Bend

Went with some friends to Bend this weekend for some sweet skiing and casual times. We stayed at the Holiday Inn (express?) Thursday night, checked into our place at the 7th Mountain Friday morning, and hit the slopes for an absolutely gorgeous day. The snow was pleasant but well-worn. The day was gorgeous, I started off with a sweatshirt, T-shirt, and windbreaker, but dumped the sweatshirt after sweating down two runs. After lunch, I lost the windbreaker also. Felt great, skied hard, had fun. Sadly, that night I aggravated my badly pulled calf jumping into the freakin’ swimming pool, so no skiing Saturday. But N and I cruised around Bend and had a good’ole time.

I need to call out three fabulous places for food down there. First, we returned the The Grove Friday night. We’d eaten there last year, and had a great experience. Friendly, pleasant, and really good, reasonably priced food. It seemed that the prices had shot up somewhat since a year ago, but it was still not too bad. Last year I got a steak with chimmichurri sauce and loved it. This time around I got the fish tacos and a caesar salad. The caeser was excellent. The fish tacos were good, but not great. I tried the mongolian beef also, and that was really nice. So check out The Grove.

Second, I got to eat at Pizza Mondo since I couldn’t ski on Saturday. They have really great pizza. It’s billed as New York-style, and having never been to the big apple, I’m not really one to dispute that claim. It seems like New York with a bit of West Coast gourmet to me, but who am I to say? Except that it’s really stinking good pizza.

And lastly, the gang went to La Rosa for some green St. Paddy’s Margaritas (tequila infused with apple and grape). They were really good…maybe a bit sweet, but not like some crappy margarita you find at My Father’s Place (they’re good for other things…). And the food was really good too. Anners was happy with her vegetarian option, my chile verde was good, and everyone else liked theirs a lot. Except N, but she just

got a taco salad and if you just get a taco salad, you’re not really getting your hands dirty.

All of the places I mentioned are very vegetarian friendly.

Thank you Bend, Oregon! Oh, and I drank some beer.