Run Oregon: What a Difference a Week Makes! From Wet Forest Trails to Winter Wonderland and a Few Pics From the Weekend.

Well, Oregon wasn't kidding around when it warned us that winter was coming!  Yesterday we awoke to temps in the single digits and today there was a good six inches of snow on the ground!  Talk about excitement in our house.  The kids were GIDDY!  Why can't adults stay this exuberant about life? Having kids around certainly reminds me to find joy in the little things.  They put on all their snow gear immediately and spent the first 45 minutes of the day running around outside before school.  These kids really aren't used to this much snow.  The climate in Portland is quite different.  The biggest difference between Bend and Portland when it snows?  Well, it rarely snows in Portland but when it does, school is almost always canceled.  This is because of how dangerous the roads can be with the wet climate. Freezing temps after a week of rain means icy icy roads!  In Bend, we are in the high dessert mountains where it is mostly dry and sunny.  Even when it is single digits, the sun is likely shining.  The city of Bend is also equipped road-wise for lots of snow so the kids had to go to school!  Ha!  Poor kids.  Lucky mom!  I enjoyed the snow falling out my window all morning while I got lots things checked off my lists.  Then I ventured out into Narnia and did the best I could at trail running.  It was more of a walk, hike, jog.  Really, I could have used some cross country skis or snow shoes!  I think I will invest in some.

View from my window today.

This post is short and sweet. Not a lot of time left to write much but I will include some pictures from this last week of running and visiting with friends.  I love how just this last weekend we were running in the wet McDonald Forest in Corvallis, OR (testing out part of the McDonald Forest 50k) and today I was running in falling snow and through snow-covered evergreens.  It was so hard to leave Asheville, NC and took me a good two months to snap out of my sad slump and missing my Blue Ridge Mountains but now that I'm settled, I'm more and more thankful to call Bend (and OREGON) HOME! Change takes time.  

  

From this on Sunday (Corvallis, OR):  

Around mile 20 of the McDonald Forest 50k trail race.  

To this Today (Bend, OR): 

If you look down along the river on the left, you can see the foot bridge that many of you might recognize from the Deschutes River Trail.  

My dog tried to take me on our usual back trails.  Nope, wasn't happening! 

I was thankful for this back road that leads to the trails (still a trail)  because of the road tracks left for me to run on.  Thank you city of Bend.  Ha!

This last weekend we drove to Corvallis to visit some of our closest friends for my birthday.  Corvallis is where Oregon State University is.  This is where my husband went to school and Corvallis was where we met during the summer of 2000. It was so special to show our kids some of the places where we first fell in love!  

So neat to see our kids sitting in American Dream Pizza.  This was where I ate my very fist night in Corvallis after driving myself from Colorado to Oregon.  I only knew one person and she was gone for the weekend so I went to eat with my new roommate (also a stranger) and our neighbor who turned out to be the love of my life.  

14 years later and I'm sitting here with our girls...we never would have known from that first dinner together.  

And this was the beautiful soul that started it all...a simple phone call from Iowa (me) to Oregon (her) one random spring night and the rest is history.  I agreed to move to Corvallis with her for the summer!  Crazy how that decision opened doors to the rest of my life.  This girl was at the birth of all three of my kids (and I hers), maid of honor in my wedding (I was in hers too), the reason for why I met my husband, and has been a constant in my life over the years.  Love her!  Thankful that I could spend my birthday with her.  

1.  Does it snow where you live? Do you run in the snow? 

2.  Best running shoes for snow and winter running?  

3.  Have you taken your kids to a special spot where you and your significant other fell in love or met?  

4.  If you want to read about and win a hands-free dog leash, check out my last post:  Hipster Leash

Amanda

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