Christmas Ski

Yesterday after some homemade pancakes in my belly, we went xc skiing. 4 hours of breaking trail in deep powder was exhausting. All we could do after is sit on the couch and eat. Perfect day.

XC Ski Weekend

Saturday we were up early and went xc skiing at Swampy. It was a lot of trail breaking in deep powder since we were the first ones up to the Swede Shelter. Plenty of snow and relatively good weather. Sore legs.

Sunday we skied downtown to The Summit and joined some friends for beers. It was then settled that we are going to try our hand at homebrewing in the new year. That's an easy enough resolution to keep.

Sunday up at the shelter.







Derek on his way for beers.



Me skiing along the river on the way downtown.

Ski!

The snow was so light and dry today for my first ski. Everything just felt right shoooshing along. Afterwards we stopped and snowshoed in for a Christmas Tree. It's always quite an ordeal to find just the right one. This time we went to Wanoga Snowpark and hiked back up in for a nice 8 footer or so.





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Delicious

Last night's dinner was sweet potato tamales with goat and cream cheesed stuffed jalapenos and red snapper with a chipotle sauce. After that digested a tad we topped the night off with fresh from the oven Chocolate Lave Cake. I'm fueled up for today's adventures now.

Portland was fun - we spent the weekend watching cyclocross races, drinking beer at some new to us breweries, walking around, and having fun.

Happy Birthday to Me

It was my birthday and Derek cooked me an awesome dinner and then for dessert, a Sacher Cake. It's a Viennese cake, probably the most famous chocolate cake of all-time. It consists of chocolate sponge cake cut into three layers, between which he put a homemade cherry syrup. The whole cake is then iced with a velvet-like chocolate. IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!

It was really nice weather for riding yesteray and took advantage of it and went for a spin after lunch. Fall keeps chugging along and I'll take it while it's here, but I'm ready for snow too!

Group Ride

What another wonderful day for riding! Still no snow so we're having an extended riding season. The ride took us from Wanoga Snowpark into town. Great time.

Pyramid

Thanksgiving was great! We loaded the Bob trailer and bikes up with beer, potato gratin, green bean casserole and chocolate bourbon pecan pie and rode over to Stu and Linda's.

Funner

After a night of eating and drinking we slept in and then rode the new Funner trail up at Wanoga yesterday. We did it as a modified loop by heading down Funner and then up Tiddlywinks to the singletrack connector and then back up Funner. Fun stuff. It was the first time we've been all the way down the trail so we took a couple of the jumps pretty easy. Good times, decent weather and nice to pedal for a couple hours.

Movie Night

Last night was Webcyclery movie night so off we went. We started with some beers by the outside fire at McM's and then headed inside for the showing of 9 Ball Diaries. Very entertaining footage of some unbearable weather!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey, Take a Hike!

I hiked/jogged up Tumalo Mtn on Sunday. It was cold but very sunny as I started up the trail. The snow never got to be more than about 8" so I was fine in my hiking boots. The hike up was about 1.8 miles and gained 1,200 feet where it tops out at 7,779 feet. Brilliant views.
















Mt Bachelor across the street and starting to get a bit of base.

The last couple nights have been pretty chilly for my ride home. My observations: Jackson's Corner is VERY popular. Every night when I ride by it, the surrounding streets are lined with cars and it's buzzing inside. I need to try that place, seems promising. I saw that they lit up all the little trees in the Old Mill...looks nice. I love this time of year.

What a great weekend for riding! We did a nice road ride one day and mountain biked the next. Just for the record....Happy Valley has a lot of snow still and that storm we had a week or so ago caused A LOT of blowdown on the trails. It's weird riding through snow when it's 70 degrees out.





The snow started to show up at the river crossing and it got thick for periods.

Sweet

Someone left this on our door while we were out drinking Friday night. It pays to drink.

It swirls and whirls, leaves dribble along the surface then shoot up into the sky, this way, that way, chaos.

What a nice windstorm for my rides yesterday. Coming back from the pool I'd be humming right along and then BAM hit by a windgust and nearly stopped dead. Standing at the light waiting for it to beam green I watched the signals swaying in the wind and the trees being buffeted. It was comical to ride with the hands of wind pushing on my handlebars.

Where is winter?

The trails called and I answered

More great fall weather this weekend. We got in a nice ride and apparently we weren't the only one with the idea because we saw more people on the trails Saturday then we ever have.

I always have to stop and look out across this open area to admire my surroundings.






Sunday I went swimming and sat in the sauna and steam room to relax afterward. I hope it doesn't snow/ice too much if any this week. I still haven't switched over my tires on my bike to the studded ones. Pretty soon I will be going through the morning ritual of putting on the balaclava, neoprene booties and extra heavy gloves to make the ride into work.

Fall is awesome. We headed out for a quick ride Sunday morning. I peaked out the blinds looking west and there were some spots of blue sky but the ground was wet and it had clearly been raining sometime recently. The sky to the South was grey with a big cloud bank. What the heck, we went for it. Up at Swampy Snowpark it was snowing ever so lightly, really tiny itsy bitsy pieces that were more like hail. They trail was damp and AWESOME as we winded up and around. About 15 minutes in we hit some actual snow that was sticking to the ground. It never got to be more than a dusting though. The air was soooo fresh tasting and smelling as I cleared the ridge and started downhill.

Thanksgiving Pies

Help support the Central Oregon Culinary School by purchasing your Thanksgiving pie from them. They are selling Apple, Chocolate Pecan Bourbon, and Pumpkin for $12 each and all proceeds go to the 2009 Italy Culinary Trip. Really, all proceeds will just go to your belly! Pies can be ordered by calling 318-3780 or by e-mail at jdarwin@cocc.edu. They will take orders up until Friday November 21, 2008 for pick up after noon on Wednesday November 26, 2008.

Cache Mtn

Saturday we had plans to meet some people to ride Cache Mtn but they called and canceled feeling sick. Derek and I soldiered on alone. We hadn't ridden Cache Mtn since the fall of 2004 as part of the Bend Fat Tire Tour. On that particular day we rode the 20+ miles in a heavy snowfall at times, rain at others. IT WAS FREEZING that day. This Saturday was a drastic difference. It was a perfect autumn day about 65 degrees, no wind, and spectacular color. Back in 2003 the B&B Complex fire devastated this area burning a total of 140 square miles. The regrowth is in full force.

Dance Stars

Happy Birthday Derek!

We're going to Hola for Derek's birthday tonight. Can't wait!

28 degrees for my ride in this morning. I couldn't find my extra strength warm gloves so my hands froze by the time I arrived.

Hard packed and tacky

The phrase "hard packed and tacky" make any mountain biker drool. We met some people for an awesome ride from Swampy up to Dutchman and then down Flagline. The trail was perfect, simply perfect. Surprisingly, we saw no other riders out. Fall conditions are my favorite time to ride usually...as long as it's good weather.

There was just this one little patch of snow and then a little bit of mud in a couple spots.



Sunday we went for a road ride before pigging out on some homemade chicken tamales for dinner. Our ride took us out into the country.



Oh, and the tamales were good!

Yesterday I rode out to the end of Skyliners and back for lunch. In 2 months time that ride probably won't be possible. Instead, I'll be cross country skiing out there. But until then I'll continue to put in the ear buds, hit play on the mp3 player and crank out the miles in the fresh afternoon air while watching trees fly by and squirrels scamper for safety.

It snowed a couple flakes on my ride home the other night but it appears that this week is going to be back to fall. It was kind of just a peak a boo of winter. I think I am going to attempt a ski race this year just for something to do. I am not the best skate skier by any means, and I really need to take some sort of formal lesson to make sure I'm doing stuff right, but I don't care. It will just be for fun.

Saturday we went to Man Maid which was part of the Bend Film Festival. Pretty entertaining film though it probably won't win the Best of Award. It was shot in and around Redmond so that was cool to see. I'm really happy Bend has the festival, it's a great event to draw some art into the town.

Yesterday morning was a chilly ride to work - 29 degrees. The river water was warmer than the air and steam was slowly rising. I cruised along the trail and had to just stop and stare at it for awhile...what a great morning.



After work I went for a mountain bike ride at Phil's with a beginner rider who is looking to get better. We started at 5pm and rode until about 6:40 when we were nearly frozen! The sun dropped below the trees and with it, the temps dropped drastically. BRRRRR!

Camouflage

This time of year I'm dressed in camouflage when I wear my Webcyclery team stuff with all the yellow and red. I'll have to get some fall color pics up. Don't be surprised if you see some snow on the hills in the background though. When I rode to work this morning I got a good look at what this weekend's mtn storms left behind up there and it looks white!

3" of Snow

Yes, that's right, it snowed up at Bachelor today. I wasn't up there, but got in a 20 mile ride before calling it quits for the day. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to ride with my compression stocking on our not but I figure it can't hurt, other than to wear it out faster. It's tough, I went for my bimonthly blood test yesterday and my INR was down to 1.8. It's supposed to be between 2-3 so they had to up my Coumadin dosage again. My workouts cause my body to metabolize the medicine faster so now that I'm up to full workout I hope it will stabalize.

Today we made a grand purchase...a Kitchen Aid mixer. The first thing to get mixed up - homemade banana cream pie completely from scratch.

I've been busy lately! I had company for a week and we spent a lot of time out and about. We walked around Shevlin Park and had a nice wine, bread, cheese, fruit picnic one day, we had a WONDERFUL dinner at Merenda's one night, enjoyed all the new seasonal beers at Deschutes (MY HOP TRIP IS BACK!!!). Now that Derek is in culinary school he is even more interested in food.

I'm still riding and swimming a lot. I won a subscription to WEND magazine as part of a commute challenge. I really dig that mag! I need to get a new rear fender for my bike so that when I ride to and from work I don't get the brown stripe on my butt when it rains/snows. That is coming you know. Today it rained for my swim. Nice and refreshing.

Last night Derek and I went for a mountain bike ride after work and did a nice little loop up Phil's and then around and down Ben's. Coming down Ben's there was some asshat that thought the entire network was his and he was too good to yeild the trail. I saw him coming up behind us when we pulled aside to let a couple come up the trail. He slammed on his brakes and crashed into the bushes trying to get around all of us. Fast forward to a couple miles later and again, we had pulled over to let a group of 4 come up the trail. It's singletrack and there is not room to pass side by side in this section but dude tries to squeeze between Derek and the riders coming up the trail. We took off and left him in the dust after that.

Some people just ruin the fun of the world.

I really hope that was it for awhile for the rain - where the heck did that come from anyway? Summer and warm to cloudy and then BAM rain. I have company in town starting Tuesday and I don't want it to rain for them. The streets were still damp this morning when I rode to work.

My book club just finished reading Blindness and I loved it. It's coming to the theater in a couple weeks and I know they won't do it justice, but I'll still go see it.

Cyclocross

Last night was #3 in the cyclocross series that Webcyclery sponsors. Here is Adam bunny hopping the barriers



normal people dismount and run over them

I rode at lunch today under sunny skies and warm temps...oh, and a pretty strong headwind! It's been awhile since I've ridden South on Brookswood out to Knott/Baker. Last time I rode that way they were barely breaking ground on the little shopping area by River Rim. Now it's almost complete!!!!

Another pizza place is coming to Bend - Boston Gourmet. I don't know much about it. I'm currently backlogged with new places to try. Rough life, huh?

Bend Burger Company opened yesterday and I saw a line out the door when I passed by.

My commutes to work have been uneventful but still very nice. A few days of awesome sunrises, a bit of smoke in the air, cool evening colors.. there is always stuff to look at and admire.

Tonight is cyclocross in the lot across for Cascades Lake Brewery - come and race or cheer. Good times.

What a nice weekend. Sunshine, warm weather, great trails, awesome beer... Deschutes has some new seasonals that are noteworthy. Fresh hop brews have started and there are more to come!!!!

Saturday we went mountain biking on one of my favorites loops. So many folks come to Bend and only ride Phil's or Mrazek and are missing out. Adventurous people are rewarded.





That's one GIANT mushroom!



Who needs on rv and hookups when you get a cozy spot like this with a nice view?



Sunday I did a big swim workout and then we rode down to The Summit to watch the Chargers play. AAAARGH, another action packed game that came down to the wire. FRUSTRATING!