Playing in the Parking Lot

Last Friday we took Mile's friend Ian and went skiing/snowboarding at Mt. Bachelor. It was a great day with lots of new snow. At the end of the day the kids built a little jump off the side of the parking lot.

Trail to Chimney Rock

Today the kids were off with friends so Karen and I did a little exploring. We drove out to the old western town of Prineville ("The Oldest Town in Central Oregon") for lunch. The Crooked River goes right through town and after lunch we drove along it towards Prineville Resevoir.

Initially the river flows through a wide canyon filled with farms. The terrain changes quickly into a narrow canyon and the river becomes a great year-round fly fishing water. We saw many fishermen, along with an eagle, a pair of great blue herons, and many trout eagerly rising to the surface in pursuit of a hatch. Made me wish I had my fly rod with me.

Along the way we took a nice hike from the bottom of the canyon to the rim and a place called Chimney Rock. Here's a view from along the trail. Small birds sang for us most of the way and the wild flowers were stating to bloom. A nice day all around.

Chimney Rock

That's Chimney Rock in the background and you can see a small section of the Crooked River on the lower right.

My kind of commute

Today, during the "rush hour" drive home, a couple of Canadian geese decided to take a slow walk across what passes for a busy street here in Bend. They were smart enough to cross at a corner. Traffic came to a stop to let them continue their leisurely stroll.

It must have added a whole minute to my 3.3 mile commute that has 3 stop signs and no stop lights. Fortunately, I was not overcome with road rage.

Tae Kwon Do & Snowboarding

Yesterday the kids competed in the High Desert Tae Kwon Do championships. They were jointly held with the Oregon State gymnastics championships at the local county fairgrounds. Ethan won bronze medals in forms and sparring, Sydney won silver and bronze in forms and sparring, Miles earned bronze in forms.

Ethan's sparring match was pretty exciting. He was tied for points with the eventual gold medalist until he was briefly knocked out by a head shot with only 10 seconds left in the match. He was able to continue but could not land any more scores. He lost the match and the gold medal by 2 points. He was pretty groggy after that and lost the silver medal match pretty badly, but ended up with the bronze.

Today we went snowboarding, and it was pretty clear that Ethan was not fully recovered. There's a shot of him with a nasty crash off a pretty big jump.