10 year celebration from H. E. Double Hockey Sticks

This month was our 10 year anniversary. Jeff wanted to go someplace warm . . . I said "How about cross country skiing in Bend?!" So that's what we did. Jeff's sister was so sweet, and stayed with the kids for the time we were gone. We left Friday night. I had booked the La Quinta thinking it was the nicer one, but realized that it wasn't when we got there. It was still clean, but not what we had expected. That was disappointment #1.

We woke up the next morning and headed for the Swampy Lake area. We had a couple of loops picked out, all of which we could go to the snow shelters that are built out there. We decided to go for the 7 mile loop. Pretty big undertaking, because I am a down hill skier. That's all I've ever done. I've been cross country skiing once, and didn't enjoy it much because I wasn't doing it right. But I was determined to enjoy it.

Here is a picture of us, happy, and naive before the trip. Thinking we'll be back in about 3 hours easy.

#2- We start on our way. For anyone who understands both down hill skiing vs cross country, totally different forms. Any time there was the slightest slope, I started getting ready in down hill form, and my ski's would cross and I'd fall. I think I fell about 15 times in the 1st hour. No joke. But I was determined to make this trip. Even falling a lot we were making fairly good time.

#3- Then about 3 miles into it I notice my left ski wasn't sliding at all, while my right one was. I was starting to get ice build up of about 3-4 inches thick. We had 3/4 of a mile to the snow shelter. By this time, it was lunchtime and both Jeff and I had ice build-up on our ski's. We'd stop every few yards and whack our ski's with our poles.

#4- By doing so Jeff broke one of his poles because of hitting our ski's. We made it to the shelter just as a group was leaving. They saw we were iced over and were so kind as to help us scrape off the ice build-up and a lady loaned Jeff some wax for our ski's. (Blessing) 

The fire had just gone out in the shelter, so Jeff got it started again. We decided since we now had wax on our ski's (which I had suggested in the beginning, but my all knowing husband said 'cross country ski's don't need waxed anymore. That's for old skis'.) we would finish off our 7 miles loop. We had an option of going the way we came, and taking another/shorter route back to the car. But we would persevere.

As we were leaving the shelter, another group showed up and one of the members warned us that the route we were going to take was really hilly. We should have listened. It was really hilly.

Here we are at the shelter. Feeling pretty good now that our ski's are waxed. Or so we thought.

#5- Not even 20 minutes into our 2nd half of the route, our ski's were sticking. Jeff had not put the wax on right, so our ski's had no wax. It was literally like snow shoeing with long ski's. We were averaging 1 mile per hour.

#6- Due to a broken ski pole, Jeff was falling a lot more. When you fall with cross country ski's the ski's don't pop off like down hill ski's do. No, they stay hooked to your toe. Jeff was falling so much that his shoe started to rip apart at the toe and soul. There were times that I thought they'd have to send a rescue team in for us. I was so exhausted from climbing those hills, falling down and getting back out of deep snow. The only thing that kept me going was wanting to see my children again.

Thankfully the woman who warned me of the route being hilly caught up with us. We had gone 2 miles in 2 hours of time. Her and her friend helped us scrape snow off of our ski's and wax them. They were angels sent from above. (another blessing)

#7- We started moving better and falling less. Thank heavens. Jeff was trying to keep his soul. . . in more ways than one. ha ha. We had about 1 ½ miles left, and one of my poles breaks. I was already falling a lot, this made it more. My body/ankles/and feet were killing me.

We finally made it back to the car, and could only laugh at our equipment. 2 poles down, and when Jeff took off his shoe, the soul was torn apart from the shoe all they way into his arch. We were SO thankful it didn't come off completely while skiing. Then what would we do?
Here we are finally back at the car. Cold, Wet, but we did it! 6 in a half hours later! My ankles were so sore, and the tops of my feet were purple/bruised from falling so much. Ugh.

The plan was to spend the night, and ski for one more day. Due to equipment malfunctions that wasn't possible. So we decided to check out a local park, and go to REI. My winter coat was not a ski jacket. It was cute, from Kohl's, but not meant for skiing. By the next day it was still stinky/sweaty and wet. Jeff found me a great ski jacket at REI on clearance. I had some Christmas money left over and ended up paying $70 for a $249 coat. I was proud of him, it was a super cute color. It was also nice to be able to walk around with out freezing because now I had a dry, nice smelling coat.

Here we are at one of the parks in Bend.  

I wanted to leave at 2:00 so we could be home by 5:00. In Sisters we stopped at McD's for $1 ice cream sundaes. I should have used the restroom then, but didn't. Of course on our way I needed to go. Finding a restroom between Bend and Eugene in the winter time is nearly impossible! We stopped at 4 camp grounds and thankfully the last one didn't have locked restrooms. Phew! That delayed our trip, but was truly a blessing in disguise.

We continued down the road and this freak wind storm came on. It was strong, but nothing too horrific. We did notice a lot of debris/tree branches on the road. Then we stopped with a line of cars for about 30 minutes. When we were able to drive by we saw that a tree had fallen and hit a car about 20 cars ahead of us. (Blessing to have to go potty huh?)

We literally had to swerve around 2-3 more trees that had fallen on the road, along with large branches before we were stopped again in a line of cars. It's about 4:30 at this time, and we are only 30 minutes from home. Sitting there parked we see that the house on our left had a tree in their 2nd floor! They also had a larger tree fall and SMASH their car in their drive way. It was as if a tornado came and hit!

We were stopped due a tree falling across the power lines, breaking the poles and hanging over the road.

We were maybe 300 yards from the front. By 7:00pm, we heard the line behind us was 3½ miles long. We only had a 1/4 tank of gas so we didn't have the option to turn around and do a 3 hour trip through Albany to get home. Due to the storm and power outages, we figured no gas stations were working. There was ODOT, Firemen, State Police, Police, and EWEB (our electrical people) all there. Not ONE of them came down the line to check on how people were doing or give us an update. Not one. It was fellow people in line that walked from car to car sharing water/granola bars etc.

Jeff and I didn't want to start the car and keep it running, so we bundled up in our winter stuff. Thank heavens for that new coat. My coat was still wet and cold. It would have been awful! Jeff played on the laptop until the battery ran out. I read my book until it got dark and then held it up in car lights anytime someone turned on their car.

#8- We sat for 8 hours. 8 Hours waiting to go 30 minutes to our house. It was funny until around 10:00pm. Then, past my bedtime, I started to feel a bit grumpy. I just wanted to see my kids again! They finally let us through at midnight. We got home and crawled into bed by 1:00.

Here we are waiting in the dark. Like my new coat? 

We had many blessings along the way. Especially the blessing of not being caught in that dangerous storm. I told Jeff "This is in no way a symbol of how our marriage has been these past 10 years!" He suggested that maybe we should have gone to the coast. I quickly nixed that idea. Due to the earthquake in Japan, the coast was on Tsunami warning.

Thinking the jinxed time is over. Our true anniversary was yesterday. Jeff got his sister to watch the kids so we could go out to dinner. I was really looking forward to that, but had to cancel due to Grant having a sore throat, fever of 102.9, and throwing up. Oh lovely. 10 years is jinxed.

All I can do is laugh. Endure to the end has new meaning for me. Ha Ha.

Happy 10 years Honey.