Mount Baker Snowboard Lessons

Kathy and I have been promising to take our nephew, Robert, up for Snowboarding lessons this year. Although Mount Baker may not be the best beginner mountain around, it just happens to be the closest. They also have a pretty good beginner deal. Fifty bucks will land you snowboard rentals, a lift ticket and a lesson. So Saturday morning we loaded our tired hurting heads, picked up Robert and another friend, Jill, for the ride up WA-542. The sun was bright and shining and the weather was hovering right around freezing. The only thing typical about this day for Baker was the near rock iron hardness of the snow. Luckily, the beginner's area was well groomed. We arrived in plenty of time for the lessons and got Robert all situated with boots, board and gear. After that we left him in the capable hands of the instructor (who must have been about 12), and headed up for a couple of runs. All of the non-groomed runs were closed, which is just as well since they were icy and nasty. Well the sun was out and it was warm, so I can't complain too much. After the lesson, we snapped a couple of pics, just as the clouds started to move in.
As for the lesson, it went well. We were able to make it down from the beginner run with only a couple of major wipe outs. Robert is pumped to go again, but was wondering if the snow was always so hard.
The only near incident occurred when I realized that I had almost no gas at the top of baker. I think I coasted all of the way down the hill and just managed to coast into the station. Did you know there isn't a gas station in Glacier?

The Beginner Area

Andy, Robert & Kathy

Kathy and Jill - Where are your feet?

Skiing at Sun Peaks, BC

Kathy and I escaped for a little bit of skiing and sunshine at Sun Peaks, BC. It is about a 4 hour drive from Bellingham if the weather is good. Although on this trip we did get stopped for about an hour while they were trying to do some preemptive blasting on the avy chutes over the highway. The resort reminds me a lot of Colorado resorts, with nice and dry snow. We had this crazy inversion the entire time we were there, so the valleys were cold and foggy, but the tops were just crazy warm. The northern slopes stayed nice and cool, so I mostly stayed on the steeps with a foray into some corn in the afternoon. Sun peaks also has a pretty nice cross country ski area that we used on Sunday.

Christmas Lights Stowed - Finally

I've been trying to get the light off my boat for the last week, but the rain has been never ending. Today, we got a nice bit of sunshine and I finally went down and removed the lights and pulled some goodies off for this weekends ski trip to Sun Peaks.
Here are a couple of photos from the parade last month.

All lit up.

Rick & Rochelle

Wayne & Trudy

Yikes - don't flash me while I'm driving!

Update-o-rama

Well, I have been porting my old blog to this Google blog and I was reminded that every post that I did, sent out emails to those folks that had the email gig setup. So, for now I will turn off email updates until I get the whole kit-n-caboodle figured out.

Rose Bowl Parade Photos

Okay, this is really not the Rose Bowl Parade, it is the Tournament of Roses Parade. What the hell is a Tournament of Roses anyway. Maybe they should rename it to something like the Lehman Brothers Memorial Parade. That way we can help out old wall street a bit. But enough of that, on to our photos:

The traditional opening to make you remember who is really in charge:

This float was put on by the India Tourism Board. I guess they needed to upgrade their image after last years events.

I took this one for my friend Dale. He is really into horses.

Can someone please explain to me the Jack-in-the-Box marketing campaign? I mean this Jack guy is downright scary. He could easily be the headliner on any Wes Craven movie. Notice he is dancing with his next potential victims.

This float had a skateboarding dog on it:

I remembered seeing a video about him someplace:

And finally after the parade I have to ask, "Don't these people know about trash cans?"

More photos from the parade can be found here.

Early morning flights

When you book a flight at 6am, it doesn't sound so bad until you realize that you have to get up at 4am.
However, there are upsides. Their really isn't any traffic on the highway. No lines at the gas station or rental counter and very little in the way of sunlight. I'm not really sure that last item is a bonus
Andy