Why I don't fly so much anymore

For years, I was the most frequent leisure traveler of nearly anyone I knew who also worked for a living. So, what’s going on? Why am I not updating this blog very often? Have I been grounded?

I started this travel blog right before I quit traveling. I didn’t quit entirely – but certainly I cut down on the number of vacation and leisure trips that used to dot my calendar like bumps on seersucker. Why? I went back to work, which entails a fair amount of business travel, which I don’t like to write about. And we bought a house in the mountains 80 miles away from Seattle. That limits both my opportunity and appetite for getting on a plane and flying away for fun.

Lately, I’ve been thinking I’ve been limiting myself too much. I haven’t been to South America in four years. Ben and I never go to Hawaii anymore; if we want to go someplace warm, it’s too easy to slip down to Palm Springs where we already have clothes, golf clubs, bikes – everything we need. No luggage required.

But as I say, I recently started to wonder if this is healthy. I came across a travel diary my friend Janet gave to me four or five years ago. Empty. On a desk, I uncovered a beginner’s guide to Slovak – evidence of a once-planned-then-cancelled trip to the mountains of Slovakia and the beer gardens of the Czech Republic. Janet has been e-mailing me lately about fantasies of a quick trip to Zuleta in Ecuador. Ben and I picked up brochures about golf and wine tasting around Mendoza, Argentina. It’s starting to get to me…I need some air under my feet and some serious non-American cultural immersion.

Well, until the past weekend, anyway. Two consecutive maintenance-caused flight cancellations with Alaska Airlines reminded me how little fun it is to get on an airplane anymore. A flight that should have taken 2 and a half hours - at the most - turned into a 22-hour ordeal – just trying to get home from Southern California. The sleep deprivation lasted for days, and I lost my nice $300 Sennsheiser head phones along the way. And wasn’t it just the last flight from Phoenix when the airline lost my golf clubs, which were checked alongside Ben’s, which arrived fine?

It’s as if the airlines are trying to drive away traffic. And, I can’t imagine I’m alone feeling this way. When this flight-hassle fatigue is combined with the coming “depression-syndrome” ethic of non-consumption on the part of consumers, I can’t help but think the heyday of air travel in the U.S. is over. Airlines that want to stay in business pay attention to preventative maintenance (get those planes healthy!), customer service and responsiveness (please tell me why my flight is delayed four hours?), creature comforts (is it really the swine flu that mandated the removal of pillows or penny-pinching?), and convenience (don’t make me drag my checked bag across the airport for loading. Don’t you have conveyer belts?) . But I don’t see that happening.

The TSA’s arbitrariness and rudeness seems to have lessened lately. But undoing that negative isn’t going to be enough when obliterated by increasingly budget-minded airline stinginess that leads to more discomfort and more and more delays.

Thank goodness Ben and I decided to drive to Canada for our big golf trip this summer instead of flying. We may actually get there on time. And we may actually have our clubs when we arrive.

Winter wondering

With the economic "uncertainty" around us - I put that in quote marks, because I wonder what's so uncertain: the economy is certainly horrid - Ben and I have often wondered if we were incredibly foolish to have purchased a two-bedroom bungalow in the mountains of Central Washington this year. Granted, by the time the place was constructed, it was really too late to change our minds, as we had sunk the down-payment and stood to lose it all if we backed out. But, still, it has seemed to hover on the edge of reason at times.

I wonder if we'll end up going up in financial flames because of the investment. But, the past 11 days of solitude, sewing, snowshoeing with Carly and sitting by the fire with a good book helped put the risk in perspective. It was simply wonderful. I'd do it all over again.

Suncadia, the development near Roslyn where our duplex unit sits (under about 10 feet of snow right now), is probably in more financial trouble than we are, but it, too, will stand the test of time, I believe. Let's get Obama into office, get some fiscal stimulus going (enough of the tax breaks as be-all-and-end-all, please) and I think Suncadia will get a chance to blossom and fill out in time. But right now, there are about as many port-a-potties in our little neighborhood as there are houses, as the construction of new units and completion of half-built units have hit a deep freeze - and not just because of the weather. Still, it's a nice place: trees, paths, creeks, a pleasant golf course and a half (the other half also stalled for the lack of economic certainty), a big lodge, a tiny inn and a fitness center with a pool and water slides that keep the youngsters at bay.

It snowed nearly constantly, and Carly and I went out to snowshoe nearly every day. We broke trail occassionally, but given the depth of the snow, we ended up spending most of our time on the groomed trails cut for skiers and snowshoers. The trails were lightly used and we spent most of our time out in the deep snow and deep woods all alone, just a bouncing, happy dog and her heavy-footed mistress who wondered - with Oprah - how did I let myself get this big again?

It was far more exercise than I'm used to, but I didn't lose any weight because I got to exercise another passion of mine: cooking. And, no health food for us! I made pot roast, prime rib and carnitas. I started the day with biscuits and sausage, or eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce. Ben didn't complain, although at one point he asked if I might be trying to kill him by loading up his arteries. After cooking for the past year in a kitchen the size of a small closet, the charm of the big, eat-in kitchen overwhelmed my nutritional better judgement, and with Carly at my side to catch any stray food particles that plopped toward the floor, I indulged.

(Now, of course, I'm on my new New Year's diet, the seventh or eighth in a row ... we'll see where that takes me.)

From that cholesterol-endangered husband, I received two books for Christmas - a book of essays on pre-Inca Peruvian cultures and another I had put on my Amazon.com wish list: Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes. It was a wonderful read - like sitting around talking with a good friend, although none of my friends likes to talk about dealth. I recommend it for all atheists; believers could probably learn something from it, but most won't find reason enough to crack it open.

And sewing: I probably spent more time sewing than anything, making book bags and wine bags and finishing a quilt I've been making for my niece for the past two years. With KPLU on the radio, Carly underfoot and a fresh pot of coffee to sip on all day, I'd say I was about as happy as I've been for an extended period of time as I can ever remember.

I hope all of you had some time to relax over the holiday, too. And, someday, you'll have to come up and visit Ben, Carly and me in Suncadia. I promise I'll put away my sewing long enough to make room for the Murphy bed, and I won't poison you with too much cholesterol. I'm over it.

Wine country

Yakima Valley and Rattlesnake Hills
November 23, 2008

The first time I visited the Rattlesnake Hills wineries, I did it on a bicycle with my friend Keri Robinson. We had planned our trip with the aid of a guide to Eastern Washington wineries and a map.

Maps are flat. Rattlesnake Hills should have been a clue that this small AVA in Eastern Washington is not. Duh.

It was a tough ride over big hills, but it was made managable - even enjoyable - by the consumption of small amounts of wine at each of the nine wineries we visited, the excellent weather and the friendly owner of the Hyatt Wineries who stopped to help us with some mechanical issues. He couldn't help with the bike, but it was the thought that counted - and the apples he gave us from his orchard.

Yesterday, I visited Rattlesnake Hills again, and this time, the hills were not an issue. My friend Kristine Kurey and I visited via the Explorer, stopping by the Wineglass Winery on the way back from a visit to several tasting rooms in Prosser.

More on the Wineglass in a moment...

We made the trip to Prosser from Suncadia, where Ben and I bought a duplex last summer. The boys were watching football, so we decided to make the most of a sunny but chilly Sunday afternoon and drive down to the Yakima Valley to restock our wine racks. (Neither of us is so much a connoisseur that we have "cellars" - just racks.)

We drove directly to the Olsen Winery tasting room right off the frontage road on I-90, looking for some of the Rouge de Coteaux that we had tasted last summer at the wine tasting event at the SAM Scuplture Garden in Seattle. It was my favorite wine of the tasting - rich, dark, dry and spicy. My memory of it was piqued on Saturday night at the Lodge at Suncadia. We had stopped in to share a bottle of wine in the 56 Degree Lounge (the temperature at which you are supposed to keep red wine, they inform me), and the Olsen Rouge was offered at $110. Yowie! I figured we could get it cheaper at the winery's tasting room.

I was wrong. Yes, it would have been cheaper - $33, in fact - but they had sold out. Argggh! Still, it was a commodious and pleasant tasting room, and I bought a couple of bottles of the Olsen Syrah, and we headed next door to Willow Crest.

Willow Crest has always been one of my favorite stops in the wine country because of its focus on Rhone-style wines. They make the one of the closest blends to a Chateauneuf du Pape in all of Washington (in all of the West Coast, maybe?) -- a wine they call XIII. WC's current 2005 vintage of Grenache, Mourvedre, Syrah and Viognier rivals the higher-priced Cuvee Elena from Syncline to the south, but the substitution of Viognier for Cinsault produces a slightly brighter and fruit-forward version to this dark tradition. I'll have to admit that I think the Syncline version wins my vote - perhaps due to its more traditional blend - but $28 versus $35 makes the WC a winning option.

To add to the disappointment of not finding the Rouge at Olsen, WC was sold out of the Cab Franc and the Grenache, but I loaded up on a few bottles, including the half-bottles of spicy mouvedre (perfect for a solo dinner), the pinot gris and Collina Bella. Kristine opted for a similar collection, but added some Rockin' Red, which is a cab-merlot blend. Obviously Kristine is one of the millions of people who, unlike me, doesn't taste ear wax in merlot. In fact, I don't know anyone who agrees with me, and most folks adamantly maintain they have no idea what ear wax tastes like, but I know what ear wax tastes like - and I taste it in all merlot blends - even those that are seemingly overpowered by cabernet.

From Willow Crest, we moved next door to Thurston Wolfe, which in my book is famous for its PGV - pinot gris/viognier. We added nearly a case a piece to our collection, including the fabulous Lemberger Rose - very dry in the way that vintners often promise, but rarely deliver. We stopped briefly at Apex - a nice cab and syrah were my choices. I like Apex, but rarely find anything that surprises or delights - particularly price points that delight. Another quick stop next door at Florentino had me considering the rich malbec, but it's hard to justify a $38 malbec, when so many great Mendoza malbecs are available at QFC for less than $10. Yeah, I know ... "support your local wineries" ... and I do! I just want them to give me something that is so special or unusual that I don't mind spending three or four times my usual per-bottle budget to bring it home. Or charge a price that's a bit above my usual bottle budget, and I'll justify the additional cost by chalking it up to supporting our state's most compelling industry.

By now, you might have noticed that I said "next door" a few times in the preceding paragraphs. That's a clue: Prosser offers a great quick wine-tasting trip thanks to the Wine Village that's developed right there on the north edge of town, off the first Prosser exit as you come into town on I-5 from Seattle (or Suncadia). And, at the next exit, you've got the beautiful tasting room, shop and bistro at Desert Wind, and the rather industrial strip-mall tasting rooms of the likes of Alexandra-Nicole and Kestrel (among others). All told, you can quickly taste a variety of Yakima Valley vintages, chat with the friendly owners and staff, and get back on the road - even if you only have a couple of hours to spare. You miss the pleasure of winding down country roads through the vineyards, which you get to do in Rattlesnake Hills and all of Washington's AVAs, for that matter. But, when time is short, Prosser's tasting rooms are a great alternative.

Not only that, but the folks are friendly and never condescending. You don't have to be a wine expert and you don't have to pretend to like anything. As my friend Kristine observed, all of the tasting staff we met freely complimented their competitors, and suggested other wineries to visit in the area. Which is why we decided to stop by Wineglass; at least three folks mentioned Wineglass as we were tasting wines, so we decided it would be worth a quick detour off the highway on our way home.

But first, on the way out of Prosser, we stopped at one of several wine shops in town and found two bottles of Olsen's Rouge de Coteaux at $38. Not the $33 we had hoped for, but affordable.

Up on Bonair Road, north of Zillah, we pulled into the casual and rather industrial tasting room of Wineglass Cellars, and immediately launched into a discussion about dogs with another pair of customers - always a good sign. Their springer spaniel was waiting patiently outside in the convertible while we talked about him and the dozens of other dogs in our lives and began tasting Wineglass's retinue of cab, syrah, merlot and zinfandel.

Vintner David Lowe turned out to be the charmer of the day - and what we had intended to be a five-minute stop turned into a half-hour (and could have been much longer), as we discussed everything from how hard we all wanted to work in a day to soup recipes to whether merlot tastes like ear wax and whether it should be used to "throw back the earthiness of syrah," as was David's opinion. The award winning wines and the discount on the cab tempted us, but it was David's winning personality that probably sealed the deals. We added to our stash, and headed back up the mountain to show the boys our gatherings.

Perfection

Sitting on the porch of our cabin, facing the ocean, we ate breakfast and sipped mimosas while the chickens ran toward us, hoping for handouts. The hens and roosters milled around the flower beds surrounding the porch, pecking at insects or other spots they suspected might be food. The bravest, a black hen, came up on the porch, the better to catch crumbs that might fall on the deck.

Ben looked at me slyly, and turned to the fine-feathered rooster below him and said, “Cock!” He looked back at me impishly. “Cock!” he said again, more confidently. “And Carly” our female shepherd “is a bitch!” he added, chuckling.

“Oh, we’re 13 years old again,” I remarked, unable to keep from laughing. For a man who bellows four-letter words on the golf course, often using the same f-word as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb in the same sentence, he seemed to delight in the naughtiness of a couple of common nouns.

I could see pure joy in his face. He and I were having a perfect morning. I rose early and walked into town to find croissants for lunch sandwiches and a latte to drink on the beach. I returned to our cabin on the ocean at the Waimea Plantation Cottages on the west side of Kauai, and watched the sun rise over the morning clouds and the waves break on the red-sand beach. I sat out by the beach on an Adirondack chair with a book, a study in the anthropology of religion, and found it delightfully interesting, even though it had been close to incomprehensible in my exhaustion of the night before.

Ben returned from his morning run, waxing enthusiastically about his discovery of a pedestrian suspension bridge over the river and how the river ran down to the ocean to our beach, providing a perfect running path. Out on the porch, we opened a bottle of champagne and a carton of orange juice, broke open a package of blueberry muffins and shared a banana.

We were about as happy as two grouchy middle-aged, over-educated people – especially two as different as we are – can be together. For the moment at least.

Readers of this blog may often wonder “where’s the enjoyment?” Why do I travel so much and find so little joy in it? Why do I rent a $700 a night ocean-front room at the Grand Hyatt Kauai, and complain about the noise, the costs, the food, the kids, the loud adults, the leaf-blowing machines? Why not stay home?

The truth is, I am a perfectionist. I’m not perfect, I just want to be. And I want everyone and everything else to be, too. And if something isn’t perfect, then the whole kit and kaboodle can go to hell. Well, almost. Fact is, I can have a great time on a sunny day on the golf course in spite of my horrific score. I can enjoy a day at the pool with a few clouds. I can enjoy a meal at a nice restaurant even if the wine is overpriced.

But, paying $700 a night for a room at the Hyatt doesn’t ensure happiness. Indeed, it just buys you the opportunity to spend more money on overpriced services. A massage that costs $200, a buffet breakfast for $30 per person, a 2-ounce mimosa for $9. And, it doesn’t assure peace. We are surrounded by noise: noisy kids splashing around in the ostensibly adult pool; parents arguing with their children below our lanai at 6 a.m.; leaf-blowers replacing brooms on the pathways between our room and breakfast. The room loses its luxury patina once it is strewn with wet swimming trunks, wet golf clubs, dirty clothes, towels, extra pillows (does anyone really need eight pillows on the bed?) and half-consumed bottles of wine and cans of beer. We’re not really slobs, but we’re trying to live our lives in 350 square feet of space for five days.

But, a place like Waimea Plantation Cottages – with its ocean setting, its quiet (unsafe for swimming) black beach, its beautiful and tranquil grounds and roomy period cottages – harbors the potential for joy. Joy and peace.

So, here is the joy in traveling: finding a place that’s just perfect. Or perfect enough.

Vacations with Ben

Sometimes vacations with Ben seem like a long string of meals. Go for a walk, but be back in time for breakfast. Lie by the pool until it’s time for lunch. Take a nap, walk on the beach, pass the time until we dress for dinner.

Ben likes his vacations simple. They are the vacations of a working urbanite who puts in long hours, leaving for the office before daylight and returning home after sunset. They don’t strain the imagination; they don’t demand heightened senses of awareness in strange surroundings. They are filled with golf, swimming pools and dining rooms. They are perfect for a man who has plenty of excitement at work: deadlines, breaking news stories, difficult sources, complaining readers.

It took me a long time to get used to this kind of vacationing. My family didn’t do vacations much, and certainly not vacations in high-end hotels with fancy restaurants and more than one pool. I remember two or three vacations as a kid: a camping trip to Wisconsin, about six hours away from our Iowa home; one to the Lake of the Ozarks, to a cabin on the lake with the sound of waves breaking outside the windows, a sound that kept me awake all night. I think there might have been another one, but I’m not sure it wasn’t the same as the Ozarks trip.

Ben’s family didn’t go to expensive hotels, either, but he does remember the anticipation of driving into the parking lot of Howard Johnsons or Holiday Inns on family vacations, the anticipation of a hotel pool and vending machines. He remembers driving to the family cabin in Northern Wisconsin and spending hours in a fishing boat on the lake, relaxing, far from the hectic world of the Chicago advertising agencies where his father worked. I understand why his father wanted peace and quiet, and why Ben does too. (And then, there was his mother, whom I invited to go on a cruise to Alaska with me shortly after his father died. “Why would I want to go somewhere I haven’t been before?” she asked, absolutely seriously.)

I’ve learned to accept these laid back vacations – even enjoy them – because they aren’t the only vacations I take. My own sense of the perfect vacation has no origin I can put a finger on: it probably was the simple result of wanting to get out of a small town in Iowa, and go as far away as humanly possible. I travel with my friends to places that Ben wouldn’t find relaxing: Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia. They are full of suspense and surprise. Occasionally, they require cunning: we get ourselves into a fix and have to put our wits together to get out of it.

When Janet, my favorite traveling companion, and I travel together, mealtimes are often unwelcome necessities. We put them off as long as possible. The food is usually poor and bland, and I don’t have enough fingers to count the times I have come home with campylobacter or salmonella poisoning from eating abroad. Janet comes home with respiratory distress; I come home with intestinal parasites.

This is not to say that I don’t like to eat when I’m on vacation with Ben. I eat way too much. I love food. I weigh at least 20 pounds more than I should because of it. But, sometimes, after a week on vacation with my husband, I start to dread mealtimes. I’m not hungry. Still, I can’t skip them, because they are the only excitement of the day – the only moments of discovery and sensory stimulation.

Yesterday was such a day. Today was too. The difference between the two is that the sun finally came out today, and finally, Hawaii looked like the Hawaii of postcards. We lay by the pool, ordering beers and screwdrivers, slipping into the water whenever we got too warm. We read. We talked a little. At some point, we agreed it was time for lunch. Now, I am reading and writing while Ben takes a nap.

Tonight, we will have dinner at Dardano’s a restaurant in the Grand Hyatt Kauai, where we are staying, and it will be excellent. I will fall asleep shortly after dinner, comatose with the carbohydrates of pasta and wine. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I will wake up, thanks to the red wine, and take a couple of Advils to go back to sleep.

Later this week, I will return to Seattle tan and rested, and Ben, I hope, will too.

Rain, limitless rain

Poipu Bay, Kauai

Yesterday, standing over my ball on the 16th tee at Poipu Bay, I pulled my driver back and felt the wind whipping the club head back and forth.

“Quit it!” I yelled to whoever was in charge of the wind. “Just quit it!” I have trouble enough hitting the ball square anyway, I certainly didn’t need the extra challenge of squaring up a wobbly club head.

By this point, I should have realized it didn’t really matter. Only Tiger Woods can score well playing in the conditions we faced. There wasn’t one pleasant moment. Under heavy gray clouds all day, our conditions varied from driving downpours that came at us horizontally, to lazy downpours that felt a like a heavy-duty rain shower in a bathroom, to wind gusts that made it difficult to stand still. The rain poured off the bill of my Ben Miller Invitational Golf Tournament hat, and after the first hole, there was no chance of keeping the club grips dry. My Goretex rain pants totally failed, and my Goretex coat was as wet inside as it was outside. I got diaper rash on my butt from sitting in the puddle that formed on the golf cart seat.

We have always come to Hawaii in November or December. That’s when Ben’s vacation time seems to finally build up to the point he can take a week off. And, right before Christmas, the resorts and roads are at their quietest, anticipating the holiday onslaught of tourists with kids. One year, our vacation started before Christmas and included Christmas eve and day. The first few days of the trip were pleasant and quiet, but then the children came, invading the pools and restaurants, and our trip went to hell.
Now, we plan to get here and home before the holidays, ensuring ourselves a little peace.

However, after this trip, we may reconsider our December choice. Since we got here, it’s been rainy, windy and gray. We have this weather at home; we don’t have to fly six and a half hours to see rain.

But stuck here now, we’re trying to make the best of it. We arrived on Wednesday night, and teed off at Poipu Bay at 10:00 on Thursday. The day was blustery, and we had a few sprinkles. But we had rain coats and it wasn’t bad … until the 18th hole. Then, the deluge started – the one that hasn’t stopped since – and we were miserably soaked by the time we finished the par 5. Ben and I both got a 9 on the hole, we’re not great golfers under adversity.

Actually, we’re not great golfers under any conditions. But, we’re trying, and we’ve lately devoted all of our joint vacations to finding beautiful places to swing clubs, drink a little beer, drive the cart, and, in Ben’s case, swear a bit. We’ve played in Puerto Rico, California, on the Big Island, here on Kauai, in Couer d’Alene and all over Washington. It’s a great way for a couple – especially one that seems to have few other hobbies in common – to spend time together and play.

One time in Couer d’Alene, we faced similar conditions – driving rain and fierce winds – but because it was also about 50 degrees out, I was able to convince Ben to stop playing after nine holes. Yesterday, as we tackled the coursse for the second day, Ben insisted we continue. It might be raining, but it’s a warm rain.

So, down the fairways we went yesterday, and down went our games. It rained so hard that by the time we were on the 15th hole, we decided the casual water rule pretty much covered the entire golf course, and if we didn’t like our lie, we could move the ball to a drier one (if one could be found). It didn’t help our scores much, but it relieved us from having to try to hit balls out of mud puddles.

By the time we reached the clubhouse, there wasn’t one dry spot on us or our clubs. We ran to the car, threw our wet gear and clubs in the trunk and rushed to the hotel for a shower. I brought my clubs into the room, so I could dry them off later, and stripped off my soaked clothes. It seems paradoxical that a shower can feel good after getting soaked in an 18-hole downpour, but it did. After a room service lunch, a glass of wine and a nap, I felt whole again.

Today, we rose to more gray skies, and the heavy rain showers continue. We aren’t playing golf in it, though, so we’ve had a chance to just sit back and marvel and the amount of water that can fall from the sky. I had a massage, and the rain came down so hard, the masseuse had to close the windows of the massage room. (The massage, by the way, was terrific, though very pricey at about $200 after tip.) We snuck over to the golf pro shop to take advantage of the 35%-off sale (off of everything, not just “selected merchandise”), and managed to get there and back between deluges.

Now, Ben is watching Wisconsin play basketball on the room TV. I’m sitting out on the deck of our room, which faces the ocean, and watching the seemingly limitless rainfall. It makes me homesick for our weather in Seattle, and that’s saying something.

Wintery Winter Park

Winter Park, December 3, 2007

I have spent three days in Janet’s house, and I have to wonder: How do these walls stay up with all the stuff she has hung on them? I’ve told Janet this before, so she won’t be insulted.

I really love her little condo – actually not so much the condo itself, but the decor. It wouldn’t be my choice of a place to live, but she’s got the decorating sense of a quilter, which she is. She puts together textures and colors – also cultures and locales – in the random, eclectic way a quilter combines fabrics of different textures and designs. The only thing that restricts the combinations is the fit – and even that is negotiable. The effect is the colorful and fun of barely controlled chaos.

What I’m really jealous of is her loft, which she has devoted to her quilting projects. It’s an entire room that doesn’t have to accommodate any other uses or humans. What luxury!

When I arrived on Friday afternoon, we had a celebratory glass of wine – a nice Rhone blend, and then took off for lunch at Fontenot’s, a Cajun restaurant, for gumbo (for me) and fish and chips (for her). The gumbo was decent, but nothing to write home about. Then, we visited the wine tasting room of a friend of hers, where Janet left some wine-themed throw pillows that she hopes to sell at the tasting room. I liked them so much I bought three myself.

Since we planned to go to the spa the next day, and I had left home without thinking to buy a bathing suit, we checked at BJammin’ – a sportswear shop that specializes in beach and ski wear. Maybe the word “specializes” doesn’t make any sense in that context. But, in any case, I found a suit that fit, and quickly concluded that no one – no one but Paris Hilton, perhaps – should try on a swim suit in the middle of winter, when pasty-white cellulite looks its worst. Yuck! A little suntan on those upper thighs would help some – maybe not a lot, but some!

We returned home, opened a bottle of wine to celebrate my new job (I’m starting a new one Dec. 17) and watched Sea of Love on cable. We’re such wild and crazy girls!

Snowshoeing up Elk Creek the next day was spectacular. We got about 6 inches of perfect powder Friday night, and I was thankful I’d rented an SUV for the trip. We made fresh tracks with the Highlander back to the trailhead, and from there, created sloppier first tracks with our snowshoes.

The tree branches and the trail were decorated with fluffy caps of fresh snow. It was clear, sunny and – hey! What happened to the oxygen around here!? I quickly realized that I had come from sea level to about 9900 feet above sea level in two days, and I had some serious oxygen deprivation. But, Janet was patient, I got over my embarrassment of huffing like a life-long smoker, and we made our destination and turned around. Coming back was more of a downhill slope and I began to feel a little more competent. It had been a long time since I snowshoed, but I quickly rediscovered it truly is just like walking. Funny walking, but walking.

We had dinner at a nice restaurant, Untamed Grill, with a bottle of wine (a malbec). I would recommend it if you’re really hungry and don’t mind spending at least $25 a person. I had great prime rib and Janet had a tasty, but perhaps too complicated, dish of beef medallions on couscous cakes with brie and a fine, tasty sauce. We both voted for the prime rib, and split our dishes. No dessert necessary.

On Sunday, I pulled my back trying to help Sam – her ancient, sweet black lab – up on the bed, after he faltered about half-on, half-off. I spent the rest of the day on the couch, leaning against hot pads and ice packs and watching the NFL. Not a great way to spend a nice sunny day in Winter Park. I always seem to hurt myself – or at least something related to my spine – when I visit Janet. We had dinner at Mama Falzitto’s, an Italian place that I highly recommend. Lots of food for the money, and the cobbler dessert was wonderful.

I returned to Seattle on Monday. Alaska boarded the flight early, in anticipation of trying to beat some of the bad weather in Seattle, but then we sat on the tarmac for an hour in Denver while the mechanics dealt with some mechanical issues. The flight was very bumby coming into Seattle, thanks to the Pineapple Express – the flow of Hawaii winter storms, which bring warm weather and monsoons to the Northwest every December.

I nearly got frostbite Monday morning, as I scraped ice off my windows. I had forgotten how cold temperatures below zero feel.

All in all, it was a great trip, most notably for getting to see Gina, Jenny and Janet. I’m very lucky to have such great friends and nieces.