On The Road Again

Greetings from Bend, Oregon!

April was an extremely busy month, despite that we had planned it as our “month off” between trips. One thing we have learned about ourselves: we are not very good at downtime.

In one sentence, here’s how we spent April: skiing, Allie at bachelorette party, Mark transferring all CD’s to MP3s, skiing, 5-night trip to Bay Area to meet up with friends and co-workers, Mark skiing Mott Canyon, down to my parents’ place for Easter, Allie trip to Monterey to visit sister, Mark trip to OC to visit family and clean his stuff out of his parents’ attic, Allie’s time at her parents’ place cleaning out their attic, Allie in a friend’s backyard wedding, anniversary, collapse.

Whew. It will be an interesting experiment in balance when we both go back to work to figure out how we do all these things and work at the same time!

We are in Bend visiting with friends Patric and Jeannie. We got to experience Patric’s new favorite toy – a drift boat. For those of you unfamiliar with drift boats (we were), it is like a big aluminum row boat with no motor. You launch it in a river and then you just…drift.

Patric's new toy

We took a 3-hour drift down the Deschutes River, passing a Maupin Native American tribal dance – complete with drums and chanting – and saw an osprey dive bomb the green water and score a fish.

While we planned to do some hiking in Bend, it was good that we had the option of a boat due to an unfortunate mishap. On the night before we left Tahoe, Mark decided to go for a run. He’d gotten about a quarter mile before a vicious rock jumped up and bit his ankle.  A bad sprain.

He hobbled home, and we kicked off an aggressive round of icing, wrapping, and elevating his foot until bedtime. The next morning I packed up the car as Mark gimped around the house. Fortunately (or not), Mark had done the same deed to his other ankle a couple years ago, so we still had the big black foot cast for this sprain.

It is a testament to Mark’s willpower that he still wanted to drive up to Bend that day, and a testament to my stubbornness that he was banished to the backseat with a blanket under his foot and an ice pack at the ready. It’s easy to outrun a gimp and hide the keys.

Mark's Frankenfoot, four days after the sprain

We also visited Jeannie’s new yoga studio, Yoga Indigo. It is a gorgeous space (and painted my favorite color), and is in a great spot in downtown Bend near the river. A beautiful place for a private yoga lesson!

Inside Jeannie's new studio, Yoga In.di.go

Today we leave our friends, and head to north to Seattle. My parents are joining us there tonight, and it is their first trip to Seattle. We are excited to introduce them to some of our favorite places, like quite possibly the world’s best Thai vegan restaurant and our favorite spot for a leisurely wander and quiet contemplation.