A Weekend Get-Away

A while back, my sweet friend Brenda asked if I would like to join her for a free weekend in a cabin in Central Oregon. 

Here's the thing, folks: as a life-long, self-proclaimed adventure seeker who also happens to be currently unemployed and broker-than-broke, I will pretty much never say no to a free weekend. Anywhere.*

So last Friday, we piled four adults, one fetus (Brenda's, not mine), an extremely well-behaved dog, and an obscene amount of stuff into a Subaru and headed for Black Butte.

Brenda and I squished into the backseat. You can kind of see the tower of stuff behind us. Not pictured is the dog, who was somewhere in between us. 

Our view going through the pass. And yes, that is a Sasquatch air freshener.

The aforementioned cabin happens to belong to Brenda's friend's family, and it is probably one of the quirkiest/coziest places I've ever had the pleasure of staying in.

Obviously the first order of business for me was climbing up into that tower while the "grown ups" unpacked the car.

I can't resist a good ladder.

View from the top.

After that, it was time to snuggle up in front of the fireplace and play some games.

(^) Settlers of Catan.
I have many friends who are borderline-obsessed with this game. Now, after playing it myself, I add this to my list of things I can judge people for liking.** 

My dream is to have my very own fireplace someday.

We stayed up way too late waiting for the rest of the guests to arrive, and crashed shortly after. The cabin has a really unique layout with two "bedrooms," both with three walls and a door, but instead of a fourth wall they open up into the living room area as lofts. Somehow I managed to score one of these bedrooms as the only single woman. One of the married couples stayed in the basement (which has a murphy bed - how cool is that?) with their kiddos, and Brenda and her husband stayed in the other lofted bedroom, but since the two single guys didn't want to cuddle on the queen size bed together, they gave it to me. I'm not going to lie: I totally lucked out with the best sleeping spot in the entire house. I mean, just look at the view from my bed:

The next morning, we woke to SNOW!

So we each piled on approximately 124901841094 layers and drove to the nearest snow park to take full-advantage of the Central Oregon climate (for those of you unfamiliar with Oregon weather: pretty much the only thing that ever comes out of the sky here in Portland is rain).

Loading the cars took just short of forever.

Attempting to use the bathrooms at the snow park was an adventure in and of itself. Totally snowed in.

Brenda took one step into what appeared to be packed snow, and promptly sunk to her waist. 

For those who were fortunate to own water-resistant snow pants, there was epic sledding to be had. 

Although not everyone was too excited about it. This is Fiona. And this is also my favorite picture from the entire trip. I wish I looked that cute when I'm miserable. Instead I look like this: 

Don't worry, though, I know the best way to cheer up a snot-nosed, tearful, frozen 3 year old:

DANCE PARTY!

All in all, it was a most wonderful weekend filled with rich conversation, copious laughter, tons of dancing, games, music, cozy fires, delicious food, and new (to me) friends.

Oh and I even managed to squeeze in a little bit of much-needed quiet time with Jesus up in the tower:

So there you have it: my random little weekend getaway.

Black Butte, in all her glory.

*Places I probably would say no to (even if they were free): the headquarters of a drug cartel, a septic tank, a room full of mascots, one of these hotels, anywhere I have to crawl to enter into (hellooooo claustrophobia), and jail.

**Also on the list: "The Goonies," snowboarding, hookah, those virtual rides they sometimes have at amusement parks, pet guinea pigs, and Pâté.