Bend, OR

Our friend Rennie invited us to his cabin in Bend to spend some time with him as well as his son, and mom, sister and her husband that were visiting from Amsterdam and England. We arrived Saturday morning and immediately headed to Mt. Bachelor for skiing. The temperature outside was 36 degrees and and the weather was beautiful! We found it was more like Spring skiing. Rennie, his sister Trixie, James and I had lots of fun skiing.

The next morning after church, we took a walk along the Deschutes River. It was interesting to see the ice floating downriver. We watched and listened as it pulled more ice down from the ice built up along the side of its path. As we watched it being carried further downstream, it piled up, forming a dam where the water rushed underneath and then hurried around the bend.

Later we went on a long ride on bikes--I have only been on a single bike once that I can remember in the past 20 years. I much prefer the tandem.

Monday we drove back toward Mt Bachelor to go snowmobiling. Since there isn't a lot if snow, I wondered it we would be able to do it. We came to an area that had enough snow for us to enjoy ourselves. We had a lot of fun, James and I managed to get separated from the rest of the group a couple times, which was frustrating--since we didn't know where we were or where we were going. We are grateful for cell phones that connected us back up. The area we were in was gorgeous with the mountains and snow. This was only the second time I have been snowmobiling, but I think I will enjoy it.

We enjoyed some English dishes we had 'English Fry-up' with fried bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, and peppers. This was served with toast, pancake and sausages. For dinner we had 'Bangers and Mashed'. It was all very good. And we enjoyed getting to know Rennie's family--hearing about their lives in Amsterdam and England. His mother 'Caroline' lived during the war and we listened to her war stories; what her life was like from 1939-1945. We can tell it still effects her deeply.

Today, under cloudy skies, we took another long beautiful walk along the Deschutes River--which had thawed since our last walk. We were grateful for the scenery around us. After lunch we headed west toward home as a light rain started to fall.