Monthly Archives: December 2021

Dec22

A visit weekend full of adventures – Hiking Angel’s Rest

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Wednesday, 10-Nov-2021 through Monday, 15-Nov-2021

My friends came to visit!

Two weekends in a row… I’m the most social of all the social butterflies, it seems!

And honestly, I’m so thankful for it. 2021 was, for mas as for everyone, a challenging year. It’d been a year of huge personal growth, and excellent introspection, but at my core I’m still a social creature. Self-reflection is only a part of the growth cycle… sharing those insights, and getting other people’s input, is just as important to someone’s growth.

So when Daniel and Erin asked if they could come to visit the weekend after Dillon and Liz’s wedding… well, I couldn’t say yes fast enough!


Friday, 12-Nov-2021

Daniel and Erin had landed on Wednesday, and then spent Thursday exploring the city while I took the chance to force me to bike into work… which is honestly something that I really want to do more often, but can’t quite get myself out for bed in time to consistently do.

Advantage of friends visiting, yet again 🙂


We ate, chatted, and had an excellent time both evenings… but the real fun came on Friday when I was out from the office for the weekend, and we could all cut loose and escape the city together. The Columbia Gorge was calling to us, and even though the weather was looking a bit ominous we steeled ourselves (and packed rain gear) and headed into the storm.


Angel’s Rest is one of those hikes that I’ve done a few times… but for some reason it’s never really stood out in my memory. It’s definitely a gorge hike – not too long, but with fairly significant elevation gain to be had. And at the top, usually excellent views of the river and opposing cliffsides!

Today… was rainy. A bit rainy. A lot bit rainy.

One could even say that it was actively raining, the same that it had been for a few days beforehand. Strange, I know, but Oregon does sometimes have rain in the fall.




Nevertheless, we persisted though – passing waterfalls and rockfaces, knowing that our efforts would probably come to naught more than some short views from inside the clouds. Daniel had checked flight information ahead of time (dang pilots, and all) and theoretically the cloud layer was above the summit of Angel’s Rest… but this was the Gorge, which tends to funnel clouds into lower altitudes.

As we hiked, the clouds stayed where they were, and we slowly walked into their depths as we hit the summit block.

Oregon can be kind sometimes though, and as we walked to the cliffs edge, the clouds cracked and we got a glorious few views of the ridgeline behind us!

The clouds closed in behind us as we hiked out, and the rain picked up as we got lower and lower toward the gorge floor. Perfect timing, if you ask me, since it just gave us that little extra oomph to finish the hike up a bit more quickly, and to make it out to Little Big burger before it closed… And then home in time to make some excellent Dark and Stormies with the rum from the previous weekend!

Dec11

A wedding weekend! Part 4 – Visiting with Family, and Flying home

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Wednesday, 03-Nov-2021 through Monday, 08-Nov-2021


My friends Dillon and Liz are getting married!!! It’s been on the books for a while now, so it’s kind of strange to think that it’s finally happening… but this is the weekend! This is the day!

The bachelor party was a hit, the suit was tailored, and anything that I needed had already been bought. The photobook was made, and I’d checked in with Dillon and Liz to make sure there wasn’t anything else left that I could help with. My speech was mostly written, and I was as ready as I’d ever be.

All that was left was to show up, and help out in any way that I could!



Sunday, 08-Nov-2021

(Actually starting on Saturday evening)

((the 7th))

(((Of November, 2021)))


After getting home, I spent some time chatting, catching up, and filling my Mom and Stepdad in about how the wedding had gone… but the first evening back home with them after the wedding was mostly just spent saying hi, and then heading to bed. It’d been a busy few days, and I’ll freely admit that I got home a bit later than I’d planned.

Like… five hours later that I’d planned.


The next day, though, we had more than enough time to chat and catch up on stories from everyone’s lives – We drove out to visit our family out in Central Mass!

Long drives are excellent for catching up, if I do say so myself, and this one was no exception. Two hours, give or take, gave me enough time to hear all about how various projects were going… and for me to fill them in on all the excellent details from the wedding earlier in the weekend. It’s something that I do miss, from living back in Massachusetts… just having long tracts of time together gives more of a chance to really talk about the details of peoples, move than just the quick 1-hour summary of the last week or three.

The drive was lovely, is what I’m getting at.


After we arrived was no less lovely, of course. In keeping with Jewish Tradition ™ we had a huge buffet of takeout Chinese food. With no offence to Oregonian takeout, there’s just something about the Chinese takeout from back home that really hits the spot. It was excellent, delicious, and beautifully reminiscent of countless family dinners. We talked, we ate, and I got to meet my newest cousin!



There’s not much else to say, here… It’s sort of like going for a hike, visiting with family. It’s excellent in the moment, and always leaves you feeling great, but when you think back to recall the specific details… you find that they don’t quite matter as much as the feeling that you got from those details.


The sunset, however, is something I can share a bit more easily….

Dec10

A wedding weekend! Part 3 – The Cooldown

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Wednesday, 03-Nov-2021 through Monday, 08-Nov-2021


My friends Dillon and Liz are getting married!!! It’s been on the books for a while now, so it’s kind of strange to think that it’s finally happening… but this is the weekend! This is the day!

The bachelor party was a hit, the suit was tailored, and anything that I needed had already been bought. The photobook was made, and I’d checked in with Dillon and Liz to make sure there wasn’t anything else left that I could help with. My speech was mostly written, and I was as ready as I’d ever be.

All that was left was to show up, and help out in any way that I could!




Saturday, 07-Nov-2021

Now we get to what everyone’s come to expect from me – ridiculously over-packed photo galleries!

The day after the wedding was a cooldown day for everyone. I started off with a nice long bath, packed up my room, and even did some artsy photography with the cool square mirror light in the bathroom.



It was a good framework for the day – We started off with an amazing brunch in the penthouse floor of the hotel, overlooking Providence before Brian, Clara and I broke off to check out an Art Museum! RISD, probably the highest ranked art school in the country, was maybe half a mile from the hotel… and they have a museum full of student and famous arts!



First though, let me say a word about brunch.

You know how I’ve mentioned that Dillon and Liz are great planners, and that the wedding went off beautifully?

Well, they’re also amazing cooks. Liz, especially, is a peerless baker. The dinners we’d had were second to none, and I had every expectation that the post-wedding brunch would be the same. Unsurprisingly, I was absolutely correct. It was glorious… from the main meal to the custom donuts, I could barely walk afterward.


Thankfully Clara and Brian helped me stumble out of the penthouse and down to the elevator… then around the city (stopped at Rhode Island comic-con to check out the cosplays, obviously), before settling into checking out every room we could get into at the RISD museum!

I’m not going to try and comment on the art – It was amazing, and getting to see such talent students next to famous pieces (like a picasso, even!) was super cool, absolutely something I enjoyed. We explored, enjoyed, and slowly made our way through the museum.

After our exploration completed, we did another quick spin through the city before heading back to the Hotel – grabbing some coffee on the way, of course!


It was an excellent way to cool down – I’ve found that big social events can be kind of dangerous after they’re over… the event itself is amazing, but then the sudden shift from “full power socialization mode” to “hey, I’m basically all alone” is a pretty rough transition to navigate. What I’ve been trying to do more recently is to come down slowly – sort of like how Brian, Clara, and myself hung out after the wedding reception.

A day of watching art was perfect, but the ideal cap to it was after we finished up at RISD, had picked up our coffee, and were back at the hotel hanging out with Liz, Dillon, and his family. I can’t remember quite how long we all spent hanging out, chatting, and relaxing in their hotel room.

I was worried that we were intruding, at first, but after a bit of time I think we all realized that we were in the same boat – the weekend had been an even bigger event for them (obviously), and the crash afterward… well, having good friends around was excellent for all of us.

We talked, we noshed on leftover snacks and desserts, and watched the sun slowly set from the high windows of the hotel. As it went down, we were even treated to a nice light show from Providence itself – not building lights, but bonfires!

See, one of the interesting things that Providence does is called “WaterFire”, where they set braziers alight throughout the river that runs through the city, with music playing in the background. This weekend was the last weekend of the winter that they were lighting the bonfires, so the crowds were nicely thinned out. We watched the initial lighting from the room, then took the excuse to get some air and went down to the water to see it up close.

It was, as one would expect, beautiful. The crisp air made a comeback, and the sound of the fire combined beautifully with the crackling of the fire.



We spent a while saying our goodbyes on the walkway around the river. It was getting late, and had gotten dark quite a bit ago… but none of us particularly wanted to end the evening. We’d planned on leaving town right before sundown, so that we could do the drive back to Boston before it got too late, but that plan was happily thrown out the window. I ended up dropping Brian and Clara off at the house in Boston (and eating some quick pizza, since we’d never actually gotten around to having dinner…) quite a bit late… But you know what?

100% worth it, for an amazing end to an amazing few days!