As a quick departure from the words-heavy posts that I’ll be making, regarding my preparations and move out of the United States, here are a few quick pictures of some of the more interesting meals I’ve been having during the days while I’m not at work.
I have a lot of planning to do, but I’ve learned that cerebral work like that requires time away from the screen to succeed. Time for my brain to process what I’m working on, notice patterns, and connect dots to find inconsistencies or weak links in the plan. When I don’t, things go wrong. To make sure they go right, I take walks and eat sandwiches. Or gorge on dinosaur chicken nuggets.
I sip Lattes too, of course. I am still in Oregon, after all.
It’s been ages since my friends and I’ve had a good old fashioned get together.
COVID, living on the West Coast, tons of little things have delayed or denied getting to get together and catch up. But now, we’ve got a good reason to get together – one of the best reasons of all, in fact! A wedding! And what comes before a wedding? The bachelor party, of course!
Dillon had asked me to be his Best Man for the wedding in November, which of course meant planning and throwing the bachelor party itself – with much help from many people, a plan was crafted and a timeline put in place. A location chosen, a guest list compiled, and a date chosen.
Plane tickets were bought, rentals secured, and reservations called in. Now, all that remained was the best part of the process – sitting back and having an amazing weekend!!!
Thursday and Friday, 30-Sept-2021 & 01-Oct-2021
Thursday, 30-Sept-2021
I flew on a plane again! Heck yeah travelling!
We’d been planning this party out for a while – Dillon was getting married in November, which meant an early-October bachelor party. You know… enough time for bruises and cuts to heal. Maybe even enough time for a broken bone to set, if worst-came-to-worst. Everyone was psyched, we had a plan laid out, and Upstate New York was calling us!
I flew into Boston late on Thursday – I’ve found this flight is… not the easiest, since it gets in at midnight, but definitely the simplest flight to catch. That’s the downside of living in Portland, going East is way harder and way more time consuming. But, you know, that just means that the flight home is super easy, which is always nice.
Anyways I landed at midnight. Daniel picked me up, we hung out for a bit, caught up, and then hit the sleep nice and early in the morning.
Friday, 01-Oct-2021
Friday dawned bright, with Daniel and Erin’s dog Biscuit being unconvinced that I should be allowed in the house – He’s awesome, but definitely a stoic protector of the realm…
Anyways, We got going.
A nice breakfast, relaxed a bit, and then set about tracking down the various equipment and people for the trip!
The overarching plan for the weekend was aimed pretty low-key, but still sharp with some excellent adventures:
Pick up the Boston contingent and drive out to New York, meeting Chris at the cabin
Have some amazing dinner on Friday night, drink, and catch up with everyone
On Saturday, we’d hit up a small hike, then spend some time kayaking before getting ourselves ready for a bit of dinner and a pub crawl.
End Saturday night back at the cabin, crushing some awesome boardgames!
Have a nice brunch on Sunday, then do some go-karting and laser tag – maybe some games and other shenanigans
Grab lunch, then go back to the cabin for more board games / card games
Grill up steaks for dinner, and make an equally exceptional dessert
Clean up the cabin on Monday, then have one last brunch before driving back
With a good plan in mind and a shopping list in hand, Friday went exactly as well as we’d hoped!
The drive was clean and simple, with tons of time to relax, chat, and catch up. Grocery shopping for the weekend went beautifully – I’ve gotten so used to just shopping for myself that I’d forgotten the simple joy of having one huge shopping list for a camping weekend, and just watching the whole group scatter across the store like an ancient horde, grabbing what we need and vanishing just as quickly. It was awesome, and definitely set an excellent tone of cooperation and comraderie that held through the rest of the weekend.
The cabin itself was absolutely perfect, and since Chris had arrived a bit before the rest of us, it was even opened up and ready when we got there! We arrived a bit later than we’d initially planned, but that just meant that we got some excellent sunset views as we drove into the mountains and along the river. And then, when we did settle into the cabin? It was the perfect time to start up the fire, heat up some dinner, and settle into the weekend!
What did we have for dinner, you ask?
We had pure, unadulterated happiness, I’ll answer. Home-cooked, slow-roasted, beautifully seasoned baby back ribs!
With, of course, the standard accompaniment: beans, cornbread, mac and cheese, and cole slaw – and some excellent whisky and beer, of course. You know, just a few things.
Our hunger satiated, the rest of the evening was spent claiming bunks, enjoying the fire, and just simply catching up – It’d been FAR too long since we’d gotten together, and there were new friends to get to know for everyone. We had a whole weekend ahead of us, and nothing at all holding us back…
Yes, it was a capital “B” for Breakfast, since it was pretty large and definitely excellent. We hit up a not-so-small place right by my house that I’d been eyeing since I first started moving… it labeled itself as a pancake house, and I was curious exactly what that meant, in regards to delicious breakfasts…
Turns out – it means that they have excellent pancakes. I know, I know… I should have known. But I don’t like assuming things until I have empirical evidence. And that evidence took the form of three monstrous pancakes covered in bacon and strawberry jam.
That’s right. Bacon pancakes with strawberry jam. And that’s not even counting Brian’s omlette-with-three-pancakes meal.
The car’s already packed, so we roll out to Horsethief Butte, the climbing spot that I’ve been scouting out earlier in the week. And since Brian is around, we don’t need to stick to the short climbs anymore – my trad rack is on my harness and Brian is giving me a belay almost as soon as we get there, and we’re exploring the routes…
ROCK CLIMBING!
What I’m calling “the entrance arrete” – 5.9/5.10, trad, Ben leads… partially. I finished up the first section, but after that it got a little too committing for me – so I lowered off, and we walked around to build an anchor. Then proceeded to crush it on top rope.
Middle Canyon routes – 5.easy, maybe as high as 5.6? All on trad, with Ben leading. These are fun routes, though no real technical difficulty. A few spicy moves make it fun, and the gear placements are definitely enjoyable. It sort of reminds me of Hammond Pond, back in Boston. The climbs are clean and solid, and there’s a ton of variants that can be done.
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We climb ’till a little after noon hits, and then head back toward Hood to start the ribs cooking. We stick to my old-school recipe, and sauce them up before tossing them into the oven.
And now… we wait. But waiting is boring, so we head into town and explore a bit. Checking out the wind surfers and kite boarders, jumping in the water… you know, the usual. Because everywhere has huge populations of kite boarders, right?
The goal of the evening is hosting a dinner party – not a big one, but a small one for myself, Brian, and the folks who’d hosted me at the Airbnb rental when I first came to Hood River. We’d gotten along quite well, and so they’d made me promise to keep in touch as I got settled into town. I figured that a birthday dinner party would be ideal, and an especially good chance to show off my cooking skills!
So… I show off my cooking skillz. Everyone shows up around 7:00, and we relax and eat and chat and have a good time. The drink of the night is a Moscow Mule, which somehow goes super well with Ribs and cornbread and veggies. And Alexandra brings along raspberry tart, which is completely amazing and disappears quite quickly.
The rest of the night is chilling – chatting some more ’till they head out, then Brian and I light a fire out in the pit out back, and sip beers and poke fires ’till we get bored.
