Go Places, Do Things

 One of the things I love most is taking Luke to Erwin Park to ride.  Watching him with his buddies reminds me of when I was his age, doing the exact same things with my friends.  Making jumps, trying to out-do on another at 'The Dunes' or 'The Pit'.  We are so thankful to be able to live less that 10 minutes from such an incredible park with trails, jumps, hiking, and even camping.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAmUVLI6cJk

Valentines Day 2021 was one for the books.  Two feet of fresh snow in Pagosa just for starters.  Could not go the mountain that day, so Sergey and I went cruising in the Yukon.  Hollers witnessed the incident first hand from the Bluebird Chalet.  Thank Goodness for Buckskin Towing to help us out.  We moved on with our incredible day, headed to the Hippy Dip hot springs, ate heart shaped pizza, and drank margaritas.    

 We had Montana-like weather last February here in the bubble.  Unbelievably, the temps dipped to zero and the snow stayed for quite a while.  The coverage was enough for me to strap my cross country skis on for a few days and substitute skiing for running.  Got some weird looks, and Mirnov's still laugh about me swinging by their house on skis.  Ponds were frozen and the local Canadians cleared the snow to play hockey.  It was definitely life in a northern town for about a week.  

 It had been an idea for decades. This summer, we made it a reality, somewhat on a whim.  When we were teens, Dave and I used to talk about climbing 1, 2, or all 3 of the Sisters mountains (Faith, Hope, and Charity).  In our boy scout days, we backpacked in the Three Sisters Wilderness, but always hiked around the volcanos, but never up them.  We weren't 100% sure how long of a trek it would be, or how we'd hold up, but we decided to take advantage of us all being in Oregon, and the perfect weather window.  Dave and I located 2 Eagle Scouts to for the crew.  Three Rasca brothers (myself, Dave, Joe, and Kenny, a brother of another mother.  The idea was to pack light, carrying mostly high calorie foods and warm clothes for the summits and when the sun was down.  We pumped/filtered water from the glacial melt every chance got.   It was a chilly start at 34 degrees at 4am, but warmed up fairly quickly as we climbed.  It took about 21 ho...

 After a few hours of sleep, we woke up to the cackles of  the roosters and turkey just outside our cabin. With Wayne at work, Karen was doing ranch chores solo, so we offered our services.  This led to shenanigans like learning how to rope calves, tag, and band.  After about 45 minutes of keep-away and missing the mark with the lasso, we finally roped 2 of 3 calves.  What we didn't realize was speed and strength of these animals.  They weigh about 125lbs and have the 4 legs gripping the ground to try and pull the rope our of your hand. Nuts that I had to travel to Oregon from Texas in order to do this.   Another premium experience for the weekend. 

Yesterday, an orchard of some type caught my eye as I was driving outside of Waco, Texas on a narrow country road.    I'd never seen an orchard with such tall trees before, so I had to figure out what it was. I pulled my Toyota to the side of the road and got out to take a closer look.    About 30 seconds later,    a farmer comes rolling through the shady orchard atop his blue tractor, as he was probably just making the rounds of the orchard perimeter.    I asked him about the orchard, told him I was from Oregon, and that we are accustomed to seeing fruit orchards with much smaller trees or smaller nut trees like Hazelnuts. As he stared up at the tree canopy in his blue jeans, work boots, and sweaty v-neck white t-shirt,    the friendly old-timer proceeded to inform me about how the pecan crops wasn't that great this year, how the rain impacted the growing season, and explained how they rig up a 150-horsepower machine to the trees called...