Bend, Adventure, and Why Elephants Are Good Painters

It has been just week since I returned from my Asian dream world. Seattle for a day and then snowy Central Oregon has been a welcome slow dose of America to comfort my landing in the western world. I thought I would miss the jungle warmth, the unrefreshing temperature of the sea, or the pleasure of enjoying the evening with shorts and a T-shirt. In short, I thought I may miss the climate.

Turns out its very much the opposite. I am happy to be back in cold and snow, to drive on icy roads, to have powder thrown into my face and down my jacket. I am happy to remember that tired feeling that can only be accomplished on a winter day. Instead I miss my Thai friends and Thai food. I miss the relaxed pace and complete flexibility of being on my own adventure in a place where new experiences are too easy to come by. I miss Thailand, Laos, and China because it was new -always adventure – I like adventure.

But here's the caveat. Bend is far from new, it is essentially old, when it comes to my experiences in adventure here. I have done this or that before, but my lifelong memories have not rendered the activities of the past week null. In fact having life knowledge in this place allows me to better plan my day, it allows me to track down the good snow or know when Smith is gonna be warm enough. I can pick an idea out of the blue and know it'll be a good one or network with old friends that have a finger on the pulse of the place.

Place is the canvas for the adventure but the mission, for me, is far from complete without the right team. This transition back home, which admittedly I was slightly worried for my sanity before my plane touched down, has be smooth and mentally comfortable because although the place is homely it is not stagnant nor deserted. I was fortunate, it seems like a lot of my friends are actually moving to my hometown. Even better (for me) they don't have jobs! So I got two days of resort tele-ripping with Quinn and Adam, a fantastic warm day at Smith with Wally, old-fashioned Valentine's Day sledding with Tyler and friends, and modern sledding (read Ski Doo 800) with the Harveys. Pretty good for a weeks work.

So here's what I've put together. The adventure equation is more complicated than I thought maybe. You pick a canvas (turns out its not the most important part, but don't go buy a cheap one from a back alley) start to mark out (maybe with pencil) what your product will be, and then go to town. The more good people involved hypothetically the prettier it'll be (there is a breaking point in life and analogy). Last time in Thailand I saw an elephant paint a picture of red and black flowers with its trunk. The massive animal did much better than I could have done. And its true two elephants could paint more flowers and usually came out with a nicer painting. Not so true for all the elephants. They couldn't even line up at one painting – they were much too big.

Photos:  1)Squeezed into Josh's beast on the way to Paulina.  2)The Harvey fleet.