from then to about seven I was relaxing and making sure to make some time for myself. At seven we headed back down to base camp to have a late dinner and to watch the outdoor movie.

My roommate had gathered up some kids for hide-n-seek which was really fun, because I disguised myself so I could be in plain sight but still win. After playing our game for about an hour, the movie had just started, so our friend’s old Series fire truck collected people to stand on the back of the truck and watch the movie.

The last morning had finally come. We were all very tired and could have slept for the rest of the day but we had one more fun trip we had to do - the Mountain Coaster (a single-sled roller coaster that gravity-feeds down the mountain!). My friend, mom, and I all went, which was awesome because my mom had never gone before, and my friend and I were experts because we knew most of the rules and how the cart worked. After our fun three rides we had to head back to drop off my friend so we could head home. Base camp was empty, all remnants of the event were gone, and we headed home.

Lots of people enjoy Rovers just as they are, lots of adults start their kids early and that lets kids have so many new adventures with them. Land Rovers may lead the way or open another mysterious door that leads to a new adventure!