Dear Spring,

Welcome back! Even if you’re just stopping by for a visit, it’s nice to know that you’re in the neighborhood. Stay as long as you like and come back soon.

Sincerely,

Stir-Crazy in Yakima

I always like how great forty-five degrees and sunny can feel after a long cold winter. I was running around in a t-shirt, long pants, and sandals this afternoon while cleaning out my car and never once felt chilled. Not quite warm enough out to start opening house windows yet, but I did turn off the furnace and watched as the indoor temp remained constant in the February sun. Most of the snow is melted from the backyard except in one shady corner, so we’re left with mud soup in places where I graded out the yard last fall. So lots of dog paw wiping going on. All of the south facing mountain slopes around here are snow-free. You can see in the background of a couple of the pictures below (the ones with the dogs running across the bridge) that the north slopes are still clinging to their snow pack. One step closer to summer though. I’m ready.

I’ve been lusting over this bike for the past six months. And for the past six months I’ve been making up excuses not to buy it. For the past few weeks, Woodstock has been running a year-end sale on their bikes and I’ve been loading up an order almost daily, but haven’t quite been able to pull the trigger and hit that “confirm order” button. Yesterday, for the first time, they dropped the price on one of their demo bikes by fifty bucks (putting the price tag at $100 off of full price) and I ran out of excuses. Order confirmed! I’m pretty excited, even though I’ll probably have to wait a week for it to show up in the mail and then probably another month for the weather to warm enough for longer rides. Click the picture below for a close-up of the actual bike.

I know I’m supposed to root for the underdog, especially if I have no legitimate ties to either team, but I love the dynasty too much. I love watching something that feels historic. Something that will catch your eye in a sports almanac and you’ll go “oh yeah, I remember watching that.” I still remember stumbling downstairs at our house on Alto Street, foggy and sleepy-eyed after my dad woke me up, to watch Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in Game 1 on the 1988 World Series. Historic.

Now the Patriots are just 18-1 and we have to put up with more 1972 Dolphin players cracking open champagne stories. Oh, and sports stories that include the phrase “someone forgot to inform the Giants.” Thanks a lot Eli. Besides, it’s hard to enjoy rooting for anything from New York, underdog or not. Thankfully, I have plenty of delicious Mary-made seven-layer dip to wipe away that bitter taste in my mouth (my side is the side without olives, mmm).

Snow! Overnight we picked up another 4 inches which makes for good dog-running conditions. Just after dawn (hence the dark pictures) we took the dogs out to the park and scampered about. They bounded and sniffed to their hearts content. Then Mary and I ate some oatmeal, gathered up our snowboards, and headed for the sledding hill. Super Bowl still to come. Good day.

When we moved to Oregon, briefly, a year and a half ago we planned on titling and registering our newly purchased Mazda Tribute in our new state. At the Corvallis DMV there was bit of a snafu though (to do with a missing repossession affidavit from the bank that repoed it before we bought it) and we ended up never following up with the required paperwork.

A couple cross-country trips and about 13,000 miles later we’ve finally followed up. A few weeks ago we swung by a DMV branch here in Yakima and started to fill out the paperwork again. They handed us a bill for $521 and we like, “what?!” And then, “oh, right, that.” Since we had yet to transfer the title into our name, we were getting taxed on the purchase price of the used car. At Washington’s sales tax rate of 8.9%.

So we stalled for a bit and mentioned the part about not having a repossession affidavit and the DMV guy was like “yeah, you still need that.” Since we still didn’t have the bank letter it gave us a good excuse to leave, which we did.

Then I started to think about it and realized that Oregon’s sales tax is 0%, which is a fair bit better than 8.9%. And my little Dutch brain started churning and crunching numbers ($400 difference) and wishing that we had just followed through when we had a chance.

And it churned some more while I followed up with the repo bank and waited for the letter to show up in the mail. When the letter finally arrived a couple weeks later, I had a plan in place. I won’t divulge specifics, but Mary and I took a day trip south yesterday to procure our legally obtained new plates and registration. The plates are shiny and didn’t cost half a grand. I’m happy to be done with dodging cop cars on the chance of getting pulled over for expired tabs.

It was a gorgeous day for a road trip in our little valley even while the peaks around us were getting hit with a mighty snow storm (a storm that today has been dropping light snow on us all day). Sunny and right around forty degrees. The views were massive and lined with orchards and vineyards. It felt good to be on the road with little traffic and smooth pavement and I kept thinking about how great it would feel to be packed and heading somewhere new and interesting again. If we had had the dogs along (and my surfboard and wet suit), I would’ve been sorely tempted to make it a weekend on the coast.

I love Oregon. Every time I cross the Columbia River heading south I get all warm and happy inside. I know it may just be the lingering memory of those couple months doing nothing but surfing and goofing off, but it just seems like a state that fits me. If I’m ever a homeless vagrant with a bike and a backpack full of my possessions, I’m heading for the Oregon coast. I suppose Washington isn’t too shabby though either.

Pictured: looking across the Columbia River toward Washington and an REI that we stopped at in Kennewick.

Driving home the mountains were splashed in purple sunset light and we turned the radio off for a while to listen to the road whoosh by like a plane engine.