March 10 – 14, 2007
Will flew home from college late on Friday night with his ski gear. Saturday we went to the Apple store to drop off his computer for repair and then hit the road for Bend. We drove over via Biggs Junction and it took exactly six hours. We stayed at the Riverhouse which had cheap rooms and a 4-day-for-the-price-of-3 ski lift deal. We went out that night to eat at the sushi place we always go to and found a hole in the gound instead. We ate at Cork (“Bend’s restaurant of the year”) and it was very good.
Sunday was the spring start of daylight savings time and “spring ahead” means set the clock to an early time. We discoverd that we hadn’t closed the deadbolt on the door to our room when a maid burst into our room at 9:00 – when we thought it was still 7:00. Will was suffering from a cold but we skied all day. It was hot and I should have put on sunscreen. The summit chair was open. Offpiste was pretty slushy but we ripped up the groomed and had ourselves a good day. We had dinner that night at the Deschutes Brewery brewpub and that was good, too.
Monday it rained – the mountain was in clouds and it drizzled periodically. We took a long break for latte before we started and then skiied for about three hours without stopping – mainly outback and skyliner. The snow was very soft and wet. We got very wet and called it a day at 2:00. We found that the bookstore we always go to in Bend had moved across the street. We spend more time in the gamming/manga store than in the book store. We went to the used CD place. At 5:30 we were on the doorstep of the Thai place when it opened. We stopped at a Riteaid for actifed for Will but they wouldn’t sell us anything without a prescription.
Monday night everything froze up and Tuesday was boilerplate. I struggled more than Will but on our second run we found a pair of skiis and maybe half-a-mile below an injured skier. Will reported her to the lift operators and we went in or a long latte break. We found the snow softer lower down and spent the rest of the day on Skyliner (returning to outback for four or five runs at the end of the day.) That night we went to the Tumalo Feed Company for steak – we won’t be back. (A steakhouse is supposed to be like Palm in New York or like the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle or like Hy’s in Whister – not like something out of Grand Ol’ Opry.)
Wednesday morning will thought he was going to die and I really didn’t feel like skiing ice only to have the mountain warm up just when we had to leave – so we packed up and checked out at 9:00. We drove back over Mt. Hood and it took just over 6 hours, including a quick lunch at Subway in Longview. We picked up Will’s computer from the Apple store and were home just after 6:30.