What a great weekend! I wish they were all like this.
Saturday morning I woke up early so I could meet up with people to head out to White Pass for some skiing. I played around with my breakfast and ended up scrambling some eggs with cheddar cheese and smoked salmon. It was fantastic. We were a little slower than I would have liked leaving their place, but we eventually got on the road. Our party included me, Ed, Ben, and two women from Sweden named Emma and Louise who were visiting. Once we arrived, I got my ticket and rented some skis and met up with everyone else. Ben stayed behind to teach Ed to ski, and Emma, Louise, and I had a couple of runs. The weather was spectacular, and my skis performed well. We found Ben and Ed and waited with them for a few minutes. The girls got hungry, and Ben and Ed were taking a while, so we all split up. I usually have my pockets stuffed with fruit snacks, water, pepperoni, and sometimes homemade prunes or cheese sticks, so I just snack while I’m on the lifts to take advantage of as many minutes as I can.
While I was skiing alone, I never stopped. I explored all over the mountain, going through moguls, trees, and especially going fast. I really like just getting my skis about shoulder width apart, crouching low, and bombing straight down a run. There were slalom poles set up on one run, so I played in those a few times, and doing much better than I expected. Eventually I ran into the rest of my party (not literally), and we skied as a group for the last hour. It was a lot of fun.
On the way back we stopped at a place in Yakima called Miner’s, which is an independent burger joint that has the largest hamburgers I have ever eaten. They are huge, and perfect for a day of skiing.
We arrived back in Richland and separated ways for a couple hours to prepare for the night. At about 10:30 Ben, Emma, Louise, and I met again and went to a bar I had never visited before called the Branding Iron. I had never been there because it was a cowboy bar, complete with live band, older men with cowboy hats and boots, and women with teased hair. Oddly enough I knew some people there from dancing in other places, so I quickly made myself comfortable. It was interesting seeing some styles of dance that were completely unfamiliar to me, but entertaining nonetheless.
The next morning I was up around 9 and headed over to the airport for some skydiving, but that’s a separate story.