Snow on the mountain...

Coming soon: After I return from Italy this weekend after visiting friends for a couple days, I'll upload a follow-up post filled with more snowy neighborhood photos like this of Lena, Levi, and Kathy!

Chairlift photo from Summer's Facebook page

Photo by snowboarder @JonNW, snapped at the highest point of Mount Hood Meadows as we were all about to drop into Heather's Canyon

Snow is a big deal for us in the Portland area. We spend most of the winter hoping for (or dreading) our annual snow event, and then when it finally happens the city essentially shuts down. Meanwhile, the rest of the country laughs at our unpreparedness to handle such minuscule snow accumulation. It's an annual tradition!

A live tweeted photo from my record-long 4+ hour commute home from PDX airport and Warner Pacific College on the first day of the freeze. I-5 south traffic was stopped for so long that I turned off my Jeep Wrangler, safely shot a picture, and tweeted it.

More on that local snow event in my next post...



Another annual tradition (at least we Hamilton kids HOPE it is!) is one of my dad's Christmas presents to Kathy, Mike, Summer, and me: a ski day at Mount Hood Meadows with Bo himself.

Kathy swapped out Bo's ski offer for a shopping day. And it took a tremendous amount of schedule coordination, but last month we found a day where the remaining three of us could snow ride together with Bo.

The Drive

Stopping in Sandy on our way up to Mount Hood, we fed our maple bar addiction at Joe's Donuts.

A painting from local favorite artist Michael Sorensen is on display at Joe's. Come for the donuts, stay for the artwork.

Busy Saturday:  We were herded onto the shuttle bus from Mount Hood Meadows' overflow lot

The Slopes

The sun was shining, the snow was soft, and the clear skies provided limitless visibility to enjoy God's creation.

Our 71 year old dad skied his heart out until lunch time and then set up shop for the afternoon in the lodge. Mike finished up his final snowboard run later, looking to get a head start on our post-slope festivities outside the lodge.


With a little persuasion, I talked Summer into joining me for some backcountry action on Meadows' sole double-black diamond run.  Meadows' regulars know that weather conditions often cause Heather's Canyon to unexpectedly close at a moment's notice.  We didn't want to miss our window.

The melting snow on the more aggressive stretches of Heather's Canyon was soft enough that even the most spectacular wipeouts didn't really hurt.  My little sister overcame her fears and managed the back country terrain like a pro.

And a good Samaritan was kind enough to toss my equipment downhill to me after one spill, saving me a steep climb back uphill to collect my post-wreck ski that was littering the slope above me.

The after party

Live music, variations of pulled pork and rib sandwiches, and a host of other refreshments were served outside the lodge.  It was a call, to entice snow riders as they geared down to exit the mountain.

We answered the call.

Coming next week on Garth's Blog

(or possibly the week after, depending on my overseas in-flight productivity and our WiFi signal in Bobbio Pellice and Torino, Italy)...

Lena and Levi share the spotlight for some never before seen photos in:

...Snow in the yard!

The Netherlands- Spring Break in the Low Countries, Days 3-5

IMG_4088_edited-1.JPG, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

Amsterdam’s nightlife is crazy, for lack of a stronger word. Hitting the town with such fun people as Claude, Garritt, Thomas, Juliette, Iris, Rosalie, and Helena (and everyone else whose names I forgot!) made the friendly streets of Amsterdam even friendlier.


 Even on a late weeknight, Amsterdam handily defeats Portland for the most crowds, music, bicyclists (even in the poorly lit neighborhoods), drunkenness, prostitution, and of course pot smoking. Hey, at least that list started out with legit bragging rights, eh?

The least desirable of these Amsterdam “records” were evident from the obnoxiously loud vomiting that we occasionally heard from outside our hotel window. And from the hotel hallways. And the shower. Come to think of it, speaking of puking…

****Sorry, Mom. I’m really not trying to gross you out. A few weeks ago I posted a pic (link) of Brussels’ tacky Manneken Pis statue on my blog, and now this. I know that you would categorize this as “not dinner table discussion,” so hopefully you’re not munching as you read this. I’ll stop now.****


After Bo and I returned from Luxembourg City and Brussels (links), our stay in Amsterdam marked the end of our brief jaunt through the Benelux countries. 


On our first night in Amsterdam, we hastily picked the Hotel Jimmy as a convenient place to throw down our bags.      The steep, winding staircase at the Hotel Jimmy lead to the reception desk on the "first" floor. Pro tip: Anyone who carries an innocent looking girl’s two small bags up stairs like these is just asking for trouble…especially when those bags weigh at least 70 lbs each! Oh, and never ask questions about said bags.


Although the night scene in Amsterdam (or at least some elements of it- see above) was the big draw for me, I’m glad that my dad wanted to use our daylight hours to see places that I had passed up during my previous visits to the city.


 Using the canal boats as our main mode of transportation, we essentially made it a Dutch art museum day. On most overseas trips, I wouldn’t be caught dead in an art gallery for fear of being bored to tears. This day proved me wrong.


Bo was impressed with this replica of a Dutch ship in the Rijkmuseum


In my dad’s words:

“The Rijksmuseum is essentially the 'national art gallery' of Holland, and is currently under a major restoration inside and outside.   Much of the museum is closed, yet it contained hundreds of works of art, with a focus on the golden age of Dutch art. A centerpiece was Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, his most famous and greatest painting.

The Van Gogh Museum, only a few blocks from Rijksmuseum, was our next stop. It’s an amazing display of art and a life story of the gifted and tortured genius who shaped modern impressionistic art - sadly, only after he died. The Van Gogh Museum has four levels, and you start at the bottom level, with Van Gogh’s earlier influences and works. As you move up the levels, you can trace his progression as an artist, his growing influence with his contemporaries, and finally his dawning awareness that his artistic vision was fading along with his skills. In poverty, he died of a self-inflected gunshot wound, ending a career that spanned only 10 years, but which left an enduring impression (pun not intentional) on the art world.” --From Doug Hamilton's travel notes.



  In addition to the collection of paintings, the Van Gogh museum also had iPads set up to virtually deconstruct various works of art.


 Day 4: Life imitates art in Amsterdam, with my delicious Belgian waffle standing in for Vincent van Gogh's pipe



On a final note, I wasn’t expecting everyone’s questions about Amsterdam's world-famous tulip festival.  For those of you who inquired, I thought I’d toss in this blurry tulip pic that Bo snapped from our train to the AMS airport on Day 6. Talk about ending this story with an anticlimactic money shot!

The dozens of previously open seats on our flight home to Portland practically filled up overnight. After a significant delay at the Amsterdam ticket counter (it was training day, no joke) we glided through the security checkpoint and snagged the last seats as they were shutting the boarding doors.

As Bo and I flew home to Portland, I thanked God that our risky attempts to fly standby during spring break were spared the disastrous results predicted by our naysayers. After all, with all of the Portland flights overbooked to the East Coast and beyond, the choice was essentially made for me to make yet another trip to the oft visited Benelux region. No regrets, though. Who could tire of seeing the Low Countries?

Our original choice between skiing the Swiss Alps or cave-diving in Belize will have to wait until next time!