Various times around Saturday 04-June-2022
One of the things I enjoy about Oregon is how interesting the weather can be. Gorgeous clouds, rain, summer heat, everything. It’s always fairly mild, and (in my opinion) almost always leads to really beautiful views and images!
Another awesome part of Oregon? Roses!
Combine the plethora of roses with the interesting weather and lighting… and well…
See for yourself!
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!
Hello, and welcome back to your annual story time of Ben and Sarah’s international adventures! Keeping with the tradition of the last few years, Sarah and I visited with her family, this year going back to Scotland.
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Saturday, 28-Dec-2019
On our first full day in Skye we went searching for The Old Man of Storr.
The old man is old – I don’t know how old rock pillars are, but they’re probably extremely old, right? Millions of years? Yeah, that seems right… and Wikipedia confirms it – something around 2.8 billion years old. Which kind of seems too old to me… but then again, I’m not a geologist, so I don’t really know.
The Old Man of Storr is old, let’s just roll with that.
The Old Man of Storr is also rainy, we learned.
As all piled out of the van at the parking lot, and immediately grabbed all the rain gear we could find before heading into the mist and rain.
As we climbed higher, the rain kept getting worse – to the point that Bill and Henry had to turn around to protect their camera equipment. Sarah, Leah, Greta and I powered onward and upward though, continuing on as the rain turned from “rain” to “Bleak”, and then went through “Dreak” and even into “Lashing” at one point. It was impressive… but thanks to the waterproof phone, I was able to get some pretty excellent pictures!
We sort of saw the Storr, but only barely. Still, absolutely worth the adventure, in my book.
After turning around and coming back to the warm van, we moseyed onward toward Kilt Rock for a quick peak at the waterfalls, before heading back into town to dry off and warm up!
