May 8th-10th: We headed to Seattle for the weekend with Linze and Joshy. We stayed at Linze's friend Heather's house. We brought several nice bottles of Pinot to have a taste test. Friday night we got there pretty late, but Heather does not get of work until about midnight, so we drank some wine while waiting for her. She and her boyfriend Jeff came home just after midnight and we helped them unwind from work with, of course, wine.
The next day, we got up nice and late and Heather and Jeff made us a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs with a very nice cheddar, home-made hash browns, and English muffins. It was so nice and delicious. We headed out to a nice hike just outside Seattle. We packed a lunch (thanks to Heather again) and hiked to a nice set of waterfalls. Heather's dog Navy kept us at a very fast pace and kept our spirits high. After a long loop, we headed back to the car and drove home for a very AWESOME dinner and wine. Heather is quite the cook and made bacon wrapped asparagus with balsamic vinegar, mushrooms stuffed with prochitto (sp?), and fresh baked salmon. We had several pinots from Oregon that we tried really hard to taste blind and name. After one, it was hard to distinguish them. The nice thing was we learned that the $20 bottles tasted just as good (if not better) than the $40 bottles.
The next morning, we woke up, had another nice breakfast and headed to Archie McPhee's, our favorite joke shop, where Joshy and I bought prizes for our classrooms.
Here are the pictures:
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| Seattle Hike |
May 15th: the first aniversary of Max May (my father) dying. We decided to take the day off and put in a memorial garden. We had a lot of work to do in the backyard to make this happen. It took all weekend, but we managed to plant: roses, red peppers, tomatoes, pole beans, sweet peas, parsley, and strawberries. We also planted a peach tree, a 4 way cherry tree (1 kind of pie cherry, bing, rainer, and sweet on one tree), and a 6 way pear tree (6 kinds of pear including bartlet and bosc). We cut down 3 small trees, 1 very large tree, several bushes, and lots of weeds. We also trellis'ed (sp?) the golden rasperries so that they would grow bigger and it will be easier to pick. (more jam!) Unfortunately, Saturday I got way too over heated and had a mild case of heat stroke that night. I could hardly eat dinner, had a horrible headache, and wanted to vomit all night. I went to bed at 8pm but did not sleep until much later. Stupid hot weather, stupid body unable to process heat! The hard work paid off though, look at a few of the pictures:
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| Max May Memorial Garden |
May 23rd-25th Memorial Day weekend: We decided to go with Linze and Joshy on a camping trip in the Gorge between Hood River and the Dalles right on the river. It was also right next to the highway. Luckily the wind was so strong that we didn't really hear the traffic that much, but we did get to listen to trains go by every once in a while (including 5am on Sunday morning). It was so much fun. We drove there Saturday morning and got our camp ready. We set off right away with our bikes to bike the old Columbia River Highway, which was turned into a bike/walking park. It was about 9 miles round trip way up above the river and it was very curvy and hilly. The way to there, I found biking extremely hard, which surprised me because I was the only one of the four of us who even biked very often. When we got to the visitor's station, I took a look at my back wheel (which sounded like it was maybe scraping the brake). It turns out, my brake was actually locked on the back tire completely (probaly due to the bike being transported in the back of the car). Well, the way back was a whole different story. It is amazingly easy to bike when you do not have the brakes on! That night we relaxed in front of the fire, and it was very windy, so we had fun keeping the logs going.
The next morning, we had a quick breakfast and headed out for another bike ride. This time right next to the river and downtown in the Dalles (about 10 miles). This ride was a lot easier and flatter, although the wind was stronger, which made it more interesting. Check out the video below of the ride! Next was a hike in the Deschutes River gorge. On the way out, we were along the river and mostly bush-wacking. Eventually, we headed up the gorge (a nice long trek vertically) and walked along the edge on the way back. On one of the pictures, see if you can spot Linze, Joshy, and Josh sitting on a bench among the long tall prairie grass. The area East of the Dalles is very dry, high desert. There are long prairie grass, and a few places where the river greens things up. It was stark, hot, windy, and beautiful.
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| Gorge Camping Trip |
Finally, last weekend, May 29th-31st. Friday night we went and saw the movie UP. It was soooooo great. We really enjoyed it in 3-D, but you wouldn't have to watch it in 3-D to enjoy it. The next morning we got up late and worked in the garden. We had tickets that night to see Cinamatic-Titanic, which is the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) making fun of an old bad movie. They also did stand up at the beginning, made us laugh through the whole movie, and answered questions from the audience (Josh's question). We were downtown during the Rose festival "Starlight parade" which was still not over at 11pm (even though it started at 9pm) but the Max (public transportation-trains) was packed! We had to wait a few trains before we finally got on. The next morning Josh and I got up a little late and headed toward the coast to do a really steep hike called Elk Mountain. The guide book writes about the hike as a joint hike with a nearby mountain named King, but that was a 13 mile hike and Josh needed to work, so we took just the Elk mountain part. The reason the book recommends the two mountains together is because Elk is so steep they strongly recommend going UP Elk and DOWN King. Well, that would have been great advice, as the hike took us 2 hours to get up, and 2 hours DOWN! Every single step was trecherous because the loose gravel and dry sand was so slippery Josh and I probably fell about 12 times each. I gashed my finger trying to catch myself and the stick nearly went half way through my finger. That made going down hill really difficult bleeding on the bushes and trees I was desperately trying to hang on to. We went so slowly but every time we let our guard down we would slip again. Plus, it was soooooo hot. I was dying on the way up and down. After the hike, I couldn't cool down and got heat stroke again. I laid down for about 2 hours, but still didn't feel much better. I got another really bad headache and felt nausiated. I didn't feel better until the next day. It was still worth the hike for all the great practice we got in for our hike this summer.
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| Elk Mountain |
We recieved the best news today! Brian and Andrea are going to make it to Canada this summer to hike Mt. Temple with us! We are so excited to see them and do some serious hiking together!
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