A few more turns

And some time in BC  We spent a few more weeks in Portland wrapping up a few loose ends.  Working on client projects and trying to get the next planset passed through the city for our most recent design; and working on a few van mods/updates that we've been discussing for a while.

Sadly much like renovating your home, it seems once you get the space just barely livable- its suddenly very difficult to get over the hump of making yourself finish the plans.  Apparently being able to live and relax in our van had created a lazy version of ourselves thats more interested in enjoying the van than finishing.

That said, we squeezed in a few hours of work, tweaked the awning a bit (though still desperately need to complete the roof rack so that it looks as good as the awning does!), and upgraded our 3 panel bed prototype to aluminum to match the other van components.

We got mostly caught up on our projects and events in Portland and decided we had enough time for a few more days riding before the end of the season… weren't quite as willing to give up our winter as we might of thought. ;)

First we hit up Mt Hood with brent and dee… Crazy trip down memory lane as we thought back to our early days of snowboarding together and how much time we used to spend doing exactly this.  The first day at timberline was great.  We timed it perfectly and the resort got over a foot of fresh overnight. 

The cold didn't hold through the day, so by end of day things were getting pretty heavy and sticky, but we had a blast early on.  By the end we were remembering what riding in the pacific northwest was like and how much more falling hurts on the icy slope than in thick powder.  Ouch.

The next day we went back to Mt Hood Meadows, our “local” hill from days of old.  Sadly, we found a solid block of ice where the powder had likely been the day before.  A true reminder of how bad PNW snow can be late season as the temps begin to rise.  We only got half way through the first run before we started talking about how there’s no way we would be riding in these conditions (for fear of injury) were it not for a chance to spend time with our friends.  Oh how spoiled this winter has made us. Sadly, before that run was over those fears became true... 

She turned out to be just fine, but at the bottom of that first run Jen took a bad fall and slammed her head onto the ice.  Luckily she had her helmet on, but we wanted to make sure she was okay, pulled her out of the game and put her into the concussion protocol. 

Instead of spending the day making turns on the slope we spent the day playing strategy games in the lodge.  Oh well, time with friends is time with friends- who cares where/what you're doing? ;)

The next weekend we headed back to BC for the first time since we started our winter road trip at NYE.  Got a few fun days in VAN, mostly consisting of dinners and events with friends, plenty of deep conversations and just generally having a good time.

When the weekend approached the whole crew headed north to whistler for a couple more days on the slopes, hanging out at the cabin and celebrating what is clearly the end of winter.

While we did get some snow overnight...we again found not exactly the best conditions and the warmer weather made for basically concretelike snow conditions.  We decided that was our final day for the year and hung up our boards for the season. 

Another fun night at the cabin and we headed back to vancouver for a few days sitting in the park talking about life and goals and dreams...and may have even squeezed in a little canadian country concert (all for a good cause).

We love this town and the people in it...and even started discussing staying for the summer again and basically doing a quick "rinse and repeat" of last summer's fun days of beach volleyball and exploring the province.

When we got back to portland we swapped our snowboards out for surfboards and began pulling some of our makeshift insulated panels out of the back for extra summer gear space.  We also took that opportunity to remake our temporary bed frame in aluminum and to add some functionality in terms of under-bed storage… not much in terms of the projects we should be completing, but a step forward nonetheless.