Aspen Extreme

Margaret, Jackson and I flew back to MI on Monday evening to start a few weeks of Christmas celebrations/parties/work. I have high intentions of reading a book while flying, but I always seem to watch a movie instead. This trip was no different. I started watching Aspen Extreme - a classic ski movie from the 80's.

Best line of the movie - "These guys are good dude (Dexter says to TJ)", TJ's response - "Yeah, but none of them are from Detroit" - Solid Answer.

Markers...again

We got the markers out again last night. Jackson wanted a beard, i started it, he finished it

Then, he needed glasses and an earring

Margaret couldn't resist the fun, so joined in

Here is the happy couple!

It was pretty funny!

St. Helens

One benefit of missing my flights was being able to take Jackson to preschool on Wednesday morning. This was our view on the drive in:

Tahoe

Last weekend, I took a little trip down to Lake Tahoe. This trip was scheduled to be on the front end of a business trip to Springfield, IL to see a customer. I flew in late Thursday night and my brother picked me up. He and my uncle had flown in earlier in the day. We woke up Friday morning and I worked most of the day. Later in the afternoon, we decided to go out for a little hike. It was an awesome day, sunny and somewhat chilly.

We got back, hit the hot tub, had a few beers and cooked up some great burgers and sweet potato fries! We all ate too much, but it was worth it. Our friend Jason flew in on Friday night and got to the house about 11 PM.

Saturday was again a beautiful day. We started out with some breakfast at a small local cafe. It was fantastic. We then headed to a local ski shop in search of some advice on where to snowshoe. No real options presented themselves so we just headed off for another hike. We did a great hike that was about an 11 mile round trip out to a moutain lake and back.

Not sure why we didn't take a picture of all of us. Anyway, we headed back to the cabin and again enjoy the hot tub, some beers and good conversation. We sat around for a little while and had a Wii tournament. Then headed out to Squaw Valley for dinner. We ended up at a Pizza place in the Squaw village. Good pizza, bad game on TV.

We woke Sunday morning to a little snow falling so decided to just relax and chat before my uncles flight left Reno. By the time we left for the airport, it was snowing a little more, but reports were telling us it was going to get nasty. It was a pretty uneventful trip down to Reno. We swang by the airport, changed rental cars to a Subaru instead of the go kart we had rented before and started back up the hill. Jason was driving and it was a sketchy drive all the way back. We were told the highway was closed in multiple spots, but no one made us pull over, so we just kept driving. The snow was coming fast and furious. We stopped in Truckee for about 30 minutes for some lunch, just to find a couple inches of snow on our car when we were done. Finally back at the cabin, we had some wood to move, but the reward was the hottub with beautiful snow falling all around.

Jason, Chad and I ended up just chatting, sitting by the fire, and playing a little Wii on Sunday night. My flight was leaving at Reno at 1, so I was planning on getting up early on Monday to head back down the hill. When I got up at 7, this is what i saw:

It was unbelieveable. It think we had about 3.5 feet of snow on the ground. I had never seen that much snow! Jason and I took off to test out the roads as we had about 50 miles back to the airport. We drove about 4 miles down the road to a 7-11, and the roads actually seemed ok. On our way back, the roads seemed a little worse, as it was snowing pretty good. As I was making, the last turn in our street, I put the Subaru in a snow bank. Good thing the snow was as fluffy as it was. We walked back to the cabin, donned some warmer gear and headed back to shovel it out. Jason was the first one back and by the time Chad and I showed up, he was almost done. So, we got the car back in the garage and then had desicions to make. Drive to the Reno airport, to get on a plane to fly across the country for a meeting, or realize the flights will most likely be delayed and stay in Lake Tahoe to go skiing in 3.5 feet of fresh powder. Easy decision, right? We cleaned the cabin and headed out. It was a tough decision, but I really felt like I needed to give it a go so that I could meet with my customer.

We had two cars to get back to the airport. The Subaru that I had rented and a Ford Focus that Chad rented the day he got in. He got stuck at the end of our driveway, and then again at the end of our street. It was going to be a long 50 mile drive. Before we left, we checked the weather one more time. Highways closed, avalanches in the area, didn't really sound like a fun time to be in the car. Long story short, we did make it down to Reno in a few hours. It was slow going, but we made it safe.

Once I got to the airport, the worst case happened. My flights were delayed, shocking I know. I had a small window to catch my connection in Salt Lake City. We boarded the plane quickly and looked like everything was one schedule. We then proceeded to sit on the plane for about an hour before finally taking off.

Once airborn, I pulled out my laptop to check on the status of my flights (internet in the air is great). I had already been rebooked on the red eye out of Salt Lake City (8 hours after arriving in SLC), to Atlanta, a 1 hour layover and then finally into St. Louis. From St. Louis, I have a 2 hour drive to my final destination of Springfield, IL. Here is the problem. I would get to Springfield at about noon - meeting starts at 9.

I called one other guy from my company that was going to be at the meeting as well and he said he could handle on his own. So, I made the decision to just fly back to Portland instead of flying all night, driving, sitting red eyed in a meeting that I was already late for, just to drive back to St. Louis that night and do it all over again.

I am impressed if you read this far. You win a prize if you did.

p.o.d

Margaret just whipped up this beauty. nuf said.