So after getting back to Seattle from Vancouver, BC to celebrate the New Year my friends and I went to a bar a shared a bottle of Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina that I picked out.  The next morning I was picked up by Paul, Mark, Adam, and Twan and we headed down to Portland.  I hadn’t seen Mark or Paul in a long time and it was cool catching up with them.  I hadn’t met Adam or Twan before but they were both pretty cool guys.

After getting there we arrived at the Martin’s brother’s house and had some drinks and then went to bed early so we could get up for skiing in the morning.**

We skied Mount Hood Meadows that day on almost perfect powder right after a pretty good snowstorm.  This was my first time skiing for about three years or so and it took me some time to regain my confidence, but I did pretty well.  I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy skiing.

Afterwards we went to this bar called Charlie’s up on the mountain in a town called Government Camp.  Marvin told me that his dad used to come to this bar when he was young and that it still is exactly the same as it was back then.

(So my camera died at the start of this trip and I had forgotten both my extra battery and my charger, so none of these photos are mine).

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This is us at Charlie’s

This is Adam after his teachers Paul and Marvin threw him in a snowbank and took pictures.

The next day we opted to go to Ski Bowl instead, which I liked better because there were fewer people and the runs were funner and more challenging.  Marvin’s dad used to be  ski instructer here and this is where he grew up, and possibly concieved, as he told me.

Apparently that day at Mount Hood Meadows some old guy got hit by a snowboarder and died and the dude that hit him just took off.  What a bastard.

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We only came off the hill to drink beer and eat nachos.  Actually, I didn´t have any of the nachos becuase I´m a vegetarian now.  Adam did though, even though he is also recently a vegetarian.  If you look closely at his sleave you can see the tears off shame he wiped off there.Â

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A band of merrymakers.

So after rockin’ Skibowl we dropped off Marvin at his brother’s place and had these killer coffee drinks and checked out his impressive vintage stereo collection and drove back to Yakima.

All the rest of the pictures from this trip are here.

I chilled out there for a couple hours until my driver Vik picked me up again and took me to Pullman.  We arrived there a little after midnight but still had time to hit up Valhallas for about an hour before it closed and then went to our buddy Mohamed’s place and hung out. My sister Laura took me to Spokane in the morning.