Snow, lava, and fondue

A fair amount of action this past weekend:
Fondue 2009 took place on Friday, with much cheese, bread, and alcohol consumed.  I'll post a couple pictures later, though I'm going to be picky because there are many instances of people looking quite unattractive.  This year was a milder cheese than last year and a much larger group, hosted at our place (I like to refer to it as the "Hilldley's").  It was fun, but it made for quite a rushed and rough morning on Saturday.  I had to meet people around 8am for a 3-ish hour drive down to Ape Cave near St. Helens.  We snow-shoed and hiked/stumbled through the long cave for more snow-shoeing back to the car.  I've never been down there before, so it was really cool to see it.  Plus, it really appeals to my inner geologist.   Unfortunately, I didn't bring the camera along, but it was really dark for most of the hike anyway.
I went for a nice ride on Sunday and was planning for one on Monday (holiday for me), but my knees were feeling rough, most likely from bashing them against basalt over and over again.  However, I did get a ton of knitting done, including a dish towel and a hat (pictures on my Picasa DIY section) to replace the 2 hats that Chris has accidentally felted and/or lost, and made an awful but workable attempt at a glacial flow ramp for an outreach activity.
I'm getting sick of the cold and the really foul smelling fog.  Air stagnation is absolutely no fun.  I was thinking of biking into school today, specifically for my 7:45 am(!!!) Pilates class, but it was below freezing and just generally unpleasant, so the 44 (bus) was my best friend again.  But the stagnant-ness is supposed to end on Friday, and then we just have cold weather to deal with.  And maybe some rain at some point.