Mt. Hood Getaway

We did a 2-night Mt. Hood getaway this week, staying in a condo in Government Camp on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

• As with all trips, there was lots of excitement and anticipation. The kids both packed up a full suitcase of stuff the day before we left, and Maggie also packed a backpack jammed with 25 or so books. We left most of this stuff on our bed when doing our final packing job, and upon our return home, returning these items to their proper places was as much work as the rest of the unpacking.
• The kids slept in a bunk bed, which while fun, was an incredible distraction from them going to sleep in the evening and staying asleep in the morning. The second night, Annie and I were hanging out in our room and Chase just wouldn't stop talking and singing to himself. "And the skiers and the snowboards on Mt. Hood . . . "
• After we were all settled into the condo the first day it was time to go adventuring in the snow. Maggie - "I don't want to go out." This was . . . frustrating.
• Chase and I went out to play in the snow. We did one small sled run. "That was really fun!" "Great, do you want to do it again?" "No, I'm done. It wasn't really, really fun." Instead of sledding more we just poked around in a big snow pile for a while. I made a (pretty good) snow turtle and asked Chase what he thought it was. "A hill. A mountain." "No, my clue is that it's an animal." "An elephant, a rhinoceros." "Nope, this part is a shell." "A crab. A clam." "No, it's a turtle!"
• Maggie came out eventually and we did a nice mini-hike into the woods for some sledding on bottoms and then one nice sled run with the kids back to the condo. Annie and Chase took the "low road" which led them straight into a rocky/muddy break in the snow. Quite funny.
• Day 2 we watched lots of great inauguration coverage in the morning then drove over to the White River sno-park. The kids could do some sledding on their own on the gentle hills, and liked nothing more than playing around in the trees and continually falling over because it was slippery. Chase liked to push the sled and say that an invisible person was going for a ride.
• We hiked up for about 20 minutes, played around some more, then did a semi-epic sled run all the way back to the parking lot. Chase was yelling things like "stop the sled! too close to the edge! Look out for the gate!" but had fun overall on that last run.
• We went to Timberline lodge after and walked around to find some softer snow to play in. We built two snowmen, enjoyed some great views of Hood and Adams, and liked watching some people skiing and snowboarding. Chase was infatuated with the chairlifts and kept saying he wanted to ride on one.
• Later in the afternoon we did another snow outing in the same trails behind the house. When it was time to sled back down Chase said he wanted to walk. Then he said he wanted to only go in the sled one time. I told him that would work and that it would only take us one time to ride all the way back to the condo. "But I already did the one time. That was the time before."

All in, probably $400. We could do that same place in the summer also. There was a pool that was closed because of covid. Tried to really pause and appreciate the calm of the woods, and the fact that our life situation allows us to get away during the week like this. Nothing was busy.