Snow and Sun equals tons of fun

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24th February 2010

I am slowly realizing why people love Oregon so much, everything is just 2 hrs away. If I have said this before, sorry but it is true Traveling with a toddler takes a lot of planning, what with meal times and nap times and even a day trip requires a minivan with truck loads of luggage

When in bleary February the sun shone like a diamond, we were not going to let the weekend slip away to household chores and laziness. We grabbed our jackets and sweatshirts and headed for snow tubing at Mt. Hood. I have never been a skier and neither has K. You don't expect south Indians to be skiers, you can't do much when you have never had snow now, can you ? And if you know me well enough, you will soon realize I abhor winter, cold, rain and anything in that family. But snow tubing sounded like fun and we wanted to expose V to winter before it all melted away.

We picked the Mt. Hood SkiBowl just a mere 1 and a half hours away. It actually would have been close to 75 min if we hadn't lost our way and if the speed limit was like a little about 25 ! We got there around 11 and took the 11 -1 pm slot for snow tubing. V had some gear that he was not happy to get into, he looked like an artic explorer short by about 4 feet The Mr came wearing a leather jacket despite my telling him we were not going to Florida and froze for the first 1/2 half hour, and no I don't feel sorry for him!

V was of course not allowed on the main slope and there was a small bunny slope were he was allowed to tube. We lugged ourselves and the tubes up [the damn pulley was not working]. It did look scary coming down that huge slope and there was ice more than snow which created some great speeds downhill. Leaving the men together I took off first and it was an exhilarating experience to say the least. Would have been even better if they had let me sit in the tube instead of balance like an acrobat.

Giving K some more time to make his mind on whether he wanted to tube or not, we went to the bunny slope. Jr was not happy at all until I took him up and then we slid him down the slope. Then we were rewarded with the first smile. It was precious! He wanted more. So we did this a couple of times lugging him up and tubing down. He soon grew impatient and kept wanting only the downhill part and could not fathom why I took such a long time to lug him up each time, kids these days! I saw my first snow only when I was 21, sheesh.

Anyway, I got to go 3 times down, the Mr got to go 4 times. Mr. V got to go many many times! There is a cool play area for kids which I think he enjoyed more, especially because I took off his snow suit. There are kiddie snow mobiles and ski slopes and what not. I almost wanted to be reborn as a kid here, so I could experience some of this.

The glorious weather made up some for the lack of fresh snow in a way and it was a day truly well spent. We ended the afternoon with a superb lunch at this restaurant I think. We did not expect the food to be good so I was not paying attention in the beginning. And we were taken by surprise. The burgers were so good and the onion rings were one of the best we have ever had. If only it were closer, I would go more frequently.

We definitely will be doing this again next winter, until then..I will await summer and all the nice things that come with beautiful sunshine.

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