Around the world in 6 days...

Ok...so maybe we didn't go around the world, but we did go to Utah and back in 6 days. It was a fun trip, but unfortunately, not very well documented as far as pictures go.

Roger and Louise Sargent came to meet us at our new house on the 21st. We just had a cozy night playing games, chatting, and packing. Jeff and I always seem to leave the packing until the last minute!

We hit the road early in the morning with hopes of making it to Boise in about 8-9 hours. Things were going just fine until we hit the Blue Mountains outside of Pendelton. The roads were just solid packed snow, and there were lots of crazies on the road all trying to get somewhere in a hurry I guess. We made it throught without a scratch, but our all of our nerves were a bit on edge, and we were definitely behind schedule. From LaGrande to Ontario things cleared up a bit, but once we got to about Nampa, ID it was a mess again. We went 20 mph from Nampa all the way into Boise. So 13 hours after leaving the coast we arrived at our hotel in Boise absolutely exhausted.

We got up early again on the 23rd, and the roads had been miraculously cleared off in the night and they were totally dry, so we made it into Ogden without too much trouble...except that there were still crazies on the road, and a truck-driver who apparently wasn't paying much attention almost side-swiped Roger and Louise.

Our resort was in the little town of Eden, just outside of Ogden. Roger and Louise used the GPS in their car to get directions to the place and it took us on a really steep and windy road! It was fun though, and it was neat to get a birdseye view of the valley we would be staying in. Bethany and Seth met us at the resort and we all had a nice night relaxing in the cozy rooms.

The next morning Jeff, Roger, Louise, Seth and I headed up the mountain for some skiing/snowboarding. We had a tour guide give us a tour of the mountain which was a really great idea! He showed us the runs that probably be best for our abilities and showed us which ones to stay away from (the black diamonds). We had a wonderful morning of skiing and getting to know the mountain. We went back down for lunch with Bethany and then all of us minus Louise decided to back up the mountain. It had started to snow a little during lunch, but we figured it would be doing the same thing up on the mountain. Well, from our resort Powder Mountain is only 6 miles away, but it is up the steepest paved road in Utah, probably a 2,000-3,000 foot elevation gain. So when we got up the mountain it wasn't just snowing a little, it was snowing a lot! And it was windy and bitterly cold, so I called it quits after 2 runs, and the guys held on for one more run, but basically it was miserable.

The next day though, was the greatest skiing of my life. 12 new inches of amazingly soft powder had dropped that night, and the sky was clear and the sun was shining.

Anthony (Jeff's younger brother) had joined us by this time, so he and Seth went off snowboarding, and Jeff, Roger and I skied up a storm. I never knew how fun powder skiing could be. In Oregon the powder is so much heavier and wetter that it sucks you in like quicksand and you get stuck. This stuff we could just slice right through!

We skied for half a day, then spent the rest of the day eating a delicious Christmas dinner and unwrapping presents. Jeff and I debated whether or not to get a few runs in the following morning even though we knew we would have leave by 12:00 noon at the latest. Eventually we decided not to (our muscles were telling us that they needed a longer break), so we packed up and headed for home.

We made it to Boise in relatively good time, and stayed with my aunt and uncle. We got to hang out with my cousins who I hadn't seen in about 5 years and I met my new 2nd cousin, a 9-month-old cutie named Owen.

Again, the next moring we got an early start (this was not a sleeping-in kind of vacation) and drove all the way to Pendlton without much fuss. There were a few crazy drivers coming out of LaGrande again, like a semi-truck driver who thought he was in the Indie 500 or something. But then while were taking a break in Pendlton, Jeff noticed we had a screw in one of our tires. So we took the car into a Les Schwab, and had to wait for an hour, but it was worth the peace-of-mind, especially since it's free. Then it was clear sailing until we got to Cascade Locks in the gorge. It started snowing those big, wet, Oregon kind of snowflakes. Portland wasn't too bad, and the snow had slowed us down just enough that we managed to avoid the majority of the Friday evening traffic on hwy 26. So just as we're nearing the home stretch, leaving Hillsboro and going up the Coast Range, we hit snow again, but this time it started to freeze and the car was loosing traction. Jeff thought we should pull over and put chains on. I told him that the pavement would probably be dry in just a mile or two, and we could just take it real slow instead of pulling over to put chains in the snow/rain. But he really thought we should, so I relented. To make a long story short, I ended up with a black eye, and we took the chains off about 1 mile down the road. It was not a good end to what was a mostly really good trip. But we made it home safe, cuddled with our kitties and slept like rocks that night :)