snowboarding is hard!

Hello everyone!Friday evening Gina & I headed up Mt Hood to stay at her friend Sarah’s cabin just east of the town of Rhododendron. It was snowing there but the roads were still wet rather than icy. We got inside and after turning on the power and the water Gina immediately started a fire. It was 34 degrees outside and 40 degrees inside. We finished unpacking the car and spent the evening hovering around the woodstove and playing yahtzee and phase 10 and listening to music.

Saturday morning we woke up and made coffee & cooked up some eggs. We packed up and headed further up the mountain. Not too much further up the road we had to pull over to chain up as the roads were starting to get snowy and chains are required. We arrived at Ski Bowl where there was tons of fresh snow and patches of sun and blue sky. We signed up for a noon snowboarding lesson then went to rent our gear. There were about 10 people in our group which was taught by a 16 year old! It was his second year teaching at Ski Bowl. We learned how to walk up & down hill with one foot in the binding, how to turn left & right (heelside/toeside) then we went to the bunny hill. Even riding up the tow rope was more challenging than I envisioned. Of course it’s much easier to go up the hill on the tow rope rather than taking off your board and trudging to the top. I went down the hill, falling, getting back up, falling, getting back up, repeat, repeat. It was pretty tiring. I can see how it would be a lot more fun if you were actually going down the hill while standing up rather than falling. One time I only fell once on the hill. That was the best I could manage. It was fun but harder than I wanted it to be.

Scott drove up to meet Gina and we upgraded our tow rope passes to lower lift tickets so they could go down the big hill. We went in the bar and each had a beer before I drove back home and they stayed up for one more night. As I came down the mountain the roads cleared and I had to take the chains off (a dirty job if ever there was one!). It was nice to be back in green Portland after just an hour of driving away from the big snowy mountain. I went home and quickly showered then Camille and I went to Thatchers, one of our neighborhood bars, to meet Elaine for a beer. Camille had plans to meet her friend Jamie at the wine bar across the street so Elaine and I decided to walk across the street to get some dinner.

Ye Hala is a Lebanese restaurant just four blocks from my house. I’d eaten their food but this was the first time I ate in the restaurant rather than just takeout. There was a long wait for tables but we stuck it out, entertaining ourselves by walking through the international food market next door and ordering a glass of wine while we waited. When we were seated we ordered immediately and our food came fast. We had the meza platter (hummus, baba ganouche & tahini with fantastic flat bread) along with a kabob platter. We had a wonderful bottle of Pinot Noir to go with our incredible meal. It was amazingly good, the kind of food that one could easily get addicted to. We left the restaurant with full bellies and smiles and walked back to Thatchers where Jamie & Camille where hanging out again. We ordered beers and Elaine made paper boxes and those little fortune telling games that little girls love. Elaine decided to leave early and I bailed too, not wanting to stay at the smoky bar all night. I went the four blocks home and read my book and slept well.

I woke up Sunday with sore hips and thighs from snowboarding. It wasn’t from falling but rather from pulling myself back up on the board after falling. I showered then went to Elaine’s house to get my photos off the camera. I spent the afternoon editing my photos and doing laundry. Elaine and John came back from a round of frisbee golf and we hung out for a bit. Gina arrived from the mountain, having been rained out from another day of snowboarding. I went home and watched netflix and read my book.

So that was my weekend. The weather is being very bizarre today. It’s switched from rain to snow back to rain back to snow at least 20 times. Hopefully the roads don’t freeze until after the evening commute. It’s still a lot milder than the winters of Wisconsin that I grew up with but this has definitely been the coldest winter I’ve had since moving to Portland, though my daffodils are still trying to bloom. ha!

Please let me know what you’ve been doing and how you are. I hope all is well!

xoxo,
carolyn