Same faces in different places

Spring started on March 20, but you wouldn't know it in Sisters.

The swarm of storms that hit last week brought mixed emotions.

"I see a lot of people while working at the Sisters Athletic Club," said Rebecca Womack. "Most comments were complaints about the storms but a few weren't. One lady told me that these storms are just our spring showers instead of getting rain. A man who had been at Hoodoo said it was the most snow he had seen up there in a long time. And a few have reported that the snow will certainly help our water supply and we won't have flooding like we might have gotten if the storms had brought rain instead. Personally, I think it is simply gorgeous."

Searching for parts sultrier, Bill and Linda Sweeney said: "We're just looking to get out of the cold, somewhere tropical, somewhere to kick back, rest, to rejuvenate and to get the cold out of your bones."

The Sweeneys arrived back in Sisters from sunny and warm Maui the day after Easter - just in time for a week of various snow storms.

"Yep, we didn't miss one of those storms; got to catch each one as it came through. But, I am looking to get on the tennis courts soon," said Bill Sweeney.

Although you may change location while on spring break, you might not change who you see while on holiday.

"You think you're a long way from home, but you're really not," the Sweeneys noted.

They ran into friends from Sisters while strolling and enjoying downtown Lahaina. They even met a man from Oregon who attended the wedding of a Sisters couple, who exchanged wedding vows during their trip.

"Hawaii and Mexico are big vacation spots for folks from Sisters," said Jeff Wester, who traveled with his family and some close friends to Puerto Vallarta during week one of spring break. "We've seen people we know so often while on a trip that now I actually look for familiar faces, especially at the airport. Sure enough on our trip home we ran into one of our girls' former teachers at the Seattle airport ... oh, and we missed those storms."

Extensive storms late in the season can give public works departments fits.

"We had just finished our spring clean up with getting our parks ready for the Easter Egg Hunt, sweeping the streets of old cinders and just sprucing the place up," said Sisters Public Works Coordinator Paul Bertagna.

The storms brought out the plows and sanders.

"It was just that slippery out, and we had to make the town safe," Bertagna said. "We are leaving one truck ready to plow while at the same time we're back to sweeping. Fortunately, we had this (multiple street sweeping) figured in our budget already."

Those who were here to maneuver the streets, shovel some sidewalks and throw one last snowball, beheld the dazzling beauty of the rugged northwest dressed one last time in her winter finest before unveiling the blooms of spring.