Merry Christmas from Idaho

It has been a joyous time in Idaho for the holiday. The Scofields arrived on the 19th and the Crosbys arrived on the 21st. Finn and Joanne arrived on the 24th so everyone is here and was ready for a great visit.

Snow arrived to lightly cover the ground on Christmas Eve. It was so pretty and, of course, you just need to look up to the hills to see the snow cover. Josh, his dad and I went to Bogus Mountain to cross country ski. It was so much fun! We only fell down a couple of times. There was new powder and it was so quiet and pretty. The only mistake we made was not going earlier in the visit so that we could go back again before returning east.





Josh also took us to Oregon and the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. It was a very slow, snowy trip but the center was terrific. We put our feet in the wagon ruts that still exist from the emmigrant trails of a hundred years ago! On the way out we kept seeing these big double trailers with rocks in them. It seemed strange and we couldn't figure out why they were moving rocks. Lo and behold, they were potatoes (not rocks) going to the OreIda plant! Just amazing.






It has been a wonderful time with our family. Idaho is a great place and we encourage all if you to come out and visit. The accommodations are great!

Liz Crosby, Mom

Another Day, Another Mountain

I took a personal health day on Thursday and got my third day in. We went to Brundage which is north of McCall. They claim to have the most snow in Idaho, 300-500 inches a year.

I'm learning some new things. Being a pretty good East Coast snowboarder doesn't translate for much out here. Everybody I ride with is faster, and smoother than me. Of course they also ride 20-30 times a season versus my 7-11 days.

I'm having a lot of trouble in the powdery stuff, I keep planting the nose of the board and flipping over the front. I need to move my bindings back I think and try to keep more weight on the back of the board.

While off trail a bit I ended up in a gully. That was no fun. It took 30 minutes to find my way down with a hundred yard walk through waist deep snow. The lesson learned is don't miss the exit.


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Winter of Josh

As you know one of the main reasons we moved to Idaho was to have the greatest snow season of all time. I'm off to a good start. I've been skiing twice already this season and its only December 2nd. I've set a goal to get 30 days on the mountain this year. I think its achievable though I may have to work really hard in March depending on how busy I get before the 2008 Invitational.

I'll be keeping track of my days with a customized Google Map.


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Grand Targhee, Wyoming

Joanie and I had to go to Sun Valley for a meeting on Friday. It's about two hours east of Boise and we really wanted to see some different parts of Idaho so we drove from there to Grand Targhee in the Tetons. We showed up late Friday night and stayed right at the resort since the early season room rates were the same price as town.

I went snowboarding on Saturday, while Joanie got a pedicure. Grand Targhee is huge, they had 1500 acres open and this was before they open their other peak. They got 13 inches of snow the day before we got there and there was lots of powder left in the trees. Visibility was a bit of a problem as it snowed 5 inches on Saturday and the top of the mountain was in the clouds most of the day. You couldn't see more than 25 feet or so at the top in the whiteout.

On Sunday I took Joanie on a forced snowshoe deathmarch. It wasn't really that bad but hiking through the powder really wears you out.

We had a great time. I can't wait to go back, maybe next time it will be clear and we can actually see the Tetons!!

1st Day on the Mountain

The first day this year was actually pretty weak. While there is plenty of snow in the Sawtooth Mountains the resorts don't have much yet.

I was actually going to skip driving all the way to Tamarack (100 miles north) since only the bunny hill was open but my co-worker Jesus convinced it was better than watching TV all day.



Jesus is still learning (what do you expect from someone from LA) and spent a lot of his day in the snow. As you can see there isn't much snow on the ground.


I spent some time on the board and on the telemarks. I remember how to alpine on the skis but the tele-turn eluded me all day. All I remember is Sol saying weight on the toes, weight on the toes. I didn't want to practice the wrong way so I did mostly alpine on them.

Overall it was a nice to be outside, there was a great sunset on the mountains. It snowed Monday night so hopefully the mountains can fully open soon.

Browns Win!!

I know its a little late for this but I have to do it anyway. As most everyone knows I'm a Cleveland Browns fan ( I really like suffering and frustration). Since we are in Baltimore for Thanksgiving, Jack was able to get me tickets to see the Browns @ Ravens last Sunday. He wasn't feeling well so I dragged Nick instead.

Our seats were behind the end zone on the upper, upper level. We were sitting with lots of real Baltimorons, it was a trip to hear them talk trash about their team the whole time. It was a crazy game but the Browns pulled out a tie on the final play to go to overtime, then won the toss and kicked a field goal to win!! It was a crazy day. I'm sure most of you don't really care but we had a super strange ending. Here is the story from the local news.


As soon as the kick went through Wade texted me that it was good but I didn't believe him. One of the problems with going to the game is that you don't really get any information. All we saw was the ref signal no good, Ravens players celebrating and leaving the field. This was a much better outcome. This is the 5th Browns game I've been to in my life and the first they have ever won when I was there.

It was a happy day.

Long Time No Blog . . .

This blogging thing is hard to keep up with on a regular basis. It takes a lot more work than I thought.

It's been a while since we blogged anything but here's whats been going on in Idaho.

Planning for the 2009 World Games is going slow. We suffered a major setback this week when President Bush vetoed a bill that had $8 million dollars in funding for us. It was the lead story on KTVB the local NBC affiliates news last night. You can watch the story here.

That said we are still moving forward. Joanie's old co-worker Ian is joining me in the IT dept on November 26. We'll now have two Terps to counter the Idaho Vandals & BSU Broncos on staff.

Tuesday night at 6pm we decided to go to the BSU vs Washington State basketball game. Tickets were $12 and available at the door. Washington State is ranked #6 and was clearly better than BSU but would get blown out in an ACC game.

Not much else to report. We are heading back to Maryland on Saturday for 6 days. It will be interesting to see sprawl and tons of people again. Since April, I've only left Idaho 3 times, twice to Oregon and once to San Francisco. Snow is falling in the mountains north of here, Tamarack and Sun Valley are scheduled to open over Thanksgiving. I hope to sneak up to one of them the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Back to the Sawtooths

Dad and Nick were in town last weekend for a trip to the Sawtooth Mountains. While Mom and Dad were here over the summer, we discovered the Iron Creek Trail which leads up into the mountains and travels past Alpine Lake and Sawtooth Lake. We didn't have enough time to hike it in August so we did it last weekend instead.

The trail is 5 miles each way and about 12oo feet of vertical to Sawtooth Lake. I got to play with my GPS and track our speed, altitude and distance the whole way. Dad played cameraman with his new camera. The weather wasn't perfect, cool and rainy with clouds blowing in all the time, but the hike itself wasn't really that bad and the views were amazing.

Here are Nick and I on the trail.


Here is Alpine Lake.

Here is Sawtooth Lake, it is actually much bigger than Alpine Lake but it doesn't really come through in the photos.



Three happy people because we are about to start back down.



It snowed overnight while we were there. Winter comes quick in Idaho. Ski season is right around the corner.

Kraft Shoot-Out

Last week the 2009 World Games was a participant in the Kraft Shoot-Out at the Albertson's Boise Open. The golfers playing for us were Jason Zuback & Jason Gore. The PGA's marketing is dead on, "These guys are good." They can crush the ball when needed or drop it right on green from just about anywhere. As Jack has often said to me, "These guys don't play the same game I play."

I ended up being the official staff photographer simply because I was carrying the camera. At first I was shooting from the gallery but I ended up on the course with the press corps. Sports shots are really hard to get, I took hundreds of photos but never got the club striking the ball, though I did get some dirt on this one.












Here is Team Jason walking with Roberto one of our local athletes.












Here is a good shot of our cheering section, hopefully that shot got on the Golf Channel.








And lastly Terry, another local athlete with the final results.

The road less traveled

On the way back from Emmett we decided to follow a historic highway marker to the town of Pearl which is, in theory, a town from the gold mining era. We're not sure if we drove past the town or if the only thing left is the historic highway marker where we turned onto the road. We did enjoy driving the dirt road, saw a lot of cows and a mine entrance.



The best part was the view -- Pearl sits just over 1400 feet higher than Boise, at an elevation of 4,154 feet.

Stammtisch

While traveling around the Marin headlands, we stopped in Sausalito for breakfast and were seated at the locals table, affectionately referred to as the, "Stammtisch."

The locals were heavy into their own conversation when we arrived but opened up a bit after some prodding. They told us about the Taj Mahal houseboat and also sent us to the The Marin County Civic Center which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
It truly is a civic center, with government offices and a library inside, along with the county jail built into the hill next to it.

Let's backtrack a little...

Before I continue chatting about recent adventures, I have some catching up to do. First, let's finish San Francisco...

While borrowing Dave's car, we drove through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. We were socked in by fog and could only see the Pacific ocean from one vista, but it made the gun turrets even more mysterious.



We took a road out of the park that led past some of the original military buildings which are now artist residences and studios. Despite the noble cause, the area was a bit depressing. That changed when we saw a deer and her fawns walking through the "compound" and I remembered we were just minutes away from the busyness of the highway and downtown San Francisco.

The GGNRA is one of the largest urban parks in the world and thankfully very much untouched by the growth that engulfs it.

We have become Idahoans . . .

After many months we have finally given up our Maryland residency and become Idahoans. We got our new tags last week.

Joanie's Car got the Ski Idaho plate. There isn't a snowboarding plate.

Mine is the Sawtooth National Recreational Area plate, hopefully I'll get to see a mountain goat someday.

I guess this means there is no turning back....

Columbia River Gorge

Joanie and I came west to meet Mr. Yuck & Joanne for a 3-day weekend in Oregon. They picked us up at the airport and we went north into Washington and had breakfast in Camas, WA.




Before getting back on the main road we stopped to pick blackberries. When you are traveling with backpackers they have all the necessary gear to carry home what you pick.

From there we followed the gorge on the Washington side

and stopped at the Bonneville Dam.


We than crossed over the Columbia River at White Salmon into Hood River. From there we went to the Full Sail Brewery and had the sample tasting. We picked out a six pack to take with us and bought a picnic lunch.

From there we headed down the highway to Multnomah Falls.

My favorite part of being in the gorge are the fabulous views of Mount Hood.

River Boarding

Eileen is visting this weekend so I dragged her River Boarding. If you are un-familiar with riverboards they are a cross between a boogie board and hard kayak. You get a wetsuit, fins, and the board and than throw yourself down the river. I've wanted to do this for years, its very popular in France and New Zealand but the rivers were still too cold when we were in Queenstown last year.

We went on a tour with Cascade Raft which is 40 minutes north of Boise. I don't have any pictures of us in the sexy wetsuits or on the river but the video on their site gives you a great idea. http://www.cascaderaft.com/hydrospeed.asp

The actual ride is not as rough as it looks. Eileen and I agreed that we would like to see them expand it to Class III/IV rivers. On the board you punch right through even the biggest rapids.

Cucumbers

At the Boise Farmer's Market today we bought three kinds of cucumbers.
On the left is an Aremenian Cucumber, in the middle is a Regular Cucumber, and on the right is a Lemon Cucumber. We'll let you know how they taste.

Sausalito

Saturday morning was about 55 degrees and foggy in the city. We walked down to David's hotel and picked up his car. We drove through Fisherman's Wharf (it really was pretty nice at 8am) and out over the Golden Gate to Sasulito. It was cold, foggy and damp in the city. You couldn't even see the bridge from the city, from the bridge you can't see the top or the water.

Once you get across the bridge its a whole new world. We stopped in Sausalito for breakfast, it's a very cool little town on the other side of the Golden Gate. Over there it was 70 degrees and sunny though the fog was rolling across the top of the hills.
We learned that its a commuter town, there is ferry service across the bay to the city. We stopped at the breakfast place that had the most people in it figuring that would be a good place to eat. It did take us two laps to find a place that we were comfortable parking the Porsche. I didn't want it dinged on my watch. The restaurant had several large tables so we were seated with some locals which was fun. They told us to go down to the docks and see the Taj Mahal.
Somebody built themselves a houseboat replica of the Taj Mahal. Only in California. There were also some other more normal houseboats in this marina. When it costs $750k for a starter house (2 bedrooms, 800 sq ft) you can understand why people live on houseboats.

San Francisco

It's been a while since we put anything up. Sorry about that, work has been crazy the past few weeks. Joanie had to go to San Jose, California last weekend to meet with our web design company. We decided to take advantage of the situation (and one free airline ticket) to spend the weekend in San Francisco.

From the time I got off the plane until we checked in to the hotel I felt clammy (like I needed a shower) and I couldn't figure out why. Then it hit me, humidity. We have none in Boise, it hasn't rained since our camping trip in early June. It was such a strange feeling, how did I survive those Maryland summers?

Pam put us back in touch with her brother David who we haven't seen since 2000. It was his birthday weekend so he was staying with friends in the city. David let us borrow his car on Saturday morning to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and do a driving tour (thanks to Brindsi for the detailed tour route) of the area. Normally when you borrow a car from someone you get a Civic or a Camry. Not this time.

That is a 2007 Porsche Cayman S. Go David!! This is the most expesnive car I've ever gotten to drive. While we were at the gas station, a woman came up to me and said "I hope you drive that like it deserves to be driven." My answer to her was "It's not mine and I'm terrified that I'm going to hurt it." Joanie said I was channeling Philip the whole time and driving scared. That may have been the case but what else to do when someone gives you a $60k+ automobile to drive in Bay Area traffic.

I'm going to break up the posts from this trip so that Joanie and I can take turns working through the pictures.