Just a quick post here, but one that I’m quite proud of – the final stage of my balcony garden!
It’s been going strong all summer, growing by leaps and bounds in the hot weather and drinking up a frankly impressive amount of water throughout the heat and sun. The hops have grown crazy, and I’ve frankly kind of given up on trellising them in any meaningful semblance of order – they grow wild now, searching and clawing around the beams and each other.
It’s beautiful, though, getting to see how big they’ve all grown. The spiderplants are huge and verdant, with gloriously deep green leaves. The hanging pot is already on its second stage of growth, and some of the flowers have already bloomed, died, and are now blooming again.
Okay let’s start off with the most important part. I saw a SUPER cute chipmunk.
Just look at ‘im! Grabbing the grass and eating it! Ahh!
Okay now that we’re past that.
I finally backpacked out to McNeil point! With people, even!
That’s a pretty hefty accomplishment for this year – two trails that I’ve wanted to backpack for years, effectively since I moved to Oregon, complete! Paradise Park, which was absolutely stunning, and now McNeil Point, which… spoiler alert… was also absolutely stunning!
I’ll admit that the sunset wasn’t quite as intense this time, nor were the flowers in quite as intense of a bloom, but… I adored the rocky landscape and amazing adventure of McNeil. Not to mention getting to do as a group – I went with Jess and her friend Stevie, the first time I’ve been backpacking as a group in… ohh, I can’t quite recall how long.
It was excellent, without many stories to be told aside from the enjoyment of the mountains and the excitement of completing a trail long aimed for. We hiked, we camped, we ate and chatted, and read and explored.
The day before, Jess and I had gone to a work event of mine – a fairly impressive shindig at a nearby resort, where we got the chance to meet and greet with various coworkers, play games, and give a rather epic showing for ourselves at Laser Tag.
We had our backpacks packed and ready in the car, so when we left we headed directly East, toward Mount Hood for a weekend of backpacking… nothing heavy, mind you, but a good opportunity to get the legs moving and get ourselves into the woods to relax and disconnect from the world.
Unfortunately, this was the Pacific Northwest in Wildfire season… and the Wildfires had turned on us a bit overnight. The air was rough, Jess’s asthma was kicking in, and the sky had taken on a singularly ominous “blood orange” hue. Backpacking up on the mountain simply wasn’t in the cards.
Instead, we simply laid low – headed back to Wilsonville, had a lovely relaxing afternoon and evening, and then headed out toward the coast in an attempt to evade a bit of the smoke.
Our goal was a hike I hadn’t done in years – the Elk Mountain and Kings Mountain loop. Interestingly, I’d last done it with Daniel, during another bout of wildfire-induced smoke… Thinking back, it wasn’t any less smokey then, and it wasn’t any less smokey now…
Maybe this isn’t the best hike to do in the smoke?
Ehh, we did it anyways.
The nice thing about wildfire smoke, if there is a nice thing to be said, is that the light can be stunning. It’s a sort of golden hour that lasts all day long… if you can push through the burning lungs and painful eyes, some great views can absolutely be had of the Sunlight filtering through the clouds and smoke and into the trees.
We hiked, we rested, we ate and drank. We drank tons of water, and even took a few moments to fly the drone around… not that it got any particularly good views, but it was definitely fun none the less.
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After the drive home, we stopped to grab dinner from the grocery… and saw our extra little neat view of the day – a “do it yourself convertible”, complete with an anti-theft Club, since… you know… doors didn’t exist.
