Mother's Day Mini-Vacation, No. 3 - the mountain's out!

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I wish I could remember exactly where we were when Leland said to me, "Look in your mirror." Amazed. I was totally amazed to see Mt. Hood in the distance behind us. For months Leland had driven this same route as part of his job at Provvista, so he knew exactly when the mountain would come out. Sweet. I checked the photo's exif data and learned that I took the last relatively close-up photo of Mt. Hood about 35 minutes before taking this one, but that doesn't really help me figure out where we were. But, we're out of trees galore on each side of the road and the terrain is pretty flat, so I know we're in the Oregon high desert.

I took several photos, trying to focus on the mountain in the mirror. This one pleases me most. That's Lamont looking out the window, wearing his sunglasses. Oregon's high desert glistened with bright sunshine, and at one point on the Zipcar's outdoor-temperature-reader-thing, it was 96 degrees. We rode the entire 157 miles from the guys' house to our rental loft in Bend with the windows down. Glorious way to start our mini-vacation. By the way, folks here say, "The mountain's out" when the sky is clear and we can see Mt. Hood from Portland, at least 60 miles away.

Provvista's cheese truck

Imagine my surprise when I discovered an Oregonian story about this big red truck as I was looking at Provvista's Facebook page. My son Leland works for Provvista, Specialty Foods Inc.--that's why I was checking out their page. It took me a day or two of mulling it over in my head, and then I remembered that I had taken some photos of that very same truck. Here's the one I like the best of those I took on October 15, 2009. The white letters going up the side of the truck say "simple authentic food." I know I've enjoyed many of their foods as ingredients at 3 Doors Down Cafe.