tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

We headed out for our annual January trip to Snowshoe on Saturday morning. We really should have really paid more attention to the weather reports and left Friday, but we didn’t want to pay for another night, and Saturday is kind of a waste anyway since the slopes are so busy during the day. So we left around 10am, after it had already started snowing. 66 wasn’t too bad, but by the time we hit 55, things had gone rapidly downhill.

The roads hadn’t been plowed or treated at all, and we were heading into the mountains. Oy.

The 4 Runner handles pretty well in the snow, but Aaron was still taking it easy. I think we hit a high of 25mph twice. And what was scariest about it was the idiots flying past us – I’m really shocked we didn’t see any of them flipped over later on.

It was a tense ride, but Aaron had it all pretty much under control. Then we came to what I like to call The Death Slide. We were going downhill, on a completely snow covered road with barely any traction, coming up on a turn, and while there was a guardrail, the other side of the guardrail was a steep drop into trees and I think a creek. Aaron was crawling along in Low, and we started to slide. The steering wheel was turning, but we were headed straight for the guardrail. And the cliff. I jokingly told him he was making me nervous, but when he came back with, “I’m making myself nervous!” I knew we were in trouble.** I was knitting at the time (a lace pattern, no less) and I started shaking so badly my needles started banging together (I still haven’t gone back to look at that row and see how many mistakes I made).  I noticed my fingers had turned white and I wasn’t ‘breathing’ so much as ‘panting in terror’. I could only picture us careening over the edge of the guardrail, tumbling down the hill, and coming to a rest at the bottom of the mountain. The empty, deserted mountain where we would probably not be found for days.

Suddenly the tires started to grip and we started turning away from the guardrail and back on to the road. A little too much back on to the road and into the other lane, but luckily no cars were coming the other way.

Needless to say, Aaron got us safely through The Death Slide, and then another one, this time a right hand turn with no guard rail. Finally we made it down the mountain (passing quite a few cars struggling and skidding to get up) and we stopped for much needed pit stop.

**Aaron claims we were never in any real danger, and I completely overreacted by almost going into a panic induced cardiac arrest, but what can I say. I suddenly realized how much I liked being alive and I wasn’t sure how long that was going to last!

The roads were slightly better when we crossed over into West Virginia, but we still had to go pretty slowly. Our 3.5 hour trip took almost 6.5 hours. But, we made it! We checked into our Rimfire Junior Studio (241 for future reference) and headed over to Silver Creek for some night boarding.

The conditions were really great, and it wasn’t really crowded at all. It was a good way to unwind after that drive. We had a few good hours and then called it a night.

We didn’t get out until about 11 on Sunday, which was nice because everyone else was heading in for lunch. There was lenty of snow, cold enough to be fast but not so cold we were miserable.

Aaron rode the Arbor park board and Flows I got him for Christmas last year, and now that he had his bindings set up better, he really loved the board. It definitely has more pop than his all mountain Never Summer. He had a good time playing around with his ollies and seeing what jumps he could hit along the way.

We ended up on the blacks by Soaring Eagle since that lift is always empty. I just wish people who insist upon snowplowing down blacks they really shouldn’t be on would do it on the side of the hill, not right smack in the middle of it. It’s just a recipe for disaster.

After a few hours we went in for some lunch at FireFox Grille, and learned they no longer sell bottles of their sauces. Horrors! That Bucket Hill sauce is freaking awesome!

We decided to hit Silver Creek again before people started coming over from the main mountain. We started getting tired after a few hours so we decided to call it a night. We hit up Red Rover for dinner and watched the end of the X-Games.

We were pretty sore so we decided to come straight home on Monday and not board. At least we saved some money on lift tickets. We made it home in 3.5 hours, a much nicer trip.

All in all it was another awesome weekend of boarding!

Our anniversary trip has been absolutely fantastic, and we are sad to be leaving tomorrow.

My altitude sickness abated shortly after arriving at Big Sky on Sunday. We checked into our room, got settled, and then headed out to dinner at Chet’s, where we had a great meal at the bar. The next morning we noticed a hole in our shower ceiling, so we moved to the room next door (148 for our future reference).  As a bonus, our new room has a bigger tv and a nicer bed, so it worked out well.  As we were moving into the new room, my friend Courtney, who works here and is the reason we came in the first place, was walking down the hall and ran into us. Perfect timing! She was on her way to work so we made plans to meet up later in the week.

We ate breakfast and then hit the slopes. It was about 20 degrees, but didn’t feel too cold. It snowed a little bit off and on throughout the day. We went out for a few hours and had a blast.

It is so nice to be on real mountains and be surrounded by such incredible views.

We started getting a little tired, so we went in and grabbed some lunch, and then hit the hot tub. A successful first day!

Tuesday was our two year anniversary. We celebrated by staying out all day. It was still snowing, and a little colder (10 degrees) so we were pretty much boarding in the middle of a cloud.

It was awesome. Aaron had a blast jumping every hill he could find. We traveled all over the mountain – conditions were great. I got some video of Aaron hitting some wall rides, which are so much fun, even though he did scrape his board up a bit on some rocks or trees or something. We completely exhausted ourselves -by the time we rolled in after our last run, I could barely stand up. I was freezing, so we made another trip to the hot tub to warm up and restore our muscles. The hot tub is awesome because it’s indoor/outdoor. When we got too hot inside, we headed outside, where it was basically a heated pool. It was really cool to be in the warm water, getting snowed on.

We headed out to dinner at the Timbers in Moonlight Basin for dinner – we went there last year too.

It did not disappoint. Aaron had a cheese slate followed by a humongous elk chop. I had a salad and a small rack of lamb. We completely stuffed ourselves – and Aaron even enjoyed the wine! (Steele Cellars Pinot Noir, for my future reference). We even had the same waitress as last year.

Wednesday morning was even colder – 6 degrees. And still snowing! It was dumping all day and the snow was incredible. Just so light and fluffy – great powder.

We went all over but ended up spending a lot of time on one of the less visited greens, where we worked on our switch. I finally got to a point where I felt really comfortable riding switch at speed, and with smooth transitions. I was really stoked about that.

By the time Thursday rolled around the clouds had lifted and the sky was blue! We were exhausted, but we still managed to get a few solid hours in.

Here is the bowl which we hit last year – that was where the powder was waist high. This year it was more moguls than powder.

This is our view from the lift – those little ants are skiiers.

Moguls end up being more tiring than enjoyable, so instead of hitting the bowl we went to the other side, where there was awesome powder. It really didn’t seem like a black diamond, since it was such great riding.

We went back over to the Andesite side of the mountain after hitting some groomers on the main mountain. Nobody was over on Andesite, and it was serene.

We did some more switch, and then hit up the powder in the trees which completely wore us out.

And who says romance is dead? Here is my wonderful husband carrying my board since he knew I was exhausted.

We met up with Courtney, my friend from high school, Thursday night for a lavish evening of dinner and drinks.

Aaron had ‘the best steak of his life’ – a buffalo rib eye. It was also the most expensive steak of his life! We were treated to some live music by Saul Kaye – although he wouldn’t play ‘Golddigger’ for us. I ‘won’ a cd of his by ‘knowing’ what album the Bob Dylan song he played was on – thanks, Blackberry! I really enjoyed his show, and it was great catching up with Courtney.

We were bummed to discover that the new Zip Line won’t open until Saturday, which means we have to come back next year and try it! Apparently you board over to the zip line, hand over your board (or skis), hit the three zip lines down to the bottom, and they bring you your gear. Sounds awesome.

We didn’t board today, since we are sore and tired, and I had to get some work done. We had a nice relaxing day and hopefully we will be seeing Courtney again tonight at the Blue Grass concert at Whiskey Jack’s (which Aaron calls WildFire for some reason…)

We have a long day of travelling tomorrow. It will be good to be home but we will miss the mountains.

I haven’t blogged about our trip to Big Sky yet because the wireless connection in the room won’t let me upload any pictures, and I really want to intersperse pictures with my post. But for now I will sum up our experience so far: epic.

We have been having a blast. It snowed practically non-stop for three days, so we had some really great powder. Then today the clouds rolled away and the sun came out, and we had gorgeous blue skies. Aaron has been jumping everything in sight, I have been getting really comfortable going switch, and we’ve been riding to exhaustion every day. I know it’s time to quit for the day when I can barely stand up anymore.

There is such amazing peace and tranquility here. There is practically no one else here, so we have done entire runs without seeing anyone else. Today we stopped halfway down one of our favorite greens, where we had been riding switch, and just sat admiring the view, the quiet, and the fresh air. It was amazing and refreshing.

Tonight we are meeting up with my high school friend who works here, Courtney,  for some drinks. One more day of boarding tomorrow, if our legs are up for it, and then home on Saturday.

It will be good to get back, since we are missing Illy and we’ll be getting our floors and counter installed shortly after we are home so there is lots to do to prep for that…but we are having such a great time here. It will be hard to leave these mountains.

Our shuttle driver told us that most people who live here hunt deer and elk and eat that all year round, so it really doesn’t cost that much to live here. Or at least, to eat here.

I’d be lying if I said we weren’t considering it.

We spent three days at Snowshoe this weekend with Kelly, Pat, and Austin. We had an absolute blast all around.

We actually managed to fit Pat, Kelly, and all our stuff into our truck. We had a momentary setback when a bag fell out of the back and the bottle of Captain Morgan cracked – however barely any spilled and we managed to repurpose a water bottle and save The Captain. Crisis averted!

The ride was cozy, but we made it! We checked in to our condo (Mountaincrest #28) and got unpacked. Our condo was actually really nice and bigger than I thought it would be. We had 2 beds and a pull out sofa, and two bathrooms. Kelly volunteered to be the Chef for the weekend, since she would not be hitting the slopes, and she took great care of us. We plan on inviting ourselves over for dinner in the future to eat up more of her delicious meals!

We headed out to Silver Creek after settling in, and met up with Austin in the parking lot – he headed out a little later than us, which worked out perfectly.

The guys were psyched to hit the slopes.

There was a bit more ice than we would have liked, but it wasn’t terrible. We hit a bunch of runs, and then it started to get cold. Pat and I decided to head back while Aaron and Austin stayed out for another hour. It was so nice to come home to a warm condo, with the smell of lasagna baking in the oven!

Finally the boys made it back and we made short work of the lasagna. This is Pat’s second helping:

It was gooood.

Austin brought Rock Band with him, so we spent the night playing that. Well, the boys jammed, and Kelly and I knitted. It worked out well.

Austin and I drank a lot of wine. Mmmm wine.

Sunday we decided to hit the main mountain. It was a bit crowded, since one of the lifts wasn’t running for some reason. It was icy, but not terrible. We worked our way over to Soaring Eagle, which we thought would be less crowded. On the way we hit some nice blues that were awesome – lots of powder and plenty of little bumps to jump over. We didn’t tell Pat they were blues until he was already down them. He was doing awesome all day, transitioning turns and staying in control the whole time. I tried to get a video of him but ended up getting plowed into by two little kids. My camera got knocked into the snow, which put it out of commission for a while, sadly.

We finally made it to Soaring Eagle, which was empty. There was still a bit of ice, but it wasn’t terrible. We had a ton of good runs, and then met up with Kelly in the village for some lunch. The hot dog place/wine bar was super packed, but we finally got our food (and 40 ounces, for some of us) and chowed down. We dropped Kelly back at the condo and drove over to Silver Creek for a few more hours.

Austin discovered the terrain garden, which is a beginner’s park. Little kickers and rails, to get you introduced to park riding. We all ended up making some jumps (and falling off the rails), which was pretty cool. We had a ton of fun hitting those jumps, until the 12 year olds came back from dinner and crowded us out. We were all hurting so we headed back to the condo, where Kelly had whipped up some amazing rib eyes for dinner. They were insane. We ate well.

We also discovered that you can no longer buy bottles of wine anywhere on the mountain. Bogus! We had grand plans of playing games all night but instead ended up watching the X Games.

Monday morning rolled around and Kelly made us gluten free crepes with Nutella. It’s a good friend who will make gluten free baked goods for you! They were pretty awesome, too.

We all decided we were a little too tired and beat up to go back out, so we packed up and headed home.

Here are some more pics.

It was really, really bright and my eyes were starting to water as I tried to hold my smile.

Ah, that’s better.

Matching goggles!

Resting.

Ready to hit some blues!

Our last day! We slept in a little bit before heading out for our last day of riding. We went to Andesite, where we took some video of us doing some tricks. Nothing worth posting really, just some 180s, nose and tail presses, etc. But we had a blast.

Then we went back to the middle of the mountain to bomb some blues, and then back to Andesite. We were heading toward Africa, which was all moguls at the top, and very steep. We pulled up to a stop to figure out which way we wanted to go, and saw a lone skier with one ski on, trying to inch his way back up to the top of the slope, where his other ski sat waiting for him. He was pretty far down the hill, and he looked tired and was moving slowly, so I slid down to his ski and brought it to him – trying to make a good name for snowboarders, one good deed at a time! lol He said, with obvious relief, “Boy, am I glad you came along!” I wished him a Happy Valentine’s Day and we were off.

The bottom part of that run is great for awesome wall rides. It was so much fun riding up as high as we could go and then surfing back down through all the powder. That was probably the best part of the day. It was a clear day too, so I loved riding the lifts and being able to see the incredible views all around us.

After five days of boarding, we were ready to call it and head in.

The best part of this mountain, by far, is the lack of lift lines. Even on the weekend when it was ‘busy’, we were never in a line longer than maybe 2 minutes, if that. It’s just so empty! All day today we were alone on the slopes.

Tonight we are off to the Timbers, a ‘fancy’ restaurant in Moonlight Basin, for our Valentine’s Day dinner. Then up at the crack of dawn to catch our 5.30am shuttle to the airport!

Today was just an absolutely ridiculous powder day. We decided to head over to the south side of the mountain – I wanted to check out the bowl.

It was…insane. So. Much. Powder. Witness:

Just getting from the top of the lift to where we could drop into the bowl was sketchy. We were in a controlled, or I guess monitored, environment, but it was still sketchy as hell. It felt like at any moment we could trigger a mini-avalanche and get swept down into the bowl. It was a little freaky. The powder was just sooooo deep. It was hard to do anything but submarine through it, and try to ride out the air pockets.

Once we were able to drop into the bowl, it was better. But man, it really wore my back leg out surfing through all that! Toward the bottom I just backed into a tail press and surfed straight out of the bowl – that was in-freaking-credible. So much fun!

We tried a few more runs we hadn’t hit before, and found some good ones. We hit the natural half pipe on one run. We were pretty wiped and after a bit more over at Andesite, we called it a day.

Here’s the bowl we were neck-deep in powder in:

Did I say yesterday was a powder day? Wrong. Today was a powder day! It snowed all night and was still going strong when we got up. It’s still snowing right now, in fact. The conditions were incredible. Super powder! We cut today short so I’ll post some pics as well.

Aaron bought a new bag so he could take his camera with him, as well as extra layers since the temps here can vary wildly depending where on the mountain you are:

Oh, and here’s our room:

So back to today!

We hit the greens first to practice switch some more, and I was happy about the speed I was getting. But our legs were getting really tired – I guess I shouldn’t have tried so many 180s, since they take a lot out of me.

We headed over to the Shedhorn lift, which is on the south side of the mountain. You have to go over some really long cat tracks, called Cow Flats – and that killed us. We had to unstrap and skate for a while, and it was just exhausting. Shedhorn is a two seater lift, and really long. My friend had told us that it was really ‘bony’ at the top, but it got better as you went further down the slope. It was a bit more than bony – rocks galore. The drop in to the trail was too rocky for me. Not worth scraping my board to hell just to hit one run. So we took Duck Walk back to the other side of the mountain, but by now it was near white out conditions. It was a narrow cat track, with a wall of rocks on one side, and a sheer drop off into a rocky bowl on the other side. They kindly built up a bit of a snow lip before the drop off, but it didn’t make it that much more comforting. It would have been ok had we been able to see where we were going, but visibility was extremely poor. I almost caught an edge at one point, and I started veering toward the rock face, thinking how glad I was I had my helmet on but those rocks looked like they could cut right through my jacket – and would I hit hard enough to bounce me back across the trail and over the edge? I fell right before my board hit the rocks, but then I had to unstrap and skate back down the trail for a bit. I was beyond tired.

We rested a bit before hitting the blue that would take us back to the base. Here’s a pic of Africa:

Resting before heading down:

We veered off to the right at the bottom of that hill, where the powder was practically untouched. We were doing wall rides the whole way, and they were pretty steep, and so much fun – made me feel a little bit more inclined to check out the natural half pipe later! I did some more tail presses through the powder – man was that fun, but it killed my back leg. I had to stop for a bit before I felt like I could go on.

On the way down, I did a wall ride and then cut between a dad who was trying to teach his kid how to board. I was going kind of slow, so I heard him say, as he pointed at me, “See how that guy is leaning forward, into the mountain as he rides? That’s what you want to do, don’t lean back!” And I was thinking, you can totally see my pigtails, dude! I guess I need to replace my helmet with a pink one…

After that, we headed in – and we’re heading out to the hot tub right now!

But first, some more pics.

Lone Peak, in the background:

Courtney and me:

Courtney, me, and the bear:

The view:

The wide ass trail, and I couldn’t even fit it all in the frame:

Today was awesome. It snowed overnight, so there was tons of fresh powder in the morning. We were up bright and early, so the snow was still fresh. We have never seen powder like that before – it was beyond incredible. We stayed on Andesite for the morning since the conditions were so great. I got some really good tail slides down, and when you do it through powder, it really feels like you’re floating. Aaron looked like he was surfing as he did a tail slide through some untouched powder.

We practiced our switch a lot, because it hurts so much less to fall on powder, so I felt more confident and able to commit to my transitions. And it was great! We went switch almost the whole way down one of the long green runs, and I feel much better about my transitions now. I got in some 180’s as well, both front and backside. So it was a phenomenal morning, but also very tiring.

We grabbed some lunch and headed back out to another part of the mountain, up Swift Creek Lift, to hit some blues. We got in a few good runs, we took some video of each other, and Aaron got a nice shot of one of my ollies.

We decided to venture into the terrain park to end the day. I have never gone off a kicker in the park before – and these were good sized kickers! I knew I wasn’t going to try ollie-ing any of them, since I didn’t want to catch more air than I could handle, and I wanted to get familiar with landing a jump like that first. I ended up only hitting two that first run and one on the next, and then we went in. It was a little intimidating riding up such a steep angle, and not being able to spot your landing until you’re in the air. I stomped them all pretty solidly, so maybe tomorrow I’ll have enough nerve to try and catch some decent air. We’ll see. We might also head to the side of the mountain with some trees instead.

We took the bus down to the town for dinner and some shopping. And when I say bus, I mean an old school bus. With no suspension. On snowy, winding mountain roads.  Which are also very, very bumpy in town. That was interesting. We had dinner at Uncle Milkie’s which was actually really good, home made pizza, wings, and meatballs.

All in all, a great day!

We arrived in Montana uneventfully. Apparently no one travels on Saturday afternoons, because Dulles was a ghost town when we were leaving. I slept most of the flight to Denver which rocked. The flight to Montana was a little bumpy and took a long time to land, but we got in on time. We took the shuttle to our lodge and finally arrived around 10.30pm. All our luggage arrived, nothing was broken, it was phenomenal.

Our room is actually really nice, although there is no kitchen so we’ll be eating out all the time. Pictures to follow in another post.

And, I am very happy to report, I have not been struck down with altitude sickness! I guess it is about 2,000 feet lower than Winter Park, so I guess that made all the difference. But I’m not even really fatigued at all today – which I firmly believe can be attributed to the Twix I ate while we were at the airport, waiting for the shuttle to arrive. That saved me. I’m sure of it.

We got up relatively early this morning and had the complementary breakfast buffet, which was amazing. They have a custom omelet station which I always love. And we get that every day! Rock.

We headed out to the slopes and hit a few green trails. They are super long, and as wide as football fields. And there is no one here, practically. It’s awesome. We were bombing the runs, and at one point there was a drop off, and I swear I thought the wind was going to catch me and send me airborne. Aaron’s GPS said we were going 39 mph down that run. So much fun!

Then we met up with my friend Courtney (from high school – she got us a sweet deal on the hotel and lift tickets, bless her) and some of her college friends to take some more runs. They took us to another part of the mountain – time to hit the blue slopes! They rocked too. Super long, nice and wide, great conditions, practically empty – perfect all around. The blues were definitely steeper though, but no moguls which is good.
After a few runs we went over to another part of the mountain which was a little more challenging. I’ll have to look at the trail map but it was sort of like a bowl – not really marked trails, and a rickety 3 seater lift swaying in the wind took us up to the top. There was some good powder there, and we got some good runs in – and some good falls. Falling in powder is fun!

By that point we were exhausted (Aaron is napping as I write this) and we came in. We are resting before heading back out to meet up with Courtney and Company at the bar for some apres ski drinks, and the hot tub.

I’m lazy and exhausted and posting my trip report from my snowboarding site:

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We slept in a little on Saturday, leaving an hour later than we wanted to. But we made decent time and checked in at Top of the World – the parking lot was packed so we were expecting major crowds. Luckily our room at Rimfire was ready so we unloaded the car and got ready in the room.

This was our first stay in Rimfire, and we were pretty impressed. It has underground parking, with overflow across the street. We found a perfect spot right by our elevator. We had a Junior Studio which had a mini-fridge, microwave, and two burners. So it was perfect for making bacon and eggs for breakfast, and microwaving the meals we brought for lunch. The room was a decent size with a queen bed and full size sofa, and HUGE tv. Perhaps the best part is that you can get into the Starbucks, which is right next door, from inside Rimfire – so no need to go out into the cold. While I made breakfast, Aaron picked up coffee for me and tea for him. Perfect!

We headed over to Silver Creek on the shuttle for our first run of the season. It was a little crowded, but not too crazy. We were really surprised that our first run was so smooth – it felt like we had just been riding last week. As we headed toward the lift line, we met up with Becky and JT. They convinced us to head over to the Black Diamonds, which rocked because the lift lines were empty over there. Aaron’s new boots were killing his left foot, so we headed in after a few hours.

There is a new restaurant in the Village called The Wine Dive and Doggery, so we checked that out for dinner. It was awesome! I had a great glass of Syrah, and we ended up buying a bottle to take home – they cork it there for you for some bizarre legal reason. We had some really good food too – my favorite was the Wild Boar dog with spicy brown mustard and goat cheese.

We watched the X Games on our big tv and chilled the rest of the night.

Sunday was awesome. The conditions were so great – so much snow, barely any ice. And not too crowded, as long as we stayed away from the Express Quad. We made that mistake once. Once. We blasted a few runs on the main mountain and then headed over to Western Territories. That was awesome – totally empty, zero lift line. I forgot how long those runs are. The wind did take a bit of snow off the mountain, exposing some ice, but nothing too major. We turned the rolling hills at the bottom into some decent jumps.

We headed in for lunch, and then back out to Silver Creek for some night boarding. I wanted to work on my switch, so we did a few runs trying to do only switch, or 360ing in and out of switch. Aaron was wearing his GPS watch, so we bombed a few runs trying to see how fast we could go. The highest he clocked was 30.9 mph, but I think when he downloaded it at home, it showed up as 32.6 mph. He’ll have to post what was going on with the watch! We did notice that most lifts go 4mph and the express quad goes 9mph

When we were waiting in line for the lift at Silver Creek, the lifty managing the line was an older dude, greybeard and all. I was giving Aaron a hug and he leaned down to kiss me. As we pulled apart, the lifty yelled, “Hey! None of that in line!” and Aaron said, “Alright, we’ll do it on the lift!” I don’t know if the guy heard that because he then yelled something like, “Not unless you’re giving some to all of us!” People started laughing and then Aaron opened his arms to the guy and said, “Well, come here then!” Much to Aaron’s dismay the guy threw his arms open and started running over to Aaron! He must have seen Aaron’s eyes go really wide because he pulled back at the last second and started laughing. I really thought he was going to kiss Aaron!

We headed home after a bit and put our names in at Foxfire on the way. It was supposed to be a 45 minute wait but was a bit longer than that. It was worth it for the BBQ Platter for Two though – that thing is so freaking good. We came home with 2 bottles of their Bucket Hill Sauce as well. Damn, I love that place!

Monday we checked out but were able to leave our truck in the garage. The conditions were even better – not a cloud in the sky and they had blown snow overnight. We went all over the main mountain – as we were heading down one of the blues, all of a sudden a jet blasted over us – it was so loud my ears still hurt by the time we made it to the lift. I didn’t see the plane but one guy did and said it was some kind of grey military jet, and when it buzzed us, it was upside down. Wish I had seen it – I can’t imagine how close it must have been to have been that loud. After a bit we headed over to the new blacks by Soaring Eagle. They were pretty mogully and a bit icy, but not too bad. Aaron was getting some really good jumps in as well. We ended our day with a bombing run of Grabhammer, which for once was not icy at all. Super fun!

We lunched and wined (for me at least) at the Wine Dive and Doggery, grabbed some coffee and headed home.

It was a really great trip – especially for being our first of the season.