Dog Mountain

Our trip to Dog Mountain!
May 27, 2007

Today we hiked up Dog Mountain, which is a hike about 50 miles from Portland on the Washington side of the Columbia river. It is one of those hikes they say that everyone in Portland has done at some point...and now we can join the ranks. The route we took is about a 7 mile loop, and it is very steep!













Get to know these flowers (yellow balsamroot)...you'll be seeing a lot more of them down below...









May and June are the peak months for wildflowers on Dog Mountain.










trailmarker..almost there










a view looking West










Flowers and the Columbia Gorge










Julia in the flowers.












Dan in the flowers.

My head is cold when the wind blows!

Well..I've finally done it..buzzed my head for locks of love!

Now I know what you're thinking...you don't have to buzz it all off to donate. But I wanted to! I've been thinking about it for almost three years! Always telling myself I would do it later..and that I was scared about what it would be like growing out, [insert lame excuse here], (etc. etc.)

So here is the story in pictures...before, during, and after!

SNIP

shorn

a few strands left..she tried to convince me to go with the "Ashley"

But I would not be deterred...

We tried 1/2 inch at first, but I wanted shorter.

From 11 inches to 1/4 inch :)

When I ventured outside, it was blustery--a chilly wind--and it ruffled my little hairs and tickled!! And it was chilly on my head! It has been fun learning what things are different with no hair to speak of--pulling on my sweatshirt is pretty simple, washing my hair was a cinch!! (Really more like washing my scalp than washing hair)

My mom says I look like my brother (I do) and my hair feels exactly the same way Luke's does when he buzzes it. Very cool!!!

India.Arie

I am not my hair

I am not this skin

I am not your expectations

no

I am not my hair

I am not this skin

I am the soul that lives within...

Yay for May!

Well May has already proven to be one of the most fun months since we moved to Portland. I think the weather has a lot to do with it...

Portland, OR on Weather.com: Mostly Sunny, 70°

So my friend Christine thought of a great idea. We went to Mt. Tabor park this past Wednesday morning. It was a beautiful day and we had a lovely walk. One of the highlights we sought was the elusive "volcano." (pictured below)









As you can see, the volcano was not quite as exciting as we had hoped. You can tell Christine wasn't overly enthused:









Thursday I spent the day with Jonny and Kim kayaking and canoeing! Well, not quite the whole day, it took some effort and turning around to actually find ourselves on the water, but you can see Kim and Jonny putting in good prep time before we launched (Jonny's pulling Kim's skirt over the kayak.)









And here you can see me being really helpful:









We reached our destination of Vancouver Lake (after the aforementioned turnarounds) and it was well worth the effort. Here's Jonny getting the shiny red canoe ready for take-off:









And Kim intensely ready for her first kayaking adventure:












Look at her go! Success!









We returned to Portland Center Stage the next day only to find that Kim and Katie had inadvertantly dressed as twins. Oh horror!~












And here is the lovely Zach. He's hard at work calculating lots of complicated subscription calculations. Yep, he's smart like that.

And this is a miniature plastic horse tethered to a historic ring on 11th Avenue. They are chained up all over the city. See the following link if you're interested in the artistic inspiration behind these beauties: http://www.horseproject.net/

Our San Francisco Treat!

This past weekend we took a trip to San Francisco to visit Dave, Brette, and the Dalai Lama! Following is the chronicles of our escapades...

me driving with hush puppie tucked into my sweatshirt hood:









Dan and the michelin man (at a southern Oregon truck stop):












Brette's awesome floral display in a bowl of water:









Very sleepy Dan after all that driving:









We took quite a while trying to decide where to go for dinner. Dave and Dan attempted to settle the debate with a rock-paper-scissors match (which failed because Dan always picks scissors). We ended up wandering the streets hungry until we finally decided to hail a cab and head to a sushi joint that Dave and Brette had tried before....yummm!









Next day we had our rendezvous with His Holiness The Dalai Lama. (do you capitalize the "The?" I don't know) I thought it was funny that they had his name on the marquee in front of the civic center. Here's Dave and Dan pondering the SF map under the tibetan prayer flags:









Dave and Brette riding the trolley down to Fisherman's Wharf:











The California Sea Lions at Pier 39! If it wasn't so cold, we probably would have stayed quite a long time watching and listening to them...









From the docks, we hiked up the hill to the top of Lombard street (crookedest street in the world) and this was our view..you can see Coit tower in the distance:












On the way out of San Francisco, we took the Golden Gate bridge instead of the Bay Bridge because there was a ramp that burned and collapsed because an oil tanker crashed early Sunday morning near the connection with Highway 80E and Highway 580. We couldn't resist a quick stop for the view...and here is a photo of me (which Dan complains there are too few of on this blog)













So that was our trip! It was super fun. I'd do it again.

The big news in my life these days is that I have officially accepted admittance into Gallaudet University's Masters program in Deaf Studies! Whoo hoo! Going back to school! So that means my time in Portland is limited, and I have to make the most of it...all you East-coasters can expect me back at the end of August.

Cheers!

pretty neat!

At three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on the 6th of May this year the time and date will be ...

02:03:04 05/06/07

This will never happen again.

(and this is Zach's birthday!!!!) (wow, he's amazing.)

Our New Apartment...part 2: the neighborhood.

These are our front steps.












And the house from the opposite corner (note the bus stop :))












Behind our house, we have recycling:












And one block away is a McMenamins' tavern,










a library,













a cooperative grocery,









a mural on the co-op,










a post office,




















And a way to get anywhere else you want to go!!

I am a huge fan of our new neighborhood. I hope you come visit soon!!

Our New Apartment...part 1

Last night, we went to the opening game of the Portland Timbers (Soccer). We wore our matching bright yellow rain jackets!










The Timbers beat the Puerto Rican Islanders 3-1. The most interesting part of the game (to me, anyway) was the man who led the cheers. He started his cheers with firing up a chainsaw and holding it triumphantly over his head. Throughout the game, whenever the timbers would score, he would slice another piece of wood from a log and hold that triumphantly over his head. Very unusual. I'm not sure quite what I thought about that.

Following is a tour of our new apartment! This post will be the interior, and next I'll take you on a tour of what makes our neighborhood so great.

When you enter the front door, watch out for our bikes. We haven't worked out the ideal place to keep them yet, and because we use them quite frequently, it would be very inconvenient to keep them in the basement. But right now they're blocking the feng shui. We'll think on that one. Oh...note that Giraffe (lower left) is guarding our territory for us:













Continue inside to your right, and we have an open space with the gas fireplace and our desk.










Our futon is also in this living area:










If you walk toward the futon and take a left, you are in our kitchen. Here is our gas stove (not too hard to operate, but we do get some nasty gas smells sometimes):












Our cabinets and sink:









Stepping back through the living space, you see our bedroom (complete with large wooden sliding double doors):












Here's the infamous bookshelf and Dan cozily writing in his journal:










The bathroom has a clawfoot tub:













The view from our front porch: