San Jose Is For Lovers: Giving thanks

We had a great trip up North for Thanksgiving. The highlights were mainly time with family and great food. (For the record, I gained three whole pounds in one week back home. I'm blaming the usual suspects: leftover stuffing, pie, copious amounts of carby, gravy-goodness, as well as a few casual meals out at our favorite Hawaiian cafe. Needless to say, the stuffing has stopped, literally.)

We encountered some actual winter weather, and I was grateful that my trusty Jetta carried us safely over two different mountain passes and another thousand or so miles overall. On our drive North, the interstate was actually closed going over the mountain pass due a bad accident and weather. This rarely happens and resulted in hours of extra traffic, sitting in the snow in freezing weather. We decided to stop for the night in Ashland, Oregon and stayed at a cheap, dog-friendly motel which was nicely situated next to an excellent pizza restaurant. When I woke in the morning, fresh, beautiful snow had fallen everywhere and Lily had a wonderful time frolicking around. Despite the stress of the trip, it was a fun detour. Last year, we unexpectedly spent a snowy Christmas Eve/Christmas morning at a dog-friendly motel in Redding, California en route to Oregon as well. We checked in at about 1 a.m. and I remember feeling as though we were in a ghost town. I'll never forget walking around in the snow on Christmas Eve, in a strange town where we knew no one, laughing, throwing snowballs and having fun together on our first Christmas as husband and wife. I'm thankful Adam has a good "sense of adventure" and can usually make the best of any situation. Of course Lily, being a dog, has her sense of adventure built-in. She's also a fantastic traveler and once we set up a little spot for her in the motel room, she curls right up in and settles in.

On Thanksgiving Day, Adam, Wes & I set out for Bend.

After wintering in New England last year, Wes has become a pro with the snow chains. I was pretty impressed.

View from the front:

And view from the back:

Here I am doing my part to be cheer on the snow chain efforts. Mostly I just admired the view and tried to seem useful, or at least ready to assist. Thankfully the boys handled the situation just fine and my skills were not needed.

These photos are a little blurry, but you can see our lovely Thanksgiving table and Dad pointing out that we somehow ended up with not one, but two kinds of stuffing and two kinds of sweet potatoes.