My Life & Travels

Disney World for Nick's 30th Birthday

2012-01-31T20:09:00.000-08:00

Earlier this past Fall Emily received an email from her sister in law Jen who had come up with a crazy plan to surprise Emily’s brother Nick for his 30th birthday with a family trip to their favorite vacation destination, Disney World. On the email was her parents and her other brother Chris and his wife Julia in Portland, ME. With nearly all of our vacation time from work over the past few years being used for weddings and family visits back to the East Coast I’m not gonna lie when I say I wasn’t initially enthusiastic about the trip. After wrecking my knee last year we had to postpone our planned trip to Hawaii, the one trip that would actually be just for the two of us and suddenly this trip was threatening to postpone Hawaii for yet another year and going back to Florida (not a state high on my list of places to visit) just 2 years after being there for Kevin and Alexa’s wedding didn’t make me feel any better. I have books upon books of vacation destinations around the world I want to explore and here I was headed back to the fattest state in the country.....

Even though I wasn’t too excited about the trip I knew it was very important to Emily that we do this for her brother Nick and after discussing it we both realized that we would have to choose between Christmas with her family or this trip just 4 weeks later. We were surprised to find tickets to Orlando from Portland to be under $400 while Christmas tickets for a quick 3 day (that’s all the time we could take) home for Christmas were running double that. It was an easy choice, yet a sucky choice as we were then forced to spend Christmas away from family in town. But staying in town for Christmas and only planning on missing 3 days for the Disney Trip left us enough time to take 6 days off for a Hawaii Trip later in March.

So, I was appeased and after really missing family over Christmas I found myself really excited to see her family again. I wasn’t so excited about going to Disney World though as my perception of running around with Mickey Mouse characters wasn’t really my ideal vacation but work had been so stressful over the holidays that I was up for anything. Therefore I went into the vacation looking to de-stress from my job but with very low expectations, especially after I found out we would not have time for the rollercoasters at Universal Studios or Busch Gardens. I couldn’t have been more wrong! I ended up having a truly fantastic time and my perception of vacationing at Disney World as an adult has completely changed. Click the link to read on.

Day 1 - Hollywood Studios and The Spirit of Aloha Dinner

Emily and I ended up flying out of Portland on Tuesday afternoon on a redeye flight through LAX to Orlando. We found out that LAX has the worst designed airport I’ve been to when we were forced to catch a bus and drive all around the tarmac to the next terminal for our flight which we barely made. Thankfully I had packed some sleeping pills and found that I slept the majority of the flight from LAX to Orlando. When we got into Orlando we were able to catch the Disney Magical Express bus to the Old Key West resort where we would stay for the entire trip. Nick and Jen had graciously gotten us a wonderful room for our entire stay with their Disney Vacation Club membership. The resort was even able to check Emily and I in early in the morning which allowed us to take a nap for a few hours until the rest of her family flew in.

We met up with her parents, Nick and Jen and Jim and Sally (who live in Florida now) just past noon to head to Hollywood Studios for the rest of the day. We had been hoping that we would all get off the buses and surprise Nick but Jen had told him the full details on his actual birthday a couple weeks earlier because he was having a pretty stressful and crappy day with Emily’s dad in the hospital for heart surgery and him trying to manage the business alone at the time. We all agreed that we would have told him as well. Apparently he was so excited it took him a while to comprehend it all! It was great to see how excited he was when we all got together to head to our first park of the trip! Getting around was easy with the free public transportation which took us right from our rooms to each destination.

Hollywood Studios was amazing. I didn’t really know what to expect and I kinda thought the rides were going to be more for little kids as it was Disney and not Busch Gardens but I found the rides to be fantastic and the fact that we were there on a Wednesday in January meant that there were hardly any lines for the rides! We quickly made our way through the park, stopping briefly for some burgers, to the Rockin’ Rollercoaster where we were elated to find a wait of only 10 minutes. We quickly made our way into the ride where we were greeted with Aerosmith in a mock recording studio and then ushered into the actual rollercoaster in the next room. I was expecting the coaster to head outside and a I nearly kept my sunglasses on. Instead the ride rocketed us into a dark room with neon signs that flashed as we zoomed past them upside down and around sharp corners we couldn’t see because it was pitch black, all the sounds of Sweet Emotion blasting into our ears from our headrests. Despite it not being the biggest, the fastest, or the longest roller coaster I have ridden it was definitely the most well done, in terms of detail, and experience. I hadn’t ridden a completely dark roller coaster that I can remember and this one blew me away. Definitely a good start to the day.

We then went on to the Tower of Terror which I had heard about before but never been on. Again, I was completely blown away by both the ride and the incredible amount of detail put into it. At any other theme park you wait in lines confined by metal rails but at Disney they provide you with interactive activities in the lines and amazing sets. The spiderwebs and dust entering the massive hotel built for the ride looked incredibly realistic and the cast members were all in costume and character which definitely made it amazing. Even the ride itself was designed to change with every ride on it. The animatronics of the ride (the ghosts, holograms, effects) were so realistic that if I had woken up in this place not realizing I was on a ride I would have been legitimately terrified. I can’t stress enough how amazed I was at the thought and effort that had gone into the design... and I was only on the 2nd ride of a 4 day trip! After being dropped, then raised, dropped then raised several times in the tower we came to the end and the scariest part of the ride was when the attendants had trouble opening the exit for us. Patti cracked everyone up by asking, “wait, they never told us to take our seatbelts off!” then preceding to frantically grab for hers thinking the ride wasn’t really over but yet another trick before a big drop!

Upon leaving the Tower of Terror Nick found himself being dragged to the side of the street by a man in an old fashioned cop uniform! Next thing we know he is sat down in a chair for a 25 minute dating game between three pretty funny women in outfits from the 50’s. I taped the whole damn thing but later accidentally erased it! He randomly chose cards from the host with questions on it and the ladies would give their best answers which usually ended with something like “And if you ever leave me I’ll destroy you!” to the amusement of the audience. Jen simply sat on a nearby bench watching in amusement as these characters tried to win over her husband. In the end the audience helped a very nervous Nick pick his favorite which ended up being the sassy woman in pink.

From there we went onto the Star Tours ride which was basically a large room with a projector in front of you that tilted and shook you all around while you watched yourself fly through Star Wars sets with 3D glasses on. Walking into the set we passed under a giant “walker” from the movies. Again, the detail and set design was super impressive. It also turned out to be my favorite 3D ride of the entire trip as we got great seats and with all the rocking and pitching of the room it really felt like we were in a space ship rocketing through space and fighting off enemies with laser guns!

Our last stop of the day, due to time constraints for dinner was to watch the Extreme Stunt Show. It had just started to rain and we were worried they would cancel the show as we waited at the entrance gate but thankfully they didn’t and we were able to sit in the covered stands away from the wetness during the show. The show was basically a portrayal of how they make action movies with stunt cars and motorcycles. They performed all the stunts and then showed the audience how they were performed with fire-retardent suites, cars with backwards facing drivers etc. There were jetski’s and people jumping off the buildings of the European-style (think Italian Job) set. When the stuntman rolled through the fire they actually had to wait a few moments for him to really light up before putting him out.. funny. The performance concluded with a pretty big jump of the main car through a big explosion which I thought was pretty sweet.

We left the park under dismal looking skies around 5pm to head back to the hotel to get ready for our dinner at the Polynesian Resort. It was actually pretty cool out after the afternoon rain and I was glad to have packed a warm long sleeve shirt and jeans. We all met up around 7 and took the public bus to the resort for our dinner which I was surprised to find out was the same exact place my parents had taken me when I had last been to Disney at the age of 8.

A quick look through my phone confirmed it when I found a photo of my father in a Hawaiian shirt with me next to him scarfing down a rib with bbq sauce all over my face! Instead of my father seated next to me now it was my wonderful Emily! This time we were there in the evening so I expected there to be less Disney characters running around on the stage but was glad to see that they still had the terrific Hawaiian ribs and sweet bread!

When we entered the dinner we were each given a lei and taken to our long wooden tables in front of the stage. When we sat down it all came back to me and I vividly remembered being there as a little kid. I remembered the hula dancers and the disney characters that came out on stage and danced with them but it was during the day time so perhaps this show would be different. There was salad and the best Hawaiian sweet rolls I’ve ever had to start, followed by amazing bbq ribs, chicken and veggies for the main entree. Nick ordered a souvenir coconut mixed drink but the rest of the beer and wine were all included in the meal which Jen and Nick treated us all to.

The performance, called, “The Spirit of Aloha” was started off a little comical with a guy swooning over a female in a grass skirt. People with recent birthdays were ushered in front of the stage for a Hawaiian birthday song (Chris, Julia, Patti, Nick) which was certainly amusing to see them all dancing and then Nick himself got singled out to go up on stage with a girl and learn how to shake his hips. This may have been the funniest part as he was incredibly nervous up there and didn’t really do as much shaking as the girl apparently wanted him to! Ha! During this part of the show desert was brought out to us in the form of smoking volcanoes which turned out to be chocolate mousse.

After that silliness the show took a turn towards the more serious with them teaching us various polynesian phrases and traditional dancers came out to perform. I’m sure the guys in our family were all entertained by the beautiful dark-skinned pacific girls in grass skirts shaking their hips until it looked like they were simply connected at the waist by a loose hinge, while I’m sure the women of our family were thoroughly impressed by the one guy on stage with a skimpy loin cloth and washboard abs dancing around. To each his own!

One of the most impressive displays was wen the girls came out with balls on a string in each hand to perform the traditional Maori poi ball dance under black lights on stage which made them all glow. The show wrapped up with a polynesian warrior coming onto the stage to display his “game face” to the audience which showed he meant business. I can’t believe a human being could stick their tongue out that far. So far there had been absolutely no Disney characters on the stage. This was probably because this was a late night show geared more for adults then the show I saw as a child. The finale of the show was a polynesian fire dancer that was absolutely incredible. He came out with a baton with flaming ends that he threw all around the stage. At one point he even dipped the flaming torch into his mouth and then breathed fire! It was an incredible performance, and incredible meal and by the time it was over we were all exhausted, full, a little tipsy from the booze and ready for bed after our first full day at Disney. Despite my earlier beliefs of Disney I was already having a terrific time!

Day 2 - Epcot

On Thursday after a quick breakfast at the Old Key West Resort we headed to the one place I was already really looking forward to visiting, Epcot (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). Kevin (from Florida remember) told me that as a scientist I would love this place the most and boy was he right! After getting through the gate and snapping a few few photos in front of the iconic geodesic sphere of the resort we picked up a wheelchair for Keith (just had heart surgery remember) and headed into the park. I noticed as we walked in that there was rows and rows of plaques on walls. Upon a closer look I discovered that they were actually photos etched onto the plates of earlier visitors to Epcot! There was thousands and thousands of photos. Pretty cool way to start the day!

Our first ride of the day was Spaceship Earth which actually circled us up and into the massive geodesic sphere we saw on the way in. The ride seemed a bit dated to me as we rode it through various time periods from the creation of earth to current human inventions. There were little screens on the back of the seats in front of us on the slow moving coaster and I couldn’t believe it when I saw our faces appear on the cartoon characters on the screen. They had taken a photo of us at the start of the ride and somehow, using face recognition technology, had put our faces on the characters that we created a futuristic story out of. It was a pretty impressive and very creative way to end the ride as we were circled back down to where the ride started again. The ride got all the way up the current computer age but I believe the next exhibit on the ride will be the mobile computing revolution with a robotic Steve Jobs creating the first iPod, iPhone and iPad... especially with Apple’s close ties to Disney.

From there we headed over to the Test Track ride which was essentially us being put into a fake “test car” as test dummies on a test track. Waiting in line before the ride we passed by various robotic tests of doors, seat cushions, tire tests etc, meant to portray how real automobiles are tested. Again some of the set was a little outdated for sure but you couldn’t expect Disney to keep up with current models by wrecking them for the set around the waiting line... The ride itself started off pretty slow going over bumpy roads and tight turns before almost getting hit by a mock semi and finally approaching a test barrier. I wasn’t sure what to expect but the test barrier wall opened up at the last second and we found ourselves hurtling onto a test track outside around the building at nearly 70mph around corners which was a lot of fun!

After getting out of the ride we found ourselves in a massive display room of 2011 model sports cars and electric/hydrogen prototypes. I take back what I said about it being dated because these cars were obviously fresh off the production line and I would assume are upgraded each year. Each car was open for us to sit in and take photos.

On the way out of that room through the gift shop (every ride ended in an exit through a gift shop btw) we were greeted by an employee who asked who Nick was. Yup, that morning we had all put on our shirts with a photo of Nick plastered to the front of it saying “Nick’s 30th” with each of our names on the back. Jen had made all of these shirts for us and I can’t tell you how well it worked out throughout the day and the following day as we wore them again. The employee brought a bunch of us through a back entrance and got us onto the ride again for another test run on the track. He also provided us with a very useful piece of info. If we were to say “I just wanna get drunk” to the bartender at the tequila joint in Mexico we would be taken care of... awesome.

From there we went onto a ride called Mission Space which everyone in the group seemed to be weary of. It was similar to the Star Tours ride we went on at Hollywood Studios but everyone said that this one would definitely make you sick. There were too choices in the line, a yellow “easy” version and an orange “intense” version. Of course I immediately grabbed an orange card from the attendant. In the ride we were told that we were all astronauts on the first mission to Mars and were escorted to our capsules with controls we would need to manage during the trip around the moon to mars. It was a 3D ride and the enclosures we were in tipped back and forth just like Star Tours but when we took off from the launch pad it actually felt like we were being pulled back into our seats, not just being tilted over. I have no clue how the ride accomplished that. It was amusing to go into “hypersleep” for only about two seconds and landing on a mars surface completely covered with snow was a bit skeptical to me but it was a fun ride. I didn’t think it was anything as good as Star Tours and I certainly didn’t feel sick from it at all. The set design and thoughtfulness of the ride with the mission control area after was again impressive but I think it was geared more towards a younger crowd obviously.

We headed over to the area called “The Land” where we got lunch. Apparently nearly all the food we had for lunch was grown on site in the hydroponic gardens we would soon see. I wasn’t that hungry and was waiting for the various food we would have when we went to the countries of the World Showcase so I only had a hard boiled egg and an iced coffee to hold me over which may have been a poor choice as I’ll describe later.

After eating we went on the very slow “living with the land” boat tour around all the gardens. It was absolutely amazing to see how big they had gotten the fruit and melons to grow on hanging systems of water-fed irrigation pipes. As man of science I thought this ride was fantastic because it showed how Disney is really working towards solving many of the world’s food shortage problems through the creation of innovative agricultural techniques.

The only issue I thought of was... yeah, these are really creative growing techniques that yield giant produce but do 3rd world countries really have the same means as Disney to create the elaborate hanging systems, automatic electrical water systems and so forth to do all this.... questionable.

Our next ride was in the same building and was called “Soarin”. This ride basically picked rows of us up in seats and dangled us over a massive 3D concave screen much like an IMAX theatre for a virtual flight over California. This was amusing as Emily and I had been to many of the places we flew over but it didn’t really blow my mind and many of the scenes looked a bit dated to me. We then walked over to Image Works for a short ride with the character “Figment” about how great and wild our imagination could be. This ride was most definitely built for children. It was amusing and the imagination area after the ride where we could control music and objects with body movements was neat but I could have passed on that ride. On the way out an employee offered to take our photos though in a pre-made set which was nice. Again.. Nick’s t-shirts got us some freebie swag! Hooray!

Our next stop was a cute ride through an aquarium called “The Seas” with Nemo and friends. We passed by multiple tanks of various aquatic life as we rode around in our clam shells. It was very cool how they were able to project the animated fish into the tanks with the other real fish swimming around. My favorite part of the ride was actually the display in front of the building where they had a bunch of robotic seagulls screaming “mine”, “mine”, “mine”, randomly as people walked by.

Everything about our pleasant stroll through the theme park changed when we then entered the incredible World Showcase of Epcot. The fun times and debauchery kicked off when we headed straight to Mexico to the La Cava del Tequila where we had been told earlier we’d be hooked up with tequila drinks! Yes, we certainly were. This is where I began my crusade to get a drink at each of the 11 countries in the World Showcase (Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, Morocco, France, the U.K., and Canada).

I started the night off with a specialty Margarita called the Wild Passion Fruit and after checking into the place with Twitter got us all some free chips. After hanging out in the joint for a while while others got another drink we then jumped onto the amusing Gran Fiesta boat Tour starring the Three Caballeros (Donald Duck) which took us on a short cruise through a mexican set complete with a smoking volcano and temple. Cute ride, amusing only after several tequila drinks... :).

We then exited the enormous aztec temple that contained the Mexican Pavilion and headed to Norway, our next country to ride the Maelstrom there through the history of Norway complete with Norwegian trolls! Afterwards Julia said we should pick up a Viking Coffee so I bought a round for us at the Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe in Norway before we left to make up for the tequila Chris had bought us in Norway. They were delicious! We also stopped in the Norway Pavilion to see cases full of viking swords and other artifacts before we moved on past China (unfortunately this would end up costing me a drink) to Germany.

In Germany the group went into a shop to taste some wines but I instead ran back to China to take some photos since I really like chinese architecture and knew that if we passed it and continued drinking we probably wouldn’t make it back. I ran through it pretty quick but unfortunately failed to grab a drink as I didn’t see an easy vendor to grab one from. China had a beautiful pavilion surrounded by a pond. I didn’t want to lose the group so I then jogged back to Germany and picked up a shot of Rumplemintz German Schnapps to continue my drinking quest.

Next up was Italy where I got a glass of Placido Chianti from a small vendor outside the pavilion. The square of Italy was really amazing with a fountain and a large tower in front. There were flowers everywhere and the boats of venice on the water in front of the country. By this time I was definitely getting buzzed as I only had a few hard boiled eggs for lunch. Emily’s mom was also having a good time as when we got to the American Adventure she was swinging around glowing swords from a vendor out front. I of course picked up a Sam Adams Lager beer from a vendor in America.

By the time we got Japan we were starving and pretty lit so we all got sushi in the restaurant in the pavilion. We also got a glass of the cold sake at the outdoor saki bar and it seemed like everyone around me didn’t like it so passed them to me, which unfortunately for me I was actually drunk enough to drink (it was awful). Emily’s dad was the only one smart enough to get warm saki if I remember right.

Onward we went to Morocco where Chris, Julia and Emily all had a fun time trying on hats with dreads and beads. We spent a good bit of time in the gift shop area of Morocco looking at all the traditional moroccan gifts before Chris and I grabbed a drink at the Oasis slushi stand. I either got a Sultan’s Colada or a Habibi Daiquiri, can’t really remember as the night was starting to get a bit blurry by this point.

Next up was the Les Vins De France in the French Pavilion where Emily’s dad bought a round of Moet champagne for us all. Chris and Emily both had a good time trying on Ratatouille chef hats before moving on. The village square of France was pretty amazing and I read that they often have walking wine tours with tastings in all the little shops in the area.

Thankfully, 9pm had finally come which gave us a drinking break for about half an hour while we watched “IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth”, a massive fireworks show over the Showcase Lagoon. The show apparently depicts the history of the earth and it’s people but I was to lit to really understand any of that. Thankfully, I was aware enough at that point to wait with Patti on a bridge and get the camera set up with the right settings for the show resulting in some really amazing photographs.

The show was really fantastic with pyrotechnics being shot from each of the countries of the showcase over the lagoon. It started off with a massive 350,000 pound earth glob traveling around the circumference of the lagoon and finally opening up to blast of fireworks from its center as well with lasers blasting through the remaining smoke of the show.

Usually Epcot would close soon after this performance but thanks to a random visit from Obama to the Magic Kingdom which shut it down for the afternoon Disney decided to keep Epcot open till midnight. Emily's family certainly had a lot to say about this inconvenience but I thought it worked out great as it allowed us to spend a few extra hours in what I later felt was the best park in Disney World. Therefore Chris and I had a few more hours to accomplish our goal of drinking around the world.

Our next stop was the United Kingdom where we of course joined Keith for a round of Guinness at the Rose & Crown. Chris and Emily had a fun time checking out a big old school phone booth here. At this point in the night Keith was actually pushing others in the wheelchair he was supposed to be in!

We got to Canada at around 10pm and Emily, her mom and Julia played around with the Native American sets and Totum poles. Inside we also found a bunch of funny moose and racoon hats to play around with. Here we picked up what would turn out to be our final country beer, a Moosehead Lager... but not the last beer of the night for Chris and I.

By this time Sally and Jim had left a while ago leaving just the Riggott family and I remaining to walk back to the Captain EO show featuring a younger Michael Jackson saving the day in a futuristic space jam of music in 3D. It was ridiculous to say the least and had to be the oldest show I saw at Disney greatly needing a revamp... or replacement. But, we were all pretty drunk, the employee at the gate got a kick out of us, and we all got a good laugh at each other in silly glasses watching the ridiculous film.

After the film let out Chris and I sprinted back around the Showcase towards China to try to fulfill our mission of getting a drink at each country. Unfortunately, as we go there an employee was shutting the gates.... at 11pm. Despite our protests that they should still be open and we needed one last drink they shut us down (probably because we were visibly tore up and I was running barefoot...).

So, disappointed Chris and I headed back to Germany for another beer. When we got there we found the same stand I had gotten the Rumplemintz at (the employee was strict about his pours). We ordered two beers and when the left for a second I snatched up the display shot and started chugging the display beer as well... and then we ran onward to the United Kingdom. There we got a hold of the girls and climbed a statue in the square to wait for them.

While Chris and I were running amuck around the World Showcase one last time Emily, Juia, Patti and Keith were all with some characters at a photo shoot somewhere else in the park. Nick and Jen had taken off right after IllumiNations - probably knowing the debauchery that was about to ensue. They definitely got some funny photos of themselves with Mickey, Pluto, Minnie, Donald and Goofy before the two girls left the parents to find us. We all got some late night greasy food before wandering back to the entrance to catch one of the last running buses back to the Old Key West resort.

Day 3 - The Magic Kingdom

Emily and I had a very rough time getting up on Friday, so rough that we totally missed the rest of the family who left without us. Nick was pretty excited for the Magic Kingdom but Emily and I not so much so we didn’t mind, in fact, we needed to sleep in especially after the previous night. By the time we got to the park it was 11:30 in the morning and both Emily and I were starving for some food so we joined her parents for some pastries in a small shop just inside the gate. It was cool to see Cinderella’s Castle again after 25 years but there was a big crane behind it which sort of ruined the photos.

We headed towards Tomorrow Land with her parents after and checked out the Laugh Floor with the characters from Monsters, Inc. The show characters take jokes texted to them from people waiting in line for the show and use those jokes in the actual performance. I thought this was pretty neat because the animated characters could adapt their speech and animation on the fly to the jokes that are submitted just before the show. I’m not sure how they did it but it was pretty cool. Because we had Nick’s birthday shirts on again we got singled out in the crowd and got a good laugh from everyone as the characters made fun of us for not actually having Nick with us! hehe.

After the show we caught up with the rest of the group grabbing some lunch where I got a truly awful lobster roll and clam chowder for an absurd price but I was still hungry after only having a fruit tart earlier at the bakery. From lunch we headed to the Haunted Mansion for a scary ride. Once again the set and the building itself for the ride was amazingly detailed. This was a much more laid back ride than the tower of terror of course but the holograms and robotics of the ride were just as impressive.

After the ride Chris and Julia stuck around with Patti and Keith to see the Hall of Presidents while Nick, Jen, Sally, Jim, Emily and I headed off for the Jungle Cruise after we found Splash Mountain to be temporarily closed. Because it was now Saturday at the Magic Kingdom the line for the the Jungle Cruise was 45 minutes long. This sucked after days of running through empty lines but I kept myself busy with Words with Friends on my iPhone. The ride was ok with colorful jungle sets, but there were no live animals and it was all robotic and a bit cheesy. Definitely a ride for younger children, not me.

After leaving the Jungle ride we made our way up up to the Swiss Family Robinson Tree house. Although not a ride, and just a walk through I found it very impressive. The tree was a massive structure of concrete with thousands of individual metal leaves attached to it and honestly it looked very realistic until you got up close. The tree was fairly tall and stood above the surrounding natural foliage which made me wonder how well it all held up to the Florida hurricane season...

From the top of the tree we had great views of the rest of Magic Kingdom including Space Mountain which I had received 3 fast pass tickets for from a woman who was leaving the park early and wanted to give them up. There was also an elaborate water system rigged up that brought pales of water to the top rooms of the tree, one of which actually had a piano in it!

The rest of the afternoon we spent bustling around the park heading to various rides before the Electrical Parade. We took the boat ride through Pirates of Caribbean which was just slightly updated it seemed to include Captain Jack Sparrow and some of the other characters from the movie inspired by the ride. Again, this ride still seemed dated compared to the rides at Epcot with older jerky mechanical characters. The canon fire was pretty cool though with water splashing us from apparent canon balls hitting the water near us.

We also rushed over to Space Mountain for Nick, Emily and I to use the fast passes to quickly jump onto the ride. Again, I didn’t know what to expect from the ride other than I knew it would be in the dark. As we zoomed around the inside of the building on the very jerky track through the dark I thought it was fun but definitely older and not the quality of the Rockin’ Rollercoaster at Hollywood Studios. I felt more rattled than thrilled when I got off the ride but it was fun to experience once. Just a couple hours after we rode it the waiting line went to 2+ hours for it. No way would I wait that long for it!

We then went into Fantasy Land and checked out the Mickey’s PhilharMagic 3D show. This was in a large theater and the screen opened up to well over 100 degree of viewing front of us. It was basically a tale of Donald stealing Mickey’s sorcerer’s hat and going on an adventure trying to get it back when he lost it only to have Mickey save him and the orchestra at the end. What I didn’t know what that the seat handles in front of me would be spraying me with water, and scented air blasts coordinated with the show which was pretty cool. Also, the 3D of the film was really amazing with objects appearing to float directly in front of me. Why can’t Hollywood do 3D shows this well???

After the show the whole family headed to “It’s a Small World”. As we were heading in Emily turned to me and said, “I don’t want to go on this” to which I happily nodded in agreement. We waited outside for the group to go on the traditional ride and then meet up with us. In the meantime we had time to check the news on our phones and found out that Corvallis had been flooding due to 2 days of torrential rainfall! Wow! Glad we dodged that bullet and glad to hear our apartment was high enough to avoid any damage!

Just as it was getting dark we all met up again as a group and headed to Splash Mountain which had re-opened. We had to wait in a 40 minute line again for the ride inspired by the film Song of the South. Despite it only being opened in 1992 I could have sworn I had ridden it before. Perhaps I just remembered the characters as a child. The sets were cute but what really impressed me was the length of the ride at over half a mile with 4 drops with the last one zooming under the briar patch in a 52 foot drop to the water below. Jen and Nick were in the front of the log boat while Emily and I were in the far back. Jen got absolutely soaked from head to toe while Emily and I thankfully remained dry.

Chris and I were getting hungry so we decided then was a great time to try out the traditional giant roasted turkey leg in Frontierland while waiting for the Main Street Electrical Parade to pass us. The $10 massive drumstick was huge and definitely a daunting task to eat as it smeared grease and juices all over our faces as we dug into it. I was starving so I pretty much tore it apart in less than 10 minutes with Chris taking his time on it and eventually throwing in the towel unable to finish er’ off.

The parade was as I remembered it as a little kid. It was colorful with many different characters driving or riding each of the floats as they passed us. I tried several long exposure shots of them all passing trying to get some cool effects from all the lighting. I couldn’t believe how many people had lined the streets for the parade with barely any room to stand. Definitely a Disney tradition that nobody wanted to miss.

After the parade we made our way quickly back to the front of Cinderella’s Castle for the “Wishes” show that would end the day at the park. Before the show the castle was illuminated on all sides by amazing projections and lighting transforming every inch of it into a massive movie screen with photos and different animations. That technology was definitely not around last time I was here!

The show started off with a few smaller fireworks and then Tinkerbell floated down a zip line from the top tower down to the park. There was amazing fireworks to the musical show and it concluded with massive display at the end before the lights to the park came on. The show was great but I think I honestly liked the fireworks at Epcot the night before better.

What ensued next seemed simply a stampeded of people to me. I absolutely do not like large crowds and I get very claustrophobic when I am stuck in them so leaving Magic Kingdom was definitely not the best ending of the day as we were funneled out past the shops back to the bus to the resort where Emily and I took an hour to go to the hot tub and pool and relax our tired feet alone for a bit before bed.

Day 4 - Animal Kingdom

I was super excited to visit the Animal Kingdom as I had heard great things about the animals and the rides and I wanted to test out the new 300mm zoom lens Emily had given me for Christmas. After a good night’s rest we met up with the family for a quick breakfast and headed off to the resort early. After having to wait in long lines at the Magic Kingdom Nick had done his homework the night before and had come up with a plan for us.

When we first got in we rushed straight to the base of the massive Tree of Life in the middle of the park to one of the first showings of “It’s Tough to be a Bug” within the base of the tree. Walking down into the show we were surrounded by amazing carvings into the trunk of the massive tree of various animals as well as fun facts about bugs on all the walls and bug movie posters.

The show as a 3D movie hosted by Flik the ant who introduced us to all of his various bug friends like a massive spider that blasted air at us, a stink bug that smelled up the whole theater and an acid shooting termite that hit us with water. Then the evil grasshopper came out of the side of the theater (a big robotic grasshopper) and told the bugs to attack us which sent flying bugs out of the 3D screen at our faces and dropped physical bugs from high up in the trunk of the tree down towards our heads! Then the grasshopper told the bees to sting us and to my amazement something actually poked me in the back of my seat! At the end of the show Flik asked us to stay in our seats to let the termites leave first and ripples went through our seats underneath us making Patti jump up! ha! Next to Star Tours this was the best 3D show I saw at Disney with all the special effects and stuff thrown into our seats... and our faces!

We then rushed over to the Dinosaur ride where we quickly got on it for a ride back through time to capture a specific dinosaur and bring it back with us. The ride was super bumpy in our jeep-looking vehicle and the massive robotic dinosaurs that came down at us were really cool looking. I especially got a kick out of the big carnosaur trying to wolf down a bigger dinosaur that could barely fit in it’s mouth. The whole thing was shaking in convulsions which made me crack up to the amusement of the rest of the family. Once again the set leading into the ride with the massive skeleton of a carnosaur was really impressive along with the story line behind our journey.

After Dinosaur we hustled all the way over to the Everest ride which I was really excited about going on. The ride traveled on what looked like mining carts far up into a snow capped peak where it encountered a yeti and then rocketed backwards back through the mountain to the boarding station again. Approaching the ride we walked under a ceiling of old crampons, past ice axes, ropes, packs and other climbing gear into a room describing all the various expeditions to Everest. Some seemed real while others with their tales of the Yeti were obviously crafted just for the ride.

When we got on the ride and got to the top where the track was ripped out I honestly was expecting to just head back down the same way we had come up but to my surprise we took a totally different and longer route backwards past a yeti shadow apparently tearing up our tracks! I thought the ride was a lot of fun and ranked right up there with the Rockin’ Rollercoaster.

After checking his Disney smart phone app Nick decided we should head to the Kilimanjaro Safari as it was getting late enough in the morning for most of the animals to be out and about. The line was about 30 minutes long but well worth the wait as we saw a ton of different animals on the drive including rhinos, alligators, hippos, lions, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes etc.

Our guide was super nice but I don’t think she was the best driver as we never really came to a full stop long enough for me really steady the camera. Therefore I spent the whole ride with my eyes pretty much glued to the camera at full zoom trying to steady it along the bumpy road for good photos. We even went over a bridge that had hydraulics and threatened to give way which certainly didn't help my shots at all.

Thankfully the camera and lens were fast enough to compensate for the bumpy ride and I ended up with some amazing photos of the wildlife. Far too many to post here so you should either check out my Flickr album or my Disney Album on Facebook to see them all. Near the end of the ride we took a "detour" on a mission to catch some poachers which went along well with the video we saw in line about how poaching in Africa is killing all the species - way to go Disney for being proactive about getting the message out to the thousands of unknowing tourists that flock there!

We spent the rest of the early afternoon walking through various exhibits and taking tons of photos of the wildlife we saw. One of the most impressive areas was the tigers in the Asian portion of the park. There were several walking around yawning and putting on quite a display for us all. Despite not liking cats in general I do find tigers unbelievably beautiful and powerful.

Some of the highlights were seeing massive tigers yawn showing their enormous teeth, Elds deer with huge antlers, Flying Foxes and other bats, a huge Komodo Dragon, an aviary full of the most colorful tropical birds you could imagine flying all around us, gorilla’s up close and a native Floridian Black Cormorant stealing a fish from the hippo enclosure and eating it right in front of us.

We also saw a woman completely covered in a costume of leaves who blended in perfectly with the surrounding and when she moved it scared the crap out of any passerby! We were lucky enough to spot her because she was walking around along the path on what appeared to be stilts as her limbs were extra long. It was definitely an impressive camouflage display!

The highlight of the day was after we got a quick lunch and went to the Flights of Wonder live bird show. While waiting in line for the show a great horned owl was brought out for us all to check out and when we got into the show and sat down we were immediately greeted by colorful parrots flying over our heads. The show was comical about a tour guide who showed up and had FOB (Fear of birds) and then gradually learned to appreciate the birds by the end of the show.

In the middle of the show a trainer came out with a yellow-naped Amazon Parrot that was obviously trained to interact with the audience and got it to take a dollar bill from Keith’s hand who stood up for the bird. Later, the bird even brought it back to him which I thought was even more impressive. They must have clipped the birds nails or something as it didn't appear to hurt Keith at all... or more likely, Keith is just tough!

They brought out a wide assortment of birds from smaller parrots to a Harris Hawk to the enormous Abyssinian Ground Horn Bill with nearly a 5 foot wingspan that they got to fly directly at a couple audience members sitting on stage with cameras. Near the end of the show they also brought out a Bald Eagle explaining the amazing comeback the species has made noting that it is now off the endangered species list. This isn’t new to Emily or I because we see them all the time out here in Oregon but the story of course is nonetheless impressive.

We took a short train trip out to Rafiki’s Conservation Station to check out some reptiles and insects in glass cases and see the conservation efforts being taken at the park. There was also a petting zoo at the exit but it appeared to be the usual goats and such for little kids so we passed it up.

Walking out I saw a bunch of people crowded around water looked to be a bird bath with a lizard in it. I quickly noticed that the lizard was simply metal and thought about going up to it and smashing it with my hand to scare the people but instead I simply said, “you all know that’s not real right”... yup, got some disappointed faces from that one! ha! Emily of course thought it was a bear.... (inside joke).

Before we left Keith, Nick, Emily and I headed over to Dinoland to take a quick ride on Primeval Whirl while the others stayed to watch Mickey’s Jammin’ Jungle Parade. Dinoland was actually further than we thought and by the time we got there my feet were pretty much done with. The ride was quick and jerky and I was happy to see that Keith (remember just had surgery) made it through intact.

The walk out of the park to the buses was pretty painful on my feet. I hadn’t thought that I would need more than flip flops at the parks but with absolutely no support my heels felt like someone had taken a mallet to them like Kathy Bates. It would later take me days to sort through all the hundreds of photos I took in the park!

On Saturday night Jen had made us reservations at the very fancy and very expensive Shula’s Steakhouse which was one of her favorites. Having no idea what to expect I almost fell out of my chair when I saw a steak cost $45 and then you had to buy a side to go with it for another $7-15... This of course is not a normal type place for Emily’s family to visit and I knew it was a special occasion but I still felt very uncomfortable at first being at a place where the same money spent on two meals for Emily and I could literally feed us for a month with food from the nearby Winco in Corvallis. But, I always wanted to order a fancy cocktail at a restaurant so I amused my self by ordering a glass of Knob Creek bourbon “neat” (without ice for you unsophisticated types...). When I got it and took a sip I instantly wanted something with it... whoops.. hehe. Several of the others ordered appetizers of shrimp, rock crab etc but I guessed they were each $20 on top of the other other stuff and my cocktail and thinking that Emily was going to be splitting the bill I opted to not have one myself.

Then, a few sips later nearing the bottom of my bourbon I noticed it... a small fruit fly in my drink... my chance to mellow out and de-stress at this fancy place. I got the server’s attention and pointed it out quickly getting another one a few minutes later. After some more conversation with the family and a few more gulps followed by a chaser of water I noticed it again... another damn bug! As a former server and bartender at various times over a 10 year period of my life I took it upon myself to visit the bartender and point out how my 2nd drink had not changed anything. I watched him open up a brand new bottle and casually said, “you’re gonna hook me up right” and watched him pour the rocks glass over halfway full. I really don’t mind little fruit flies as they are harmless and the bartender’s double mistake now meant that I had drank enough to feel comfortable with the whole “fancy” situation and relax a little.

Then my 24oz Prime Rib came and when I looked down I thought, “you’ve gotta be kidding me”. Out of 24 oz I would guess that over 14 oz were pure fat. I looked up at the server with a shocked and disappointed face saying, “I worked at a steakhouse for 4 years and never have seen a piece of meat look this poor” and he agreed that in his 8 years it was the worst he had seen there as well. I then sat, sipped on a red wine I had ordered, and watched as the rest of the family enjoyed their great looking steaks only to get mine when they had all finished and it being undercooked. At that point I just said it was fine and ate it quickly to catch up. Even the new one wasn’t a $45 steak, but the filets that Jen had told the others to get looked like they were amazing.

As an argument broke out between Jen and Keith about who would take the bill I got up and walked to find a manager. I spoke to him about the two glasses of bugs and my 60% fat Prime Rib. He looked annoyed that I had bothered him which pissed me off and said that he would take off my bourbons and was silent. I looked at him and said, “And...” to which he responded, “And... half of your porterhouse” which appeased me enough to walk away. I know that the place was one of Jen’s favorite places to eat and the servers were both really nice but receiving two drinks with bugs in them, a fatty steak (supposed to be the best meat in the country it claimed) and then have the manager appear annoyed with me soured me to the restaurant and also earned it a piss poor review from me on Yelp. At least my lobster mashed potatoes were yummy. I was full but when I heard what the bill had come to I almost fell over. I’m glad everyone else enjoyed their meals, I guess I was just the guy to get hosed this time.

Day 5 - Leaving Orlando

The night after Shula’s was rough. I was up several times throughout the night with an upset stomach, no doubt from the meal. Emily was also up throughout the night throwing up repeatedly. My first thought was food poisoning and made me hate Shula’s even more but later I would find out that she, and her dad, had picked up some sort of bug from one of the resorts. We had to catch the Disney express at 9:45am so we met everyone at Olivia’s for breakfast where Emily had a really rough time throwing up as soon as she saw the bacon on my plate.

It was really sad to say goodbye to her family and board the bus for the airport. The lines through security at the airport were terrible and I actually got asked for a 2nd form of ID! It took forever which really sucked for Emily as she was terribly sick and had to wait for the bathroom after getting through security. Then our airplane got stuck on the tarmac because of a mechanical issue that then caused us to miss our connecting flight out of LAX. Thankfully by the time we made it to the Alaskan Airlines terminal they were able to get us on a flight through Seattle for the last flight from there to Portland getting us to PDX at 1am rather than the 7pm we originally had straight from LAX. Thankfully our one checked bag actually made it to PDX before we did and we were able to grab it. The drive from PDX back to Corvallis at 1am (4am in my East Coast head though) was through ridiculous fog so thick I could barely see 20 feet ahead of me. I stopped for coffee to keep me awake but still ended up having to pinch my leg in pain and punch my surgery knee near the end to stay awake back to the house. Never again will I fly through PDX and I don’t know how many more times I can make that trip that late at night with Emily asleep next to me. I think we’ll either spend the extra money to get in earlier or just get a hotel room if that happens again because it’s not worth our lives.

So, in summary Disney was not what I expected going into the trip. It completely blew my mind and I had a fantastic time both at the parks and of course with Emily’s wonderful family. I love them all. I can wholeheartedly say without any embarrassment now that adults can have a terrific time at Disney without any kids with them. Although I’d like to visit Bush Garden’s and Universal if I return I had a great time and rode terrific rides without them this time. The detail that does into everything Disney created blew my mind and Epcot was definitely my favorite. I could easily spend several days just at Epcot. Animal Kingdom was really fun too but I think I saw all I wanted to there. I could have spent a little more time at Hollywood Studios because we only had the first afternoon there and most of that was taken up by the dating game and the stunt show. I also think I would skip the Magic Kingdom unless I had Ellie with me the next time I go which I hope to in few more years when she’s getting out of her tantrum stage. Great trip and although I was physically tired and didn’t have much time to relax I felt relaxed when I got back to work after sleeping in a bit on Monday. A big thank you so much to Jen and Nick for putting the whole trip together!

First Real Day of Resort Powder 2012

2012-01-15T20:22:00.000-08:00

Today at Ski Bowl Emily, Chris and I had our first real serious day of powder skiing. Earlier in the week the forecast had called for a few inches which turned into over a foot and a half between Saturday night and Sunday. We had left town with a friend of a girl named Christina who plays soccer with Emily that Chris had picked up to meet her already at Government Camp with a few other friends. We left town at 5:30 am.... yes, you read that right, 5-freakin-30 AM. It actually turned out to be a great plan as the three of us were able to rip fresh tracks down upper bowl all morning while Dan went off to meet up with Christina who also was just learning to alpine ski.

After a morning of ripping it up in the powder we met up with the others at the warming hut for a few pitchers of pilsner urquel, the staple beer of Ski Bowl. I had forgotten that Emily and I were on the Rogue Trip in 2009 with Christina who was from Argentina. After the beer Emily, Chris, I and a Christina’s friend headed off to shred some more pow. I definitely began to push myself on a few drops in upper bowl working my way up to around a 6 footer before I felt my knee was being pushed to hard. Yes, this is a far cry from the 40-50 footers I had been dropping the previous few years. I now told myself that I would simply try anything that Chris would jump off of. With him being new to skiing the past few years I figured this would be an achievable limit for me on cliff drops... until he starts to get really crazy..

We skied until about 3:30 when my knee had become dangerously week and I told Chris that Emily, who was freezing at this point, and I were headed down the mountain to chill in the car with Kya until they were done. When we got to the car we turned on the heat for Kya who seemed to be shivering a little and Emily threw some snowballs for her which is one of her favorite activities. Chris came down shortly after and we all headed home, thoroughly exhausted from our first real day of resort powder skiing.

Mount Defiance!

2012-01-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

This weekend I really wanted to challenge myself physically and with the ski areas still devoid of snow I decided on a challenging hike in the Columbia Gorge for Chris, Emily and I to check out. At 5,000 feet Mt. Defiance is the high point of the Columbia Gorge and a wicked steep climb starting at the Columbia River at only 200 feet and climbing to the top in just 6 miles. This essential meant a trail so steep that it felt like climbing a steep building staircase non-stop for over 4 hours to get to the top. It was just about hiking a vertical mile in just six. = A challenge.

We were able to reach the trailhead of the hike at Starvation Creek at about 10am in the morning which I thought would give us plenty of time for the 12 mile loop hike up Starvation Ridge to the summit and then back down the Defiance Trail. Before we left to head down the trail which started along I-84 we took a side trip to check out the beautiful Starvation Falls.

Once on the steep trail we climbed quickly past moss covered trees up to a clearing of massive power lines with great views down to the Columbia River below. The shadows of the steep hillside we were ascending could be clearly seen on the river below with the sun rising to the southeast. We could see tons of small fishing vessels below on the Columbia just north of the massive dam and clouds from the morning fog continued to hug Wind Mountain on the Washington side of the river.

From there it was a very steep ascent for the next 4 miles with the occasional viewpoint over the gorge to the north for vistas of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams. It was a great opportunity to test the capabilities of the new 300mm zoom lens Emily had gotten me for Christmas. Kya seemed to be having a great time on the hike and didn’t seem to be as tired as we were heading up the steep Starvation Ridge.

Chris had finally decided after years of hiking and skiing with me to try listening to music on the hike. He and Emily both admitted that it gave them a lot more energy. After 3 years “I told you so” doesn’t really cut it. I held off on music for a while because I use Spotify to stream most of my music nowadays. To my surprise I found that I had reception the entire way up the mountain (probably due to the huge antenna’s we would later find at the summit). I decided to put on some bluegrass tunes and enjoyed the music for the rest of the hike to the top, only losing the signal a few times.

At about 3,500 feet we hit snow. Thankfully it was warm enough that the trail hadn’t become a layer of ice and was instead slushy underneath our boot treads. This allowed us to keep up a good pace all the way up to Warren Lake where we stopped to check out some bear prints headed out across the frozen ice. We briefly lost the trail there in the snow but then picked it up again. It was deceiving where we were because the summit looked just ahead of us at every turn but seemed to get further and further away. Eventually the snow got deep enough for us to put on some gaitors to keep it out of our boots for the rest of the trip to the top.

We were following the trail of an EveryTrail guide I had downloaded to my phone but at a certain point it became easier to just follow the footprints of a few others who had climbed the day before and earlier the same day than us. They definitely went off trail but were headed in the right direction so we just followed. Eventually we popped out onto a wide snow-covered road leading up and around the mountain to the summit. It was obviously a maintenance road for the towers on top. We trekked up the road and made it to the summit at about 2:15 which was just over the time I had hoped to be at the top. There were great views down to Hood River and to the north side of Mt. Hood which was in a haze and shadowed by the sun to the west.

We snapped a few photos at the top of the mountain, ate some lunch and then started our descent at around 2:30. We made great time down the mountain at the expense of our knees and legs. My legs are built for climbing but with a knee injury and descending most of my recent hikes over the past few years on skis my legs really took a beating with my left surgery knee shaking with every step I took. By the time we got down to the river again it was dark and we had to traverse east back to the parking lot at Starvation Creek. We passed by a couple more awesome waterfalls but it was far too dark at that point for any photos, although we did get a couple great shots of the full moon rising over the Columbia before reaching the parking lot at around 5:15pm.

The entire day I had been off my time predictions by just 15 minutes. All three of us and Kya were all exhausted after the hike with the dog passing out in the back of the Prius immediately upon leaving the lot. We stopped for some quick food at a Burgerville in Troutdale before the 2 hour ride home. For 3 days after I would be limping around the office with extremely sore legs but happy I had pushed myself and accomplished my goal. 5,000 feet of ascent and 12 miles in day is nothing to scoff at.

Guacamole Challenge!

2012-01-07T23:05:00.000-08:00

Tonight Jason, Jenn, Chris, Emily, and I along with Danielle and Scott headed over to Mike and Jess’s for a guacamole challenge get together. The idea was for everyone to make their own version of guacamole and see which was voted the favorite at the end of the night. Emily made a good one but the one that won it all had garlic in it and Jason and Jen got second with their mango infused guacamole. Knowing that most people like garlic I called the first and 2nd place winners correctly as I challenged Chris at a game of darts. This time we had brought our wet suits over but we all couldn’t fit in the hot tub together so we passed. This was the last time we would see Mike for a while as he would be taking off for Alaska for several months. It was a fun party and I definitely had my full of guacamole!

New Years Powder!

2011-12-31T23:55:00.000-08:00

On New Years Eve Emily, Chris, Kya and I drove up to Ski Bowl for some fresh snow after the driest December in Oregon’s history. We were able to ski all day with Kya left in her puffy coat in the car. We got a late start so we skied till 5pm when they turned the lights on at the “largest night ski area in America”. It was great to have a full day at a resort nearly a year after I blew my ACL last early January. My knee was definitely weaker than it was before the injury but I was still able to ski for a good amount of time. I’m not sure if it will ever be as strong as it was but right now I at least I can still ski and take smaller drops.

When we got back to Corvallis we had time to shower, change and get a quick bite to eat before picking up Chris again and heading to Mike and Jessica’s for a New Years Party. We brought a couple beers we had left over from our typical Wednesday night movie night at our place but thankfully we were greeted to jello shots, mixed drinks and more booze than we could handle. I played a quick game of beer pong with Mike who killed me and then retired to inside to continue to mingle with everyone and watch Emily challenge Chris to a game of darts.

Around 11pm Scott, Danielle, Emily and I headed over to BD and Carrie’s who were also having a party where most of our other friends were. BD had just finished his brand new beautiful bar and was happily mixing drinks for everyone. When we arrived he mixed me up a delicious bourbon and ginger in a pint glass. We stuck around their place until the ball dropped and 2012 began. Apparently we now only have 11 months to live until the world ends according to Nastrodamus. It was then that I went up stairs to the bathroom and found a very old photo of Brian taped to an aerosol can that I got some funny video of but will spare him by not posting it here!

After pounding one more pint of bourbon and ginger the four of us took off again for Jess and Mike’s to finish up the night. By the time we got to their place I was hammered and decided to jump into their hot tub in my boxers, flashing poor Danielle in the process. Scott and a few others joined me in the hot tub as well. From that point on I’m a little fuzzy on when we went home but I know I was certainly feeling the night the next day. Happy 2012!

Christmas 2011

2011-12-24T17:58:00.000-08:00

This Christmas Emily and I decided we could not afford to head home for the holiday. We were planning a surprise trip to Disney for her brother Chris and the rest of the family in late January so it just didn’t make sense to spend another $1500 to fly us both home for Christmas when we would see them all so soon anyway. We had also just seen my mom for a full weekend at Jeff & Allie’s wedding in November.

On Christmas Eve we went over to Loomis & Amy Jo’s for a Christmas Eve dinner of salmon, ham and spectacular dishes that everyone brought. It was just Danielle, Scott, Emily and I, Loomis and Amy Jo and their friends Neil and her husband Dan. We stuffed ourselves with food and then continued to be fed booze from Amy Jo for the rest of the night as we played catch phrase in the living room and then other drinking games. It was a nice evening among friends.
On Christmas Day Emily and I simply had a very quiet day at home. I felt really bad that I didn’t have anything to give her on Christmas Day because the Dynafit bindings I had planned to get her were unavailable anywhere. She got me a very expensive hi-zoom Nikon Lens for our DSLR which I had been dreaming of for months and would come in handy on our upcoming trips to Disney and then Hawaii later in the spring. We were able to skype with her parents and the rest of the family and took two shots of the remaining Wild Turkey American Honey with the rest of her family on the screen. I then facetime chatted with my mom and Ellie who didn’t really seem to be in the mood to chat. Apparently she had actually gotten tired of the number of gifts she got for Christmas!
It was a relaxing day of just the two of us, but work over the holidays with everyone home with family was terrible for me and I hope that Emily and I will never have miss a Christmas with family again.

Shellburg & Stassel Falls

2011-12-23T17:48:00.000-08:00

With Emily and I having friday off of work for the holiday we decided to get out of town for an outdoor activity. Skiing was not going to happen as the mountains had been getting rain and the resorts were barely open with almost no skiable terrain in the backcountry of the passes either. Kevin and Alexa had taken off for home for the holiday so we were dogsitting Andromeda who we decided needed a good long walk. We decided on trying a waterfall hike we hadn’t been on before near Silver Falls called Shellburg & Stassel Falls. It was a short loop of a few miles with two big waterfalls to check out.

We had slept in late after the week of work so had a late start out of town but were able to get to the trailhead by about 3pm. The easy hike started off down a closed farm road with cattle everywhere. There were cattle gates on the road but no fences so we let Dromi get a close up view of the large critters to check them out. After about 30 seconds though she seemed to be as bored with them as they were about her.

After turning off the road we headed to beautiful Shellburg Falls where there was a viewing area for photos. There was a very cool tunnel of moss covered tree limbs leading down to a small viewing area of the falls. I had the nice camera with me so I took my time photographing the falls with various settings while Emily and Dromi patiently waited along the trail behind the falls.

From there we headed up a few flights of stairs to above the falls and on to a campsite area at the end of the closed road we had come in on. Apparently this was closed for the season. We then followed the EveryTrail Guide written by the guy in Eugene back down the road in a loop to the short side trail to Stassel Falls. By this time the sun was setting so we didn’t stay long at the top of Stassel Falls which we couldn’t see very well through the trees anyway. It would be cool to go back some day and look up at the falls after hiking into the bottom of the falls but we were out of time on this occasion.

We hiked back out the farm road in the dark past a beautiful setting sun in the distance, only pausing to take some photos of the confused cows with a bright flash to stir them up. On the way out we passed a guy in a truck pulled off the main road clearly smoking a joint. As we passed him we apparently startled him which gave me a good laugh. Only in Oregon... :) Great hike and beautiful waterfalls.

Colin's Christmas Party 2011

2011-12-17T23:44:00.000-08:00

Once again this year Colin and Amanda were gracious enough to host a Christmas Party for everyone. There was the usual Watershed Crew at the party as well as Tim & Lindsay and we brought Holm along. Colin had bought a massive turkey and everyone contributed a dish or two of snacks. As typical, Colin supplied a full table full of assorted booze for everyone as well. There were games in the garage and I set to mixing drinks for a bunch of people. I’m not sure where but Danielle and Carrie also got a hold of some fake mustaches. Perhaps they were out of the gift stocking that Colin allowed everyone to pick from. In the garage there was the usual ring toss tournament and I made poor Scooter a nasty shot to drink after he lost (I felt bad about it later but he drank it like a pro).

This year I managed to make the entire night without passing out thankfully. Amanda was in and out of the party throughout the night (probably to check we weren’t destroying the house :). We all appreciated her willingness to have everyone over just weeks before her surgery. By the end of the night everyone was pretty lit but we were able to get a ride home from Alexa who had taken it easy thankfully. I’m not sure who won the drunk card for the night but with Emily feeling a little sick we took off pretty quickly and felt bad we didn’t help clean up at all. All in a all, it was a really fun party as usual and we all can’t wait till next year when Amanda may be feeling better to hang out with us a bit more.

Jason's Birthday Beach Weekend

2011-12-11T22:01:00.000-08:00

Emily and I just got back from a fantastic weekend on the Northern Oregon coast where we celebrated (early) Jason's 33rd birthday (this coming Thursday) at a luxurious beach house in Seaside belonging to the family of one of the girls Jen TA's for at OSU. Jessica, Mike, Jen, Jason, Scott, Danielle, Emily and I all had a blast the whole weekend. Two hours after getting to the house on Friday we had polished off nearly two bottles of bourbon and by the time the weekend was over we definitely didn't care to see alcohol again for a while. To feel like we accomplished something other than just killing our livers we also went on a spectacular hike up Saddle Mountain, the highest in the northern coastal range, on Saturday and on Sunday on the way home Jen, Jason, Emily and I went on a crazy beautiful hike along the coast at Ecola State Park at sunset, just north of beautiful Cannon Beach. To read more about all the shinanigans and see some amazing photos of coastal Oregon click the link to READ MORE.

Emily and I were the last to leave Corvallis on Friday after work at about 7:00 pm after stopping for some food at Quizno's. We drove up I-5 and made it to the beach house by 9:30 to start partying for the night with the others who had gotten there just before us. Jen got hooked up for the house with it only costing us $150 for the weekend. That is $150 for both nights for all 8 people combined! The house had bedrooms for each couple and tv's in all the rooms with multiple game platforms, wi-fi and a friggin' bar in the kitchen with bar stools. Yup, I'd definitely say that is worth $20 for the weekend!!! We were all tired from the work week and the drive so we basically just chilled out on Friday and played Catch Phrase and listened to music while sippin' on the Wild Turkey Honey Bourbon and a really great Bottle Mike had brought as well. Thankfully, Scott had thought to pick up a big pizza at the grocery store which we all enjoyed late night before hitting the sack around midnight for the hike I had planned for us the next day.

On Saturday morning we all woke up around 8:30am and after a great breakfast of Eggs, O'Brien Potatoes, sausages, etc the 6 of us took off for Saddle Mountain just 30 minutes away while Mike (bad back) and Jess took a walk along the beach which was literally only about 500 feet from our doorstep. It only took us about 30 minutes to drive to the trailhead deep in the coastal range and we were able to start hiking by about 11:15am. Unfortunately, the weathermen were completely wrong on the forecast and we were met with clouds the entire way up the mountain! The trail was only 2.8 miles long each way but we gained 1,600 feet of elevation so it was pretty steep but thankfully had many switchbacks. The dogs (Poa, Arrow, Oliver & McKenzie) certainly were loving the hike after being in the garage for the night before. The trail was incredibly maintained and for much of it was literally fenced in to keep the rocks from eroding down the steep slope. It was a little awkward at times hiking up what appeared to be a fence strapped to the ground.

After about a thousand feet we started to break out above the treeline into open meadows of grass and moss on top of lava rock. We travelled across wooden bridges and down stairs bolted into the rock and past amazing spires of lava rock. On one of the first corners we came across with partial views to the valley below we found a large spire of rock about 25 feet in the air from the trail but with cliffs on either side plummeting about 50-75 feet to the forest below. Of course once I saw it I wanted to climb it but nobody else wanted me to. I scoped it out and felt totally comfortable so I scrambled up it. At the top was a rock that was part of the spire but looked like a perfect seat for me to perch on. Emily and Jason got some pictures as Jen climbed up and joined me at the top as well. I always love sitting on the top of cliffs!

On the way up we had a brief break in the clouds which allowed us to see the very cool trail winding up the open slopes above where Scott and Danielle were ahead of us. We passed another cliff band that looked appealing to climb as well but I decided not to worry Emily any more and pushed onward. The last bit to the top was completely in the open and for a little bit I thought it might clear up, but when we got to the summit it was clear we were going to stay socked in. The summit had a wire cable around it to keep dogs/people from falling off to either side. We got some photos of all of us at the summit before heading down the mountain. Scott, Danielle and Emily literally ran down the peak while I stayed in between with Jen and Jason herding the crazy Kenzie dog down the mountain in the back. We were down by 1:30 and back to town to do some shopping at the Nike outlet by 2pm.

Saturday night was certainly a night to remember. After taking showers and cleaning up after our hike the debauchery began. I'm not going to go into any details except that there was nakedness by a certain tall, monkey-screaming buddy of ours, boat steering by a certain short young lady, shoulder ass-smacking-tearing by someone who rhymes with "hen", blacking out crazy early by a certain amazing dice player, crazy dancing by someone who rhymes with "danny", and me playing beer pong with cups of bourbon! By 9pm Emily was passing out, Mike was long gone, and we had devoured pounds and pounds of chinese food we had delivered from a local restaurant. Jen had made an amazing birthday cake for Jason and there were birthday cone caps and Jason even had a birthday sash on! Before things got crazy out of hand we made two really fun face-time calls to both Tim and Lindsay at her new place in Tillamook and to Brendan in New Orleans. We all miss Brendan and I think he really enjoyed our drunk antics. Once the calls were over I broke out the old school hip hop mix and a serious dance party broke out for quite some time!

At around 11pm Jessica, Scott, Jason, Jen and I all decided we needed to go for a walk on the beach. This turned out to be a great idea as I think the fresh air kept several of us from losing our dinner! When we got onto the beach we ended up walking nearly a mile down the flat beach towards downtown and then back along the boardwalk. I found a stick on the beach and began chasing Scooter with it but when he finally got ahold of it I regretted putting it down as I accidentally got whacked in the head pretty hard by it! On the way down the beach we came across two two young teens with a fire on the beach and chatted with them for a bit. Turns out one was from Alaska and the other a Native American from eastern Montana. Both were happy to be living in Oregon now. Trying not to be too much of a bad influence we moved on to the boardwalk for the walk back. I honestly don't recall what happened when we got back to the house as my brain had reached shut down mode at that time. Thankfully, I had drank a bunch of water on the walk and before bed because the next morning wasn't too terrible for me.

On Sunday we all woke up a little later than the day before... hehe and cleaned up the house for an hour or so after having some breakfast. When I crawled out of the bedroom Scott scared the hell out of me with his monkey screaming and when I finally stumbled down the hall to the shower I discovered a nice little lump on my head... quite the good time. Danielle and Scott had to take off around 11am to make it back for a work party and Mike and Jessica left a little while later after their cute dog Bogi had a fun wrestling match with Mckenzie.

We left the house and drove to downtown Seaside to walk around and check out the town that Jason has done so much research on at the OSU Wave Lab where he works. When I was living with Jason 2 years ago they had built a scale model of Seaside and hit it with waves that were the approximate scale size of Tsunami's that would rock the coast if we had our 9.0 magnitude subduction zone earthquake that we are overdue for. When we walked out to the boardwalk we could see rows and rows of hotels stretching into the distance. Seaside is the closest coastal town for Portlandian's so in the summertime the population goes from the native 5,000 to over 25,000, thus the multitude of hotels. Looking up at 6 story hotel Jason said the wave would hit the 5th floor at least and then splash completely over the top of the hotel to the parking lot behind. The wave would literally rip the town to shreds and would hit the coast just 15 minutes after the quake. This is unfortunate because the fastest escape route for the residents is nearly two mile long and when Jen and Jason tried to run it once it took way longer than 15 minutes to get to a safe height. So, the last we've heard is the city is proposing to use a large concrete parking structure as a safety zone in the middle of the town.... but I still don't think that is much hope.

After getting some coffee in town and stopping at a candy shore we headed south to Ecola State Park just north of Cannon Beach to go on a 2 mile hike along the rugged coast. We dropped Jen's car at the north end and started from the south end with great views over the sea stacks off the coast along Cannon Beach. We had a beautiful hike through the coastal bent sitka spruce forests with great views over the ocean and crashing waves below. Mckenzie certainly enjoyed himself and Jason and I took the easy hike and great views as an opportunity to practice our photography skills.

When we got to the northern end of the hike we went down to the beach and messed around a bit taking funny photos and writing in the sand to stall until sunset. We drove back to the southern end where there is a viewing platform over the ocean and Cannon Beach. We timed it perfectly at sunset to get some great shots of the sun going down below the clouds on the horizon. There was clearly a professional photographer on the deck with us with a crazy expensive camera and mount that slides the camera from tripod to tripod taking panoramic and time-lapse photos (thousands of dollars). Thus, Jason and I really felt like amateurs but I think we got some great photos.

We then drove into Cannon Beach for some dinner ending up at the Lumberyard Restaurant. I checked on Yelp and people said to order the clam chowder and the iron skillet corn bread which absolutely blew us away. The clam chowder was pretty good and all our sandwiches and pot pies the girls got were amazing as well. Definitely gave it a positive review on Yelp and will remember to stop there in the future. From there it was a long windy drive home down the coast and over the Coast Range from Lincoln City past Salem, arriving back in Corvallis around 9pm. It was truly a spectacular weekend and I'm pretty sure Jason had a really great time. It wasn't Thanksgiving but it was the same people (minus Brendan :( ) and I think we had just as much fun!

Aaron "helicopter" Hartz's Going Away Party

2011-11-29T23:03:00.000-08:00

My good buddy Aaron Hartz, who has been down on his luck for the past couple years, finally was handed down a dream job by the snow gods this month... a seasonal job with a heli-skiing company based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Yes, I now have a best buddy who is working for a heli-ski business - hooray! I think the first year he'll be the rookie and mostly refueling the choppers but I'm sure he'll be going up with them plenty and hopefully later this season or next season he'll be able to use all the guide skills he has acquired over the past couple years to earn a good living as a professional ski guide. Back in the day when I was single this would have been my dream job as well but now with a steady job and great lady I can only sit back and send my buddy off to his new job with a big party and ski movie night at our place.

I emailed a ton of people and made Hartz promise not to leave town tonight. The initial plan was to bbq and pre-game at our place before heading out to Suds or downtown but with Ski movies playing and a warm apartment full of cases of beer and a fire in the stove the party just kept raging on here late into the night. Mo Davies showed up who was here visiting from Australia, Kelly, Betsy, Jon, Anna, Mark, Sarah, Nate, Mel, Chris, Mo, Maxine, Paul, Dennis, Matt, Kevin, Emily, I and a few others all showed up to say goodbye to a legend. I think Hartz had a great time and I know that I will really miss shredding the Cascades with him this season. Hopefully I'll be able to find some time and money to go visit him and perhaps see him over the holidays.

So glad you are taking this leap in life buddy, I'm glad to have taken a few leaps with you in the past - Cheers, Jon

Tim's Birthday Potluck at Danielle's

2011-11-28T23:59:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had a nice potluck dinner at Danielle and Scotts for Timmy's birthday (28 I believe). Danielle made veggie Chile and Kevin made meat chile while Emily and I baked some rolls and brought over the leftover death by chocolate from Thanksgiving. Tim brought over a pork loin he had made and there was plenty of booze, wine and other snacks. We ended up chilling out downstairs with the dogs watching football and then, believe it or not, Rudolf the Red-nose Reindeer Claymation movie, which I hadn't seen for over 20 years! It was a pretty chill night for everyone, too bad Lindsay couldn't be there for it... :(

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-27T23:28:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving for the first time in 5 years Emily and I didn't have any out-of-town plans for the holiday. Instead we were invited, along with Scott and Danielle, over to our good friends the Cooper's for what turned out to be an incredible holiday feast. I had a pretty crappy day at work on Wednesday trying to finish up some work so I wouldn't have to go into the office over the long holiday weekend. By the time I got home it was almost 8pm so Emily and I spent the rest of night baking some things (my first easy harvard beats, death by chocolate, sweet potatoes, etc) and relaxing before the big next day.

On Thursday we got up early so that we could get over to Colins to start drinking and watching football. Yes, football on the West Coast starts at 10am on holidays. We brought over a bottle of Wild Turkey American Honey but I decided to hit the bottle of Bailey's we brought first. Before I knew it I had nearly polished off the bottle just a few hours later. Colin and Amanda were wonderful hosts and Colin did a spectacular job with the friggin' huge 20lb turkey he had bought knowing that left-overs are always amazing. The girls spent a good part of the early afternoon on Amanda's computer looking at shoes and boots and other upcoming Black Friday deals.

Danielle felt suddenly sick in the afternoon while Scott found himself dozing in and out of sleep in the warm house throughout the afternoon. I enjoyed the massage chair as usual and by the time 5 or 6 rolled around for dinner we were all pretty lit from an afternoon of great beverages. Danielle had come down from upstairs after resting and seemed to feel better as well. When we had put out all the food onto the table for dinner it quickly became apparent that we had all really overdone ourselves. There was enough food for an army! We all stuffed ourselves and by the time we were done the Turkey looked ravished and no more than 10% of each dish had been eaten (yes, we had that much food!).

We all went into the living room, clearly suffering from instant turkey food coma, and settled in for the movie "Super 8" on blu-ray that I had brought over to test Colin's new PS3 and surround sound system in the living room. Both the movie and Colin's stereo definitely lived up to the hype. I thought a plane was landing on me during one loud scene in the movie of a train crash. Scott and Emily dozed in and out of sleep but the rest of us caught the whole film and really enjoyed it. During the movie we also finally found some room to snack on deserts as well. By the time the movie was over it was midnight, 14 hours after we started drinking and time to go home. We helped clean up as much as possible but Emily suddenly felt really sick (wine on top of milky foods and stuff I think) so we hastily left and felt bad about it. Although we had stayed in town it was really a great holiday with some of our closest friends here.

The rest of the long weekend was spent pretty much relaxing. We needed Friday to recoup at home during rainy weather anyway after Thursday's feast and Saturday a bunch of people stopped by our place to watch the Beavers get their asses handed to them by the Ducks at the Civil War game in Eugene. On Sunday Emily and I joined Chris for a very late season ride at Black Rock in Falls City where we met up with Chris' childhood friend Jake who had moved back to the area. Despite there being a lot of trees down over the road on the way up and my "money-pit" bike falling apart on the way up it was great riding and felt good to get out for at least one activity over the weekend. Work tomorrow is going to suck but at least I feel pretty rested and rejuvenated now!

Mt. Hoodoo Pre-Season

2011-11-20T23:01:00.000-08:00

Today Emily, Chris and I had a truly spectacular day of pre-season skiing at Mt. Hoodoo in Santiam Pass before the resort officially opened. Snow had been dumping in the pass all week and Sunday had called for bluebird skies so I got Emily and I up at 6am to grab Chris and head up to the Pass for my first time on skis in 10 months (the longest I've ever gone) and try out my new knee. Because the weather was supposed to be so amazing I also grabbed the DSLR for the hike. I grabbed my 122mm powder boards as well as my 88mm dynafit boards for options on the skin up the small peak.

We got there around 10:15 in the morning after leisurely leaving town and stopping at Noah's for some food as well as gas. I had taken it easy drinking at game night the night before so that I would be ready to tackle whatever today. We drove up to the pass in clouds the entire way until we got up past about 4,000 feet when we broke into sunny skies. When we got to Hoodoo there was a thin layer of low clouds stretching over the peak all the way to Black Butte and Sisters. These clouds stuck around for most of the day but we were above them on Hoodoo and had spectacular views of Three Fingered Jack, Jefferson behind it and the Sisters Wilderness and Washington to the south.

On our first trip up I chose to try out my fat Black Diamond Megawatts but failed to remember how awful they were with my 88mm skins from my Black Diamond Voodoo skis. There just wasn't enough surface area of the skin on the snow leaving my freshly waxed skis from yesterday to slide on the skin track we were following up the mountain. This turned out to be a real struggle for me and by the time I got up to the steeper part of the mountain near the top I had to give up and stop. I tried hiking with my skis on my pack but I was sinking up to my waist and making no progress. So, I stopped for some great photos and to take some pics and video of Emily and Chris coming down from the top. Chris had Kya with him on the first ascent and she did great on the way up. On the way down she had a little more trouble keeping up.

Although my first trip down I could feel my knee a little bit when I turned hard it felt solid despite the minor pain which I think was more from my patellar tendon than my new ACL. When we got to the bottom we put Kya in the truck along with a ton of extra clothing we didn't need under the bright sun of the afternoon. I happily changed skis and clicked into my uber-light dynafit bindings for the next trip up the mountain which felt like a breeze compared to the heavy Duke Bindings and fat skis I had for the first run. At the top we got some pictures of each other and took a slightly different route down with a few less tracks. The tracks on the peak were actually from Anna, Jon, Mark and Sarah from the day before. Today they had decided to trek into Mt. Washington for a change of scenery and apparently despite the incredibly long, flat haul in, had a great time.

We only cruised down to mid-mountain on our 2nd run down and decided that we had the energy to hike back up one more time. On the way up a guy Chris had met at Kelly Rice's party the night before showed up (it was his birthday too) and we followed him with tired legs to the summit for one last run. At the top we met some guy and his girlfriend with their dog (also named Kya by chance). The guy seemed a bit cocky too me as he described a film he was making that "everyone thinks is just amazing". When he began to tell me how I should use my own gear and I found out he was originally from California I quickly decided it was time to leave and pretty much skied off while he was in mid-sentence wich Chris and Emily happily following me with grins on their faces...

The last run down was just like the ones before it... smooth and silky. Even though it was only 3pm our legs were tired and I could tell Chris and Emily were ready to leave. My legs felt pretty good and I may have had another run in me but I didn't want to push it either after my 10 month hiatus. We cruised back down the hill getting photos and video along the way and headed back to Corvallis before the sun even set. The weather forecast calls for sunny skies for the next 10 days in the Cascades which means melting and freezing every night and horrible skiing so today was perhaps the last day on the snow for a little while, thankfully it turned out to be amazing!

OSU vs. Washington & Game Night

2011-11-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

On Saturday Emily and I biked over to Doug's tailgate for the last home Beaver football game of the season. The beavers haven't been doing good this year so nobody really expected another win out of them. Neither Emily or I had tickets to the game but luckily Kevin and Tim both had extras that got us in. The food was, as usual, amazing at the tailgate and the washer boards were out. I had brought the remaining couple bottles of the Colt 45 grape blast to finally drink (a horrible purchase choice) and was promptly laughed at by my friends.... :)

The first half of the game was actually pretty close and we were able to pull slightly ahead of Washington by half time. We had been able to sneak past the band entrance and down to the front row right behind the goal posts. Several of us had tickets for that area and the rest just followed as nobody checks tickets by the band entrance apparently. Benny the Beaver was right in front of us the whole game and Danielle and several others were filmed and appeared up on the jumbotron above the OSU student section.

At halftime we decided to go back to the tailgate and never ended up returning to the game, which the Beavers ran away with for the win. Instead we all headed home near the end of the game anyway and had a really fun board game night on our side of the apartment. About 10-12 of our friends showed up and we played games for the rest of the night (Cranium, Catch Phrase and finally Scene It over our TV). It was a fun and different way to spend the night which was cheaper and in my opinion better than going out to the bars anyway.

Chris Holm Turns 31

2011-11-16T23:50:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had a fun party for Chris' birthday at the bowling alley on 9th street. I called everyone I could think of that was friends with Chris and a good number people showed up including Sarah and Nicole from the Rogue River trip with some special drinks just for Chris! We all met up at our place before heading to the bowling alley and had a few birthday shots before we left.

Bowling was a lot of fun and we got multiple pitchers of beer there. I was worried Hartz wasn't going to show up but he and Jon Stevenson showed up around 9 after their CMRU meeting. Emily had bought an ice cream cake at the store so we all enjoyed that as we wrapped up two full games on 3 different bowling lanes between all of us. From the bowling alley we headed back home and then down the street to Suds and Suds to cap the night off with another couple pitchers of beer there. I'm pretty sure Chris ended up having a great time which made the truly rough morning I had the following day completely worth it :)

And yes, this is the most embarrassing photo of Chris I could find as I didn't take any tonight.

Mary's Peak North Ridge with Dromi Dog

2011-11-13T18:43:00.000-08:00

Today Emily and decided to go on a hike up Mary's Peak to get outdoors and took Dromi along with us to get her some fresh air. It wasn't a particularly nice day but at least it wasn't raining for a change. Emily had a soccer game at 4pm so we got up early and were at the trailhead by 11pm to start the 10 mile hike.

As usual the woods of Mary's Peak were beautiful with the fog lingering in the canopy and the green, lush moss covering everything. Switchbacking up the ridge it is always cool to see the tall douglas fir trees leaning agains the slope of the mountain and with a 16mm wide angle lens they make a pretty cool photo.

Near the top of the mountain we heard what either sounded like gunshots or construction. For a while I thought perhaps it was construction at the parking area near the top but as we got closer I quickly realized that some idiots were shooting off guns off the summit road which we were about to parallel through the woods. I decided to put Dromi on leash (she had been doing wonderful off-leash staying with us btw) and when we got really close I yelled loudly that we were coming through and to "please don't shoot us". At the parking area we saw a young guy picking up trash that worked for the forest service I think. We asked if it was legal to shoot up here and he replied "definitely not". We told him where they approximately where and he turned to walk down the trail to tell them to leave. From there we quickly walked to the top (which Emily had never been to) but with no views, a frigid wind, and time running out we quickly ate a couple sandwiches, gave Dromi some more water and some snacks and headed back down. Back at the parking lot the worker told us he had told them to leave and they were all gone which made us feel better. We kept Dromi on leash until past where we had heard them just in case but never heard another shot.

On the way down Dromi had a fraction of the energy she had going up (this was possibly the longest hike she'd been on yet) and pretty much stuck to the trail in front of us the whole way down, occasionally getting confused by switchbacks though... :). Although we had no views, it was refreshing to be outdoors for a while and my knee seems to be fully recovered. Emily made her soccer game with time to spare and Dromi spent the rest of the day and night napping on a couch.

Laynes Housewarming Party

2011-11-12T23:34:00.000-08:00

Emily, Cathy, Alexa, Kevin and I all headed to Albany tonight for a house warming party for Layne and Jeff. They have a great new place with a big garage and plenty of room for gear. Their house is pretty big and they only got it for $105k I believe so their mortgage is something like $750 a month! That's just $100 more than what Em and I pay for rent. Granted it is in Albany, and a similar sized house here would be double that but damn, that's a great deal! There were snacks and Layne had made a great pot of hot cider which I put some bourbon in.

The night before a bunch of us from work as well as Aaron and Chris Holm all met up at McMenamin's to see Layne now that she has started bartending there again just once a week. We of course had a great time (I love that back bar with the fireplace!) and of course walked out pretty hooked up by Layne. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that her co-worker was with her at the party and opened my big mouth. When I say "co-worker" I mean MANAGER... whoops. She ended up covering herself pretty good but her brother said I almost stuck my foot in my mouth pretty good on that one. We all watched some football as the Ducks actually lost a game and played "Catch Phrase" until it got late and we all drove home. Definitely super happy for both Layne and Jeff with their new house. Now I just need to get some ski videos for Jeff to watch in his new living room.

Jeff & Ally's Wedding

2011-11-06T23:16:00.000-08:00

This weekend Emily and I made a very brief visit home to the East Coast for my cousin Jeff and his fiance Ally's wedding in Uxbridge, MA. We left on a redeye Thursday night from PDX and got into Bradley Airport at 10am on Friday. My mom picked us up and we had a really nice lunch with Em's mom and her brother Nick and wife Jen at a Red Robin nearby. We would have gone to a different, non-chain, restaurant but the Granby area had been devastated by an early fall snowstorm that snapped branches on nearly every tree that still had it's full foliage due to the weight of the snow. Her parents had been without power since the previous Saturday and by the time we got back to Oregon late Sunday night were still without power! After lunch we drove to our hotel, took naps to catch up on the sleep we missed on the flight and then had a nice dinner at a local Olive Garden before returning to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

Unusually, the wedding was at 11am in the morning at the Arrowhead resort in Uxbridge. The wedding and the reception were both held in the same building. It was a short ceremony and reception but the food was fantastic. I think that Jeff and Ally really enjoyed the photo frame that we had got them and the photos I had taken with the DSLR during the ceremony that I put on it at the reception. There was the usual cake smashing in the face and everyone signed a plate for them to keep from the wedding with best wishes.

Em and I sat at a table with my mom and Aunt Catherine and Uncle Roger. I really, really enjoyed catching up with them as they are two of my favorite people with very similar interests to mine. Emily really loves them too. Hopefully, when they move to Boulder, Colorado Emily and I will be able to visit them sometime soon. I've still yet to meet Asia and I haven't seen Cherie in many years. It was a cash bar so we didn't end up drinking like we usually do at weddings which of course prevented me from any embarrassing dancing in the light of the afternoon coming in through the windows. It wasn't really my kind of music either.

After the wedding we all went back to the hotel to change and then headed to a fancy restaurant up the street that Ann had suggested I guess. The place was packed and I almost fell over when I ordered two Double Chocolate Stout cans that cost $3 a piece in Corvallis only to have the bartender ask for $20 from me!!! It was at that point that I decided I was either not going to drink or the family was going to have to move to a different, less crowded and cheaper location. Thankfully, a few other family members agreed and we all moved down the street to a nearly empty sports bar which the Wilcox family pretty much took over for the night.

Emily and I spent much of the night chatting with the Brockport contingent of the family that I never really had time to get to know before. My lawyer/judge cousin Chris turned out to be nothing like anything I expected. Instead of being nervous to talk to him because of his position in life as a judge and owning his own law firm I found us to have a lot in common and was super easy to talk to. He and I would have a lot of fun together if we lived close by I'm sure. Sean and Sheryl were wondeful to chat with and Mischy and Paul were hilarious all night. Chris and Howard definitely got the drunk cards for the night! Chris even called a buddy of his in Vegas to get tickets for my mom and Aunt sue for their upcoming trip. It seemed like he had connections in many high places from all the stories he was telling us. At around 11pm my mom told me she was tired and needed to leave so the three of us took off in her car with her driving. She pulled into the wrong lane immediately which gave me a little worry but I corrected her fast.

Back at the hotel I wolfed down the leftover Olive Garden that was smelling up my mom's car before bed. I had drank quite a bit with the family and ended up with a slight hangover on Sunday morning. Emily and I watched some TV and then fell asleep knowing we had to be up earlier than the rest of the family to make our flight out of Bradley.

We woke up to my mom calling us to get up (I wish she would someday realize I am a responsible adult and can figure out these things on my own). We met the family downstairs briefly before heading out of town and said our goodbyes. I felt bad that I hadn't had much time to catch up with Eric and Erin but Emily and I are determined to go visit them in Seattle over this winter so I figured we could catch up with them then. We ate a wonderful breakfast at a great place called the Whistle Stop Cafe in Windsor, CT before my mom dropped us off at the airport. The flight back was uneventful and actually on time so we got back to Corvallis around 10pm with plenty of time for a good nights rest. It was a super fast trip with a kind of unusual wedding but I'm super happy for Jeff and Ally and even more happy that I got to finally really get to know members of my family that I had rarely talked to before.

Halloween 2011

2011-10-29T23:14:00.000-07:00

It seemed like everyone around us had been preparing for Halloween for weeks. Alexa and Kevin had been making their costumes and pinata for the party for well over a week and Fausti had been shopping for elaborate costumes on the internet. Emily and I as usual waited until the last moment to put together our costumes. When I say last minute I literally mean the morning before the Halloween Party which was held at Fausti's this year and doubled as a birthday party (big 30th) for Danielle. Emily decided a little while ago she was going to be a peacock for Halloween so I decided I would be "Squiggy" the comical looking guy that runs karaoke nearly every night at the Peacock downtown. While Emily was out running errands and picking up stuff for her costume I went to the costume store and picked up a black long-haired wig to use as a ponytail and a fake glittery microphone.

Fausti had a great party with tons of decorations and even a photo room that I set up with our Nikon DSLR. She had a corn dog maker and a cotton candy machine as well. Emily made a double layer bunt cake with orange frosting that she made to look like a pumpkin. Others brought dishes and there was a mexican taco bar set up as well. At one point I stuck my bare arms in the cotton candy machine to come out with Cotton Candy Hands! At around midnight everyone strung up the pinata that Alexa had made for Danielle's birthday and she went at it with a baseball bat. It was pretty funny to see the assortment of characters all crawling on the ground afterwards for the candy it was filled with.

Let's see if I can remember who everyone was....
Fausti - Honey Badger
Pete - The Devil
Carrie - The Devil's Advocate maybe? She had a Sarah Palin sticker and was making deals for souls...
Kevin - Bruce Willis from the 5th Element
Alexa - The redhead from the 5th Element
Cathy - A troll doll
Jeff - The tallest hooker I've ever seen
Layne - Elle from Kill Bill (Daryl Hannah - eye patch...)
Tully - Papa Smurf
Miwa - Dirty old man (had a small mirror on the bottom of his cane)
Jason & Jen - Yellow duct tape people
Colin - the abortionist doctor from American Horror Story

Amanda - What appeared to be a Mardi Gras girl
And Later in the night:
Jon - Lt. Dangle from Reno 911
Hartz - What appeared to be a normal outfit for the guy.... haha
Holm - Crazy scientist
Feeney - Can't remember
Stacy, Sarah & Nicole - F.E.R.R.Y.'s
Paul - Can't remember

When I say "later in the night" I'm referring to Dennis Feeney's new house burning Halloween party that Em and I went to thanks to a shuttle from Layne & Jeff (we had tried to walk but Emily was in pain in her shoes so we had to turn back) We arrived at Feeney's new place just off Circle Blvd to find it had now furniture which was perfect for the dance party that was currently going on there. Chris was out in the driveway with the ladies we had met from the rafting trip down the Rogue and he certainly ended up having an interesting time that night! Also, there was a strange older gentleman in the driveway cooking fresh fried fish out of the back of his truck. Emily and I found this to be a bit strange at a Halloween party of people in their 20's and 30's but living in Oregon we have learned not to question such odd occurrences anymore and enjoyed a few pieces of the fish ourselves! Emily and I hung out there for a bit catching up with everyone and I was excited to tell my ski buddies about my small chance of winning the Warren Miller Grand Prize Heli-ski trip from the film premiere Chris and I had gone to the prior Wednesday night at OSU.

Eventually, my cold got the best of me and I decided it was time for Emily and I to go home. Having now ride home I borrowed Chris' bike to ride down circle and return with my truck with his bike in the back. I was completely sober having not drank much throughout the night due to me being sick so it was no problem. On the ride home I passed Jon and Aaron who were quite excited about Chris and the ladies at the party who were obviously after him and tried really hard to get me to follow them to Winco for more beer but I stayed true to my mission and returned with the truck. I said goodbye to the cute F.E.R.R.Y's at the party and everyone else and Em and I drove back to Fausti's to see everyone quickly, grab my camera gear from the house and wish Danielle a happy birthday. It was a long night of dancing, costumes, food and friends but the way I was feeling I was certainly happy to crawl into a warm bed and relax the following day.

Warren Miller Heli Ski trip to Alaska.... Maybe...

2011-10-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

Chris and I went to the Warren Miller ski movie premiere tonight to get our usual free pass to Mt. Bachelor, Ski Magazine subscription and discount to Peak Sports. In general I don't really like past Warren Miller films because they seemed to be hour long commercials for whichever company sponsored the film like Ford or Jeep or whatever. Thankfully, this year they got rid of the commercialness of the film but still stuck with the same drab commentary by Johnny Mosely. Perhaps next year the commentary will get better. As usual, there was prizes given away and... surprise, surprise I won the grand prize of the night which was to be a finalist in the drawing for an 8 night, 7 day heli skiing trip to Alaska! Right before the little kid reached in and pulled out my entry form I mentioned to Chris that I never win anything... go figure! 2nd place is the same trip basically but to the Chugach Range and 3rd place is a trip to Chili, all three include a guest as well. So... I still have a small chance as there are many other ski movie premieres but at least I have a better chance of winning literally my dream vacation!

Rogue River Wild & Scenic Take 2

2011-10-23T23:14:00.000-07:00

Last year during the annual Rogue River weekend Emily and I were on the East Coast for a wedding. This year Emily was also on the East Coast in Maine for work but fortunately I was free to go on the trip. Instead of a very rushed overnight trip leaving on Friday as like before Ben and Bryan decided to stretch the trip out over three days and extend the length of the float. This meant that everyone had to take a day off of work on Friday so that we could all pack into Bryan's Attack Van and leave on Thursday instead. Instead of Emily I talked Chris Holm into joining me for the trip and the shinanigans. I figured he needed the time away because of relationship troubles he was going through.

I left work Thursday a little early so that I could pick up the IK's Chris and I had rented from the ORC at OSU. Two years ago Emily and I had been in a raft with Ben but there were IK's on the trip and it looked like so much fun that Chris and I opted to try kayaking the river this year instead. After packing up my gear into a new Black Canyon dry bag I got from Moosejaw Chris and I drove to Winco and then to the liqour store for booze. I picked up a handle of Pendleton for Ben and a few boxes of Sunset Blush wine for him as well as a bottle of American Honey and Sweet Tea vodka for me. Chris and I then packed up our remaining gear and after some concerned looks from Tiffany, headed over to Bryan's for some food and to pack up the rafts and gear with everyone else.

Bryan had spaghetti and meatballs with salad and bread for dinner. Gear was all over the lawn and people were starting to show up around 7pm. Chris and I grabbed some food and I accidentally met Cody Younger's wife Nicole after slipping up and saying I couldn't wait to hit on her in front of her not knowing she was actually there. Confused, I had to explain to her how Cody usually flirts with Emily continuously on trips and that finally it was payback time with Cody missing from this venture and Emily gone too! Nicole and her sister Stacy and their friend Sarah got kick out of this. As usual it took us a while to pack up everything and get the two vans ready. I took Chris inside to show him Bryan's rabbit Bo and we all sang happy birthday to Nicole who shared a cake given to her with everyone. I had been drinking cans of Jeremiah Weed all evening so that by the time we hit the road for our 4 hour trip down to the road I was definitely lit. The drunken drive down to the river Thursday night was, as usual, a shit show with everyone passing around wine, a massive liter-sized flask and other drinks. By the time we got to the put in, just up the road from our usual spot many people in the van were passed out sleeping and Nicole had some pretty gnarly motion sickness brewing. That drive was a good introduction to what Chris would experience for the next 3 days!

When we woke up in the morning on Friday it took us all a long time to eat breakfast and pack up all the boats with our gear on the shore. The restroom outhouse was truly terrible so I decided to change into my wetsuit behind it instead. I spent a while getting my gear ready and attaching my waterproof helmet cam case to the top of my rafting rental helmet. It was quick for Chris and I to blow up our IK's so we spent the morning helping everyone else get their gear ready and onto the boats. By the time we got going it was just past noon. Bryan's father had graciously volunteered once again to shuttle Bryan's van down to the takeout for us. It literally saved us about 10 hours of driving by doing so. He's the best, and one of the nicest guys I've met. We also had Bryan's sister and brother on the trip as well, the whole Carrington family it seemed!

Like two years ago there were many costumes. The girls (Sara, Nicole, Stacy, Sara Vandepas, and Martin) had a pirate flag on their boat and Michelle's boat was the official Harry Potter boat with all the main characters in costume on it complete with cauldrens of boiling dry ice that floated with them downstream. Next time I go on this trip I'm definitely going to remember to bring some sort of funny outfit.

Friday was a crazy beautiful day with warm weather and sunshine, as it would be for the next 2 days as well. It almost felt like overkill wearing the wetsuit that I borrowed from Kevin. Chris and I were both a bit nervous about the approaching class V rapid Rainee Falls but we had a few hours to get our wits about us before going through it. Chris actually dumped a couple times on the way to Rainee but I think it was just from goofing around and not really paying attention. I was doing ok and hadn't fallen out yet so I was building confidence. We passed around some booze between us and the rafts and I began hitting the vodka/V8 fusion nalgene I had but not too hard as I wanted to be focused for Rainee Falls. The river, just like two years ago was absolutely beautiful.

When we got to Rainee Falls we dropped our boats on the shore and headed to the rocks just above the falls. The rapids looked nearly the same size as two years ago, perhaps just slightly bigger as the water was lower this year I think. There was another way down far to rafters right (a fish ladder type area) that people could go down but not with our group. Everyone was to head over the falls. Chris and I stayed on the rocks while everyone in the rafts took turns taking the plunge. A couple boats made it safely over the falls at first but then Scott lost several of his front teeth in a gear boat from slamming his face into the oar handle and Bryan's boat went over the main falls sideways capsizing instantly in the froth. This was beginning to look like a bad idea to Chris and I who would be in tiny single IK's heading over the drop.

I thought for sure Ben would nail it in his gear boat, and he almost did, but he too flipped and all of our gear and drybags remained upside down in the river as they floated downstream for a long distance. By this point everyone had taken the drop except for the girls. Chris and I watched them take the rapid head on and spectacularly they made it through without much effort. As soon as they had collected themselves and started to celebrate I yelled several times for them to paddle to the shore so that they could have the throwbags for Chris and I (also so someone at least could get video of us going over the falls).

When Chris and I walked back along the shore to get into our kayaks we met several others along the way. We had seen several kayakers go completely around the falls in what looked to be really pro hard shell kayaks. That didn't bode well with us, nor did the comment from another kayaker on shore that said we were nuts. Thus, Chris and I strode into our IK's and floated out into the main channel with a Heron on the shore watching us as we went. I had the helmet cam on so I wanted him to go first in front of me over the falls. I didn't really catch much of him from the helmet cam as I gave him a good lead in case I came down on top of him in the froth. I saw where he went over the falls and tried to follow but got pushed just slightly to the left on a step before the main drop. I was sent up and over a fin of water and down into a big boil that promptly flipped me out of my kayak. When I surfaced I saw Chris still sitting in his IK and was amazed and elated for him! Apparently he had chosen the right line slightly to the right of me and missed the boil that destroyed me. As I was floating a rope was thrown to me by Nicole. I first ignored it but then taking a few strokes swimming towards the shore I grabbed it and started pulling.... to find that nobody was on the other end!!! I laughed as I pulled the rope together and made it to shore... Nicole was not to hear the end of this for the rest of the trip! Way to save me Nicole!!!

After laughing about Nicole's horrible save at Rainee we collected ourselves and gear and headed downstream a little ways to meet up with everyone else and get some lunch. Scott was on a rock with Anna tending to him and he looked to be in a lot of pain. His top left front tooth was gone and several others appeared to be cracked in half. We took a look at the video I had taken with my Nikon and his whole body appeared to just fold in half into the oar handle... horrific looking. Everyone was pretty impressed that Holm had made it through without flipping like I had. One of the rafts had dumped over 30 beers into the river and I made the rule that if we found any in eddies or along the shore whoever found it would be required to take a knee and shotgun it. Well.. about two hours later I had forgotten my rule and found the first can... Chris later found one as well...and we both followed the rule I had made.

The rest of the afternoon was a pretty easy float with a few class 3 rapids and a bunch of fun spots for people to climb rocks and jump into the river. Several people, including Ben, decided it would be best to strip naked for the jumps. We had a heron following us for a while downstream and Chris and I had a good time visiting other rafts and sharing all the booze that was on the trip. Eventually it began to get dark and a decision had to be made on where we were all going to camp. Ben wanted to keep going downstream for a ways but Bryan was determined to camp up on some rocks above the river. There was some friendly arguing but Bryan thankfully got his way and we began unloading the gear boats. At first I wanted to keep going to a flatter, open campsite with outhouses that Ben knew about but after it took us so long to unload I was happy that we had taken out where we had. That evening we all had a great dinner (Mexican I think) and hung out by the fire late into the night.

Saturday morning I awoke from my bivy to find Ben wearing Sarah's bikini top and a whole bunch of string cheese wrappers in my bivy with some left in my pants pockets as well. Apparently I had gotten the late night munchies after hanging out with Cory and Lisa. Once again it was a beautiful morning and the fog lifting off the river into the surrounding hills was gorgeous. We all had an awesome breakfast of fresh eggs, juice and my Chai Tea which I shared with Ben and Holm that I cooked up with my Jetboil. As usual it took us a while to hit the river after packing up all the gear boats. Anna's gear boat had a leak which took a bit to repair before we got going.

It took me a little while to get back on the saddle and open up my next nalgene of vodka and juice but after I did I felt better (thankfully I don't do the "hair of the dog" thing that often or it could spell trouble :). We came across a great cliff jumping spot that was probably 35-40 feet above the river. We all pulled over and took turns jumping off of it. I got a great video of the jump with my helmet cam on as well.

At some point the girls were drinking their very yummy birthday shots and Nicole decided it was time for an semi-naughty photo shoot for Cody to later see. This involved her jumping onto my kayak and filling my mouth with whipped cream. Little did she know I wouldn't stand for this as I then pushed her over, climbed on top, and smeared it all over her face... ha!

We continued down the river having a blast in the beautiful weather until we came to the Rogue River Ranch where we pulled out for lunch. This is the spot two years ago where we camped over night. We all took our boats out of the water and I went exploring with the Rudnicki sisters towards the open buildings of the ranch. We walked all about checking out the stable and the barns out back as well as the main residence. When we returned to the group someone had found a praying mantis to my surprise. I hadn't seen one in probably over 10 years and didn't realize they were in the Northwest as well.

The rapid that scared me the most was quickly coming up on Saturday afternoon. It's name was Blossum Bar and although it was a class IV and not a class V like Rainee Falls it had claimed several lives this past year with one girl's body being stuck in a keeper undercurrent for several weeks. I was glad that we would be going through the beautiful Mule Creek Canyon and Coffee Pot rapids before Blossum Bar so I would get some more experience under my belt. Two years ago a kid in our group in an IK flipped going into the canyon and swam almost the entire length of it through all the hydraulics. Chris and I made it through without a problem at all in our IK's but we didn't stop for a group photo like we did two years ago due to time constraints. Mule Creek Canyon is one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. You can see the water line on the rocks as you pass through it and there are towering spires of volcanic rock all around you. It is the reason this section is called the "Wild & Scenic" and rivals the Grand Canyon for beauty.

Soon after Mule Creek Canyon we pulled over to the side of the river to scout Blossum Bar on the rocks above it. Upon looking at the pinball of boulders and rapids we had to negotiate and seeing another trip go through in rafts Chris and I actually felt a little at ease as it appeared to be far easier for a kayak to negotiate than a raft with 6+ people in it. Ben told us we would have no problem either so when we all went down and got into our kayaks I wasn't too worried. I knew to just head right before the nasty rapid that held the girls body for so long. It turned out to be a piece of cake for Chris and I... felt more like a Class III actually. Once we got through it I climbed up on some rocks and got a really great video of Ben and his raft making it through without even touching a rock the whole way!

Elated about making it through the last serious rapid of the trip the shinanigans were stepped up a notch and the birthday shots were broke out again by the girls. What ensued for the rest of the late afternoon into the evening is actually very foggy for me. I know at some point someone borrowed my kayak and I was in a raft, then I returned to the kayak with a passenger, but I forget who that was. We ended up making it to a gravel bar in a bend in the river where we set up camp on the rocks above but by the time we got there it was really dark and we all were in headlamps. Several members of our party had to literally be dragged and dumped ashore and I don't remember what was cooked for dinner or how the fire got started.

I didn't even remember where I had set up my bivy as I had to ask Stacy to help me find it in the dark. Apparently from the stories I later heard I ate a bunch of curry (yuck!) and was watching the stars on my back next to Ben for much of the evening. People sat by the fire for a while but I don't even remember the fire. I have no recollection of how or what time I went to bed....

Sunday morning was ROUGH... I woke up very much still drunk with my pockets full of string cheese once again. Yelling down to the group that I once again had a bunch of cheese in my pants was pretty amusing to everyone. We all ate a nice breakfast as we watched other rafters float by and a few river boats head up the river by us. Martin played a bit on his guitar and we once again had beautiful weather to start the day. As usual it was a pain in my ass to get my wetsuit back on and for all of us to load up the boats but it wasn't as crucial to get everything as locked down as we had a very easy float to the takeout.

Throughout the morning I asked everyone what the hell had happened to me the night before and I heard a few good stories trying to piece it all together again. Chris had the most interesting story of all though as he told it to me on the river just before I puked over the side of my kayak. I had finally past the point of being drunk into one of the worst hangovers I've ever had. It was about this time that everyone else started to get their drink on, including Chris and the ladies. I chose this moment to vacate the vicinity for my own health and sanity.

At first I stayed just ahead of the group which worked out great as we quickly pulled the rafts to the side of the river for some food and to check out a waterfall slide on a small stream that entered the Rogue. We had to boulder hop up the stream for a ways to get to the spot and then wade into a deep pool of water and climb a knotted rope up the face of the waterfall to get to the top. Each one of us in the group took turns climbing up and sliding down. Just after I had climbed up and slid down the rope broke and it took some time for Ben to repair it from the top. Thankfully nobody was high up on it climbing when it broke. Chris Gabrielli, Paris and their rafting group caught up with us at the falls for a little bit as well. After some good photos and helmet cam footage of the slide we walked back down the stream to the rafts. I slipped a few times on the wet rocks which really tested out my knee ACL, thankfully it held.

The rest of the day on Sunday I spent far ahead of all the rafts which had joined together into a party raftzilla. I could see drinks being passed around liberally and many calls for me to come back and partake but there was no way I could even smell booze at that point. They were having such a great party that small salmon smelt actually jumped out of the river into their boat to join them (look at the photo closely). So, for the last few hours of the float I simply laid back in my kayak and passed in and out of snoozes letting the river carry me along.

Thankfully I was sitting up at the point when I saw a couple of our rafts pull to the shore at the takeout. About 20 minutes later the party rafts showed up and people began literally crawling ashore to the amusement of Bryan's dad who had the vans all set up for us. Ben and Erica took the drunk trophies for the day as they both were just wandering around useless for quite some time. I was super excited to see a grill fired up with fresh burgers for me to eat. I needed something solid and greasy in my gut at this point.

As we packed up the rafts on the van and trailer clouds started to roll over the coastal range towards us marking the end of the perfect weather on the Rogue that we had just experienced for 3 straight days in October! We all then piled into the vans and tore over the Coastal Range with Bryan, as usual, scaring the shit out of everyone in the back of his van, but thankfully shaving valuable time off our ride home as well. We got back into Corvallis early in the evening and helped everyone unpack all the gear. There was some leftover food so I helped my self to some deli meat, peppers and tomatos from the trip before I dropped Chris off at home with a big smile on his face from the fantastic weekend. I felt bad that at the same time Emily was sick in Maine for work and missed out but I'm sure that we'll both be back on the trip next year as it is certainly something we both look forward to.

BYU, Waterpolo & a Party

2011-10-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

Today Emily and I headed down to the OSU vs. BYU game to tailgate with Doug and others before the game. We had gone to the Arizona game a few weeks ago but Doug wasn't there for that one and Doug's tailgates are always the best as he prepares food for days ahead of time. Many of our friends were there and I was able to get tickets from Andrea Allan earlier in the week in exchange for some beer and candy.

Emily ended up getting tickets from work so we didn't actually need the tickets anyway and gave them to Colin and Isaac. Unlike the previous game we went to the Beavers got spanked this weekend. We watched the game with Colin, Scott & Danielle, Miwa, Garrett, Cathy, Shiloh and some others. I had a few Sparks beverages during the first half and then a couple beers at halftime so by the time the game ended I was feeling pretty good.

After the game Lindsay, Emily, Alexa and I drove over to the Osborne Aquatic center so that we could finally see one of Kevin's water polo matches. No surprise, but there were a hell of a lot of speedo's walking around the pool! Kevin is the oldest on the OSU team but he definitely kept up with everyone in the pool. It was kind of ridiculous how many subs the OSU team had compared to the lone sub of the other team. It was hard to understand what was going on in the pool and I didn't really understand the rules but it looked like a lot of fun... and a lot of energy. No wonder Kevin has such strong arms and shoulders - back and forth, back and forth down the pool with every play it seemed. OSU crushed the other team and we took off. I tried to get some good action photos with our new Nikon... but all I could really see was a lot of splashing and people's heads.

We ended up going over to Loomis and Amy Jo's later in the evening for a party. I was pretty tired and didn't end up drinking very much so I drove us there and home. We didn't stay too long. Just long enough for some beer pong and dancing. Amy Jo had made some great food for the party and there was a keg too.

Mexican Potluck

2011-10-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

Emily and I headed over to Aaron, Rob's and Pauls for a last minute Mexican potluck. I hadn't seen Hartz for a while so it was good to catch up with him and hear about his possible job (he later got it) with a heli skiing company in Salt Lake City. Chris was there as well as Mo's little sister and of course Paul in all of his skeeviness. Craig and a couple other of their friends showed up with dry ice in a bucket that a was shared around the room and the food was delicious despite it being Mexican ;(. It was a good time and it was great to catch up with everyone and meet a few new faces in town as well.

OSU vs. Arizona - No way... we won!

2011-10-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

Emily and I headed over to our first tailgate of the year for the OSU vs Arizona game. Doug was off hunting for the weekend so his tailgate wasn't happening but Tim and Kevin had organized one out the back of Tim's truck. We had a good time at the tailgate and the game which we actually won. The Beavers went way up in the first half and nearly lost it in the 2nd half but managed to hold onto the lead. Tim really enjoyed his new grill that he and Lindsay had just bought.

Collier Cone & Obsidian Trail Loop

2011-10-02T23:32:00.000-07:00

With the weather quickly turning to shit in the Pacific Northwest, Emily and I decided to go for one last hike of the season on Sunday into the Sisters Wilderness via the Obsidian Trail. The initial plan was to do a scramble up Little Brother from our book of Oregon Scrambles but with Chris bringing Kya along and us unable to locate any sort of path up the ridge we had to give up, instead climbing Collier Cone (less than 300 ft shorter than Little Brother anyway) and hiking the Obsidian, PCT, Scott trail loop. The weather held for us for the entire hike in, during our failed exploration of Little Brother and all the way to the top of Collier Cone with it's amazing views of the Collier Glacier on North Sister. After we had snapped some amazing pictures from the top of the cone the clouds rolled in, almost on que, as we made our long descent out of the woods on Scott's Trail in rainy, overcast weather. 16.4 miles, 4,000ft vertical, and nearly 10 hours later we were back to the car just before dark, exhausted but happy about another great climb. Click the link to read more.

Emily and I were both happy after a long, busy work week to sleep in a bit on Saturday before picking up library cards and groceries in the afternoon. Emily was able to pack up her stuff for a business trip on Monday morning as well before we headed over to Blocktoberfest to meet up with some friends. We quickly found that Block15 had greatly increased the prices and that unless we had several hundred dollars to piss away on beer and German food we probably wouldn't have a good time. Thus, we left early around 9pm to head home and chill for the night for an early 5:30am rise on Sunday.

As usual, having planned a Corvallis departure for around 6:15 we didn't actually leave until about 7am. We drove through rain and clouds most of the way as the sun rose and made it to the Obsidian Trailhead at around 8:45am. We gathered up our stuff and were on the trail by around 9am. I had been on the Obsidian Trail 4 years ago with Logan when we climbed North and Middle Sister so I remembered much of the trail as well as the amazing lava flows we passed through. The weather was mostly cloudy on our hike in and the peaks of both North and Middle Sister were just hugged by the clouds. Since I was there last a limited use area had been established which required permits to enter but I figured it was Sunday in the Fall with questionable weather and the Ranger Station wasn't open to obtain a permit anyway so we risked it without one. Thankfully, no one questioned us about having one.

We made amazing time hiking along the well-maintained Obsidian Trail to the junction of the PCT. We were surprised to still see a large assortment of flowers along the trail as well. After crossing one of the large lava flows Chris decided to try on the booties he had got for Kya's paws. Kya was definitely not pleased at first and watching her tentatively walk with the booties on her feet was one of the funniest things Emily and I had seen in a long time! From the PCT junction we headed to the left towards the west ridge of Little Brother like the book of Scrambles told us to but we were unable to find any discernible route to follow up the steep ridge. After crossing several ridges trying to find a way up with my gps and crossing several large fields of boulders and scree in which Chris had to carry Kya we gave up on the idea and made our way back down to the PCT after a quick break for lunch.

We had lost about an hour or so trying to find a path up Little Brother so we decided to just do the loop hike for views with perhaps a run up Collier Cone for a close up view of North Sister. Following the PCT north towards Collier Cone was amazing. The trail was very well maintained as it passed through both lava fields and glacial moraines on the way to Opie Dilldock Pass and Collier Cone. Besides a group of trail runners we saw on the Obsidian Trail and one lone hiker near Collier Cone we were alone in the wilderness it seemed. Near Collier Cone we entered a landscape that looked like something on a distant planet. All around us was fields of volcanic rock and we climbed for quite a while without seeing vegetation as we ascended an old glacially carved out canyon to the base of Collier Cone. Along the way we had unbelievable views north towards Mt. Washington and Three Fingered Jack just below the cloud level and the base of Mt. Jefferson in the distance under the clouds.

As we started our climb up Collier Cone we could see some clouds roll in and it started to sprinkle a little bit. We made great time to the rim of the the Cone and a lookout appropriately named Collier Glacier Lookout where we had a wonderful view up towards Middle Sister and North Sister looming above us to the left. Below the glaciers was a small glacial lake of runoff and silt that looked pretty freakin' cold. Kya was doing a great job over the lava rock in her booties as we snapped a bunch of photos and then continued on the loop around the Cone to it's true summit. On top of the 7,534 foot cone we had enough time to snap photos of each other and take some great video before the clouds quickly moved in. Kya was getting cold and it looked like it was going to pour (which it did) so we quickly made our way back down to the PCT. If we had been just 10 minutes slower making it up Collier Cone we would not have had any views as the clouds had completely engulfed both Sisters and the cone by the time we made it to the bottom.

The trip out was a bit of a trudge (albeit a beautiful one) with off and on showers and many miles back to the car. We had all put on rain gear and the conversation naturally was replaced by an urgency to get out of the woods back to a warm car out of our boots. There was a side trail to 4 in one Cones which we passed by because we would not have had any views anyway. On the way out we passed through several more large lava flows before we entered the woods again. It simply is amazing to see the leading or side edge of a flow that is easily 40-60 feet tall just stop before the edge of the woods. I can't imagine seeing one actually moving down the hillside in real life... the power of it must be incredible. I occasionally would stop for photos so I was behind both Emily and Chris most of the way. Thankfully there was a connection trail near the end which connected Scott's trail back to the Obsidian trail to save us over half a mile of walking back on the road between the two parking lots.

I misjudged the time just slightly and we made it out by 6:45 instead of 6pm like I had hoped for, just before dark thankfully. It is a good thing we didn't climb Little Brother as we would have had to return via the same trail we came in on and if we had climbed it there was no way we would have had the energy to climb Collier Cone too and make it out of the woods. We were all exhausted and glad to get out of our boots and get into a warm car for the ride home. We stopped only once for some drinks to keep me awake for the drive and Kya was passed out cold in the backseat the entire ride. We made it back to Corvallis by 9:30 and were in bed after some quick food by 10:30 so Emily could get some sleep before having to rise at 5:30am again for her flight. It was a great climb and I'm glad that we made it up to the top of a peak as well. I was surprised to find that Collier Cone was just under 300 feet shorter than Little Brother and we had climbed over 4,000 feet of elevation.... and my knee felt great at the end!

Dinner with Friends

2011-09-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight Emily and I had Tim & Lindsay and Kevin & Alexa over for dinner at our place. We all chipped in a bunch of food on the stove and on the grill. It was the first time hanging out with Tim and Lindsay after their wedding so we got to hear all about their honeymoon on the East Coast fishing with Ladd and her family.

Matt & Sarah Visit

2011-09-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

This past week Matt and Sarah came to visit for a long weekend. I hadn't seen him since 2009 when he came out to visit and attempt Mt. Washington with me. This time Sarah had the time off to also come along and see Oregon. They came in on Wednesday night and I reserved a room at the McMenamin's Edgefield to surprise them after the long flight with a relaxing soak in the spa and a few good beers before bed. The following day we got a weird (but huge) breakfast at the Cameo Cafe in Vancouver, WA, then visited the Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mt. St. Helens and hiked Latourel Falls in the Columbia Gorge before returning to Corvallis for some beer variety and Woodstocks Pizza. Friday we hung out downtown, checking out my office and enjoying some Gelato and had a bbq at our place that evening followed by watching the Hangover which neither had seen yet. On Saturday we drove up the coast from Newport after stopping to get some Dungenous Crab for Matt and Sarah to try. We then stopped at Pacific City for dinner and did a short hike around Cape Meares. Getting a hotel room was a disaster as the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn express made us go back and forth 4 times before finally giving us a room. This was at 1am after a couple of relaxing drinks at Kell's Irish Pub in downtown Portland. Matt was either sick or had a reaction to the crab (later found out he was sick). On Sunday morning we woke up early and brought them to the airport where they missed their connection in Texas and had to drive 5 hours to get Sarah to work on time on Monday - Hopefully the fun trip was worth the cold and all the effort of traveling here! Check out the great Pano I got of Mt. St. Helens after the clouds finally lifted from it by clicking the read more link.
Taken from an overlook on the highway to Johnston Ridge Obervatory.

Tim & Lindsay's Wedding

2011-09-18T23:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend Emily and I had a terrific time at Tim & Lindsay's wedding in the Columbia Gorge. The wedding was on Friday afternoon at the private Bridal Veil Park in the Columbia Gorge. Lindsay arrived at the ceremony via a canoe paddled by her father. All of their Oregon friends and a few of their closest friends and family were in attendance from the East Coast. It was a beautiful ceremony with a really great reception and dance party with DJ Grey Matter before returning to the incredible McMenamin's Edgefield for the rest of the weekend to soak in the spa and drink at many of the 12 bars on site. To read more click the link.

Creatively, Tim and Lindsay had decided to have their wedding ceremony on a Friday afternoon. The purpose of this was to provide a weekend escape for them and all their friends to hang out someplace other than Corvallis. Their choice of the historic McMenamin's Edgefield was perfect! All of us left work early on Friday to make it up to McMenamin's. Despite some slow traffic we were all able to make the last bus from the hotel to the ceremony at Bridal Veil Park.

When we first checked into our room I was surprised to find it so roomy and also surprised to find it lacking a tv, microwave.. and bathroom! Apparently the hotel, as is tradition with the McMenamin's sites, had been converted from an old Poor Farm and hospice site to it's current state as literally an adult resort for good beer and relaxation. There were shared bathrooms and showers on each floor and the walls and pipes were covered with paintings of the history of the place. Each room had writing on the walls telling about the various historic residents of the building and rumor is that many of the rooms may be haunted! It didn't take long for the beautiful, unique and historic place to grow on us! Check out the history of the site here.

Bridal Veil Park was beautiful and it was a cool idea to have Lindsay and her bridesmaide (her sister Cynthia) rowed across the small pond to the ceremony. Lindsay's boat made a whole bunch of sharp turns on the way to Tim (later found out it wasn't on purpose), almost running into some cattails on the way. The ceremony which was presided over by Tim's buddy Wes who had gotten his wedding certification online. Except for a little stumble from both on their vows everything went off without a hitch and we all moved to a nice grassy area for drinks and ordeurves.

After the photos Tim and Lindsay showed up to hang out with us for the rest of the night. Standing on the steep grassy hill was the only time I was the same height as my friends and co-workers so I took advantage of that fact in a bunch of photos... :) There were several toasts from Tim's brother and Lindsay's sister for the newly married couple before everyone moved onto the main reception dining and dancing area of the park.

The dinner of pork, various salads and sides was amazing. We all sat together at long picnic tables catching up with some friends like Nick Hatch who had moved back to Alaska and had some amazing bear encounter stories to tell from his field work. After dinner the dance party with the amazing DJ Grey Matter started. As usual, me dancing was not a pretty sight but I felt better about myself when Mischa walked by with a horrified look on his face after being told he was dancing like Elaine from Seinfield...

It had gotten pretty cold out after the sun had set but everyone seemed to be keeping warm by dancing and Tim also had the foresight to bring wood for a big bonfire nearby. Many of Tim & Lindsay's friends had also made skillet cakes for desert which were amazing! Everyone had a great time dancing and I even got a bit more into near the end when I was pretty drunk (thanks to Colin's whiskey and the good beer at the reception). The drunk bus back to McMenamin's with Tim and Lindsay was a fun time with drunk singing and thankfully no one was forgotten!

Back at the hotel we all got changed and headed to the distillery bar to end the night near a bonfire there. Surprisingly everyone seemed to make it out, even the really drunk ones of us. Near 1am or so thankfully someone had the foresight to call it a night and a bunch of us turned in. Later the next day I heard that the after party turned into an after-after party back at Wes' room....

On Saturday we woke up to cloudy, drizzly weather but that didn't stop us from enjoying the soaking pool for several hours over drinks after a huge (but slow) breakfast in the main dining hall. We asked the front desk about playing 9 hole golf for the afternoon but they said it was full. Thankfully, we risked the chance and walked over to find that we easily got on the course as it had started to rain. It took some convincing for Danielle but she also joined Mischa, Scott, Colin, Erin, Emily and I for a round of 9 holes. I had the camera for photos so didn't play, instead carrying Danielle's purse and long sleeve shirt for the whole time. Danielle had the funniest golf swing I have ever seen and Mischa had the worst put I had ever seen. I have no idea who ended up winning but at least the weather cleared up a bit and we all had a great time (minus Colin spilling a full $7.50 22oz bottle he had just bought).

After golf Emily and I grabbed some cash from friends and headed to the liquor store in town to save us some cash from the pricey beer at the "adult retreat". We came back with vodka, Corner Creek and a bottle of Sweet Tea Vodka (I drank the whole 5th!). When we got back we mixed up a few drinks and hung out with Kev, Lex and the newlyweds before meeting up with the others at the Little Red Shed. It was a very cool small little bar in a wooded area with a fire place and a few tables. We then went to the Black Rabbit House (where they used to keep the bodies when it was an infirmary), by Jerry's Bar, the Power Station Pub, the Loading Dock, the winery, and finally to Lucky Staehley's Pool hall where Emily and I challenged each other to several games of darts while others played pool. Kev and Lex showed up briefly but she had left her ID at home so was eventually asked to leave.

We had put in reservations at the Black Rabbit Restaurant and it took us nearly 3 hours before we were seated. Dinner was pretty good but I ordered the Cioppino specifically for the Dungenous Crab legs and it came with skinny little snow crab legs with barely any meat. Our waitress didn't really seem like she knew what she was doing and obviously forgot to mention that... oh well. We finished the evening watching Wes and Tim's other East Coast friends playing charades at Jerry's Ice House.

We had hit many of the 12 bars on the site before day's end and after killing the bottle of Sweat Tea Vodka I was pretty lit and don't really remember making it to bed. Amazingly I had enough thought to drink several pints of water before bed so I felt pretty good Sunday morning. We walked downstairs to say goodbye to everyone before leaving as they were eating breakfast. Em and I had bought some food at Safeway on Saturday to avoid another expensive breakfast. It was a rainy drive home and we spent the rest of the day on Sunday relaxing and watching movies away from the bad weather. It had been a fantastic weekend and with Matt and Sarah arriving for a visit on Wednesday night I had booked us a room to surprise them with a spa soak after their long flight so I was excited to go back to Edgefield so soon! Congratulations Tim and Lindsay!

Thievery Corporation - Best Concert Ever!

2011-09-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

Emily and I joined both Colin and Doug for a trip to Portland to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. We got to Portland a bit early so we headed to Escape from NY Pizza for some really good thin crust NY-style pizza (rare in Oregon). We also picked up some beers at a local convenience store. We stopped at a park and ate and drank for a bit before heading over to the concert.

I have to say that Thievery Corporation is now the best concert I have ever gone to! There had to be 20+ musicians on stage throughout the show. Thievery Corporation is only two DJ's themselves but when they pool together all their musician friends into a concert like we saw it was truly amazing. We had the greatest seats in the 2nd row in front of the stage too! Honestly, best concert ever!

Bachelor Party Fishing Trip Weekend

2011-09-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

This weekend was our buddy Tim's Bachelor Party at a house in Newport, OR. His friend Wes from the East Coast, Jason Abbott from Portland and all of his Corvallis buddies (Mischa, Scott, Kev, Colin, and I) joined him at the coast for a weekend of drinking, fishing, washers, spirit quests through the woods, drinking, crabbing and drinking to celebrate his last weekend as an unmarried (read:free) man. We gorged ourselves on crab, rockfish, steak, chicken, sausages, etc and relaxed in a hot tub for two glorious days. Click the link to read more.

Scott, Mischa and I rode in Colin's van down to the coast, skipping out of work a little early on Friday so we could get to the house and relax for a bit. Kevin drove separately and after two weeks of his written pHD exams and a conference in Seattle without much sleep he was pretty damn sick. Tim and Wes spent the afternoon crabbing in the Alsea River mouth but only caught one crab which we all insisted Wes eat as a native east coaster. They didn't show up until about 7pm with Abbott showing up around 8pm. Because we were counting on crab for dinner we asked Tim and Wes to stop and pick up some sausages for everyone. We definitely ended up with plenty of food with my chicken, sausages and a giant london broil. The rest of the night was spent playing washers, drinking, hot tubbing it and more drinking.

It was extremely rough to get up at 5:15am on Saturday for the rock fishing trip out of Newport. Tim of course was one of the first up cooking eggs and bacon, excited about the trip. I slowly rose off the floor while everyone else gratefully took a cup of coffee from Mischa's french press. Somehow, Kevin had scored the giant master bedroom by himself while others packed into the smaller bedroom on the floor and in the bed.. not sure how that happened but after one night it was definitely quarantined for the rest of the trip with Kevin in it. We packed up the coolers with beer and headed to Newport where we had to purchase our tickets for the 5 hour trip along with crab pots for the few of us that wanted to throw them.

The fishing trip was a lot of fun. I actually caught the first rockfish and it was a big one. I then caught a lingcod and another rockfish but both were too small to keep. I felt like a master fisherman and even Tim told me later he was watching my technique... Well, as usual, my technique failed the rest of the day and I didn't catch another thing! We had a really nice deck hand that ran around chatting with us and scooping up our fish. There were two other older men on the boat with us that didn't catch much so the mate gave them a couple he caught. Wes definitely took the prize of the day but somehow managing to bring up two big rockfish on each hook of his line within about 3 minutes of dropping it. Everyone managed to catch at least one or two fish on the boat except for Mischa, thereby proving that he may actually be bad at a sport finally! (it actually just seemed like a lot of luck to me).

After fishing for hours without much luck (thankfully the sun came out and warmed us up a bit - It was 95 in Corvallis and 55 on the coast btw) we headed back to shore to check the crab pots. We had thrown 4 pots and Colin, Scott, Tim and Mischa each pulled them up. Thankfully, they were full of crab which offset the $75 single fish I had caught. We ended up with 20 big crab and around 10-12 fish I think which were fille't for us on the dock when we got back in. We arrived at the dock to see a fish and wildlife worker scanning our rockfish for tags but finding none. We were also welcomed by the hord of barking seals which had apparently been sleeping when we left but were now arguing with each other on the docks to the delight of the tourists above.

When we got back to the house we spent the first part of the afternoon taking showers and many of us napping (except Tim and I who continued to drink straight through from the morning). We cooked up some smaller afternoon crab for a snack before our feast later in the evening and Scott and Kev came back from the store with some truly awful smut for Tim (seriously nasty). Around sunset Mischa, Wes, Tim, Abbott, and I went on a spirit quest through the woods to Beverly Beach across 101 and down a crazy steep cliff to watch the sun set over the Pacific. I wore my new Vibram Five Fingers and they worked great although I had to leave my mixed drink at the top so I wouldn't spill them watching my footing on the way down. Thankfully, Wes being the animal that he is, ran all the way back up the cliff to retrieve my drink and bring it back for me. After some frisbee toss on the beach we ventured back up to the house to start cooking our feast. Both Tim and Wes unbelievably climbed BACK UP the crazy mess of vines and bushes that we had fallen down from to get to the beach - much to the amusement of Mischa!

Saturday night we cooked up the rest of the crab, steaks, marinated chicken, Colin's french fries and fried fish and Kevin's bbq'd rockfish. I actually don't believe we had any vegetables at all! I ended up pounding down 3 full crab (4+ if you count the snack ones) and I started to get yelled at by Kevin! I had no idea that he had just decided to split up all the crab that 4 of us had paid for between everyone... I was fine with it of course but I probably would have thrown another pot or two if I had known that was the plan because I was still expecting to bring back 2-3 crabs left over from my pot but instead just had one left for Emily. Oh well, I guess in the end it cost me less money which is good! Kevin pretty much spent the weekend playing dad and worrying about the house being on his credit card, although he did rally pretty hard on Saturday night for being as sick as he was. We had a great time the rest of the evening chillin' in the hot tub, playing washers and near the end lighting up an awesome fire below the back porch with a view of the ocean and stars. Tim definitely bailed first as he was pretty tore-up and I followed about an hour later passing out on the couch despite a bunch of people still being loud and playing the game "Sorry" around me. They tried to mess with me a couple times but I felt it and put a stop to it.

On Sunday morning to my surprise Colin and Scott rallied up early so they could get home in time to watch the start of the NFL season. After packing everything up and eating some leftovers in the morning we made it back to Corvallis by 10am to the surprise of our ladies (Em was still in bed). It was then that I started to fine small torn up scraps of porn in almost everything I had... my bag, my hat, my wallet, my clothes.. on and on... I'm not sure what happened after I fell asleep but Scott must have taken his time depositing all of them around everyone's stuff! It was a great weekend and I'm sure that Tim had really great time! Thanks to Kevin for organizing the whole shindig and working up a really killer spreadsheet while there... hehe.

Boulder Creek Lakes - Trinity Alps Weekend

2011-09-05T23:08:00.000-07:00

Because the next two weekends are going to be a bachelorparty and then a wedding, both with plenty of partying and drinking, Emily andI decided to use the long Labor Day weekend to get out of town and into theoutdoors. Because we had 3 full days wedecided to go a little further and venture into the Trinity Alps Wilderness of Northern California, a 7 hour drive away. Neither of us had been there and weren’t really sure what toexpect. I had chosen a side trail off the most popular Cascade Canyon Trail which would take us to a couple alpinelakes in the Boulder Creek Basin area. The trip turned out to be one of my favorite overnight backpacking trips, even better than our beloved Goat Rocks trip we did the last two years. Click the link to read more about our amazing weekend.

We were able to leave town on Friday at around 6pm, stopping at Quizno’s for some grub on the way. Itwas an easy drive down I-5 until we turned onto Route 3 just over the boarder which turned out to be a crazy twisty road through the mountains. We were listening to Dan Brown’s newest book “TheLost Symbol” the entire way but by the time we got close to Junction City and the trailhead road Emily was feeling a bit nauseous from all the twisty turns and the nearly 20 deer we had to occasionally swerve around. When we began driving up the road we saw a big sign that said wilderness permits were required so instead of driving all the way to the trailhead we pulled off into a gravel area next to the road nearthe Cascade Canyon River for the night. It was just past 12:30am so we quickly arranged our gear and laid out our Big Agnes bags and pads in the back of the Prius. Unfortunately, we found that our pads can’t hold air anymore and by the morning were completely deflated!

On Saturday morning we were up and out to the Park Service/Ranger/Fire Headquarters in Junction City to pick up our wilderness permits. Apparently they were self-issue and we could have done this at the trailhead as well. But, we were able to get a permit to have a stove in the wilderness as they had just instituted a no fire ban on the whole region due to the hot temps and extremely dry conditions. This didn’t take long and it possibly could save us a pricey fine if we didn’t have one. We even got to see some cute tree frogs huddled in the permit box from the night.

After a quick 20 minute drive and getting our gear ready we were able to leave the trailhead by 10:45am. Just out of the parking lot we met a park service girl working at a table with a bunch of maps and info on the area for the multitude ofbackpackers who were also starting down the trail. She asked where we were headed and when Isaid “Boulder Creek Lakes” her face lit up and said that was an awesome idea asthere would be less people and the lakes would be good to swim in. In my head I questioned how an alpine lake at 6,000ft would be pleasant to swim in and continued on down the trail. The trail started off pretty gradual which was good for my knee with my heavy pack on. Unfortunately, there were just enough mosquitoes still to warrant using some bug spray. They weren’t too bad and as we gained elevation along the 3,000ft/9mi ascent they became less bothersome. Soon the trail started switch-backing up the Canyon walls and we quickly came to Lower Canyon Creek Falls which had a beautiful and deep pool of water just below it. We climbed down the hill with the camera and tripod for some photos and after staring at the enticing water in the hot afternoon I decided I needed to take a dip. I jumped in several times and even attempted to swim through the crashing water of the falls. It was super refreshing and great to get out of my boots for a little while and give my knee a rest.

From Lower Canyon Creek Falls the trail flattened out a bit and became more overgrown with dense vegetation through the Canyon Creek Meadows area where we saw a lot of backpackers setting up their campsites in the multitude of great spots along the river. Just past the meadows we climbed up past Upper Canyon Creek Falls and crossed over the river (it was easy with the low water this time of year) just above the falls to get onto the Boulder Creek Canyon herdpath/use trail. We stopped for a while here to eat some lunch and run out on the massive slabs of granite for a better view above Upper Falls down the Canyon, up to Sawtooth Peak above us and toward our destination in the Boulder Creek Lakes Basin. The trail was much less maintained/used than themore popular Canyon Creek trail and it took us a while to struggle through the overgrowth and up the switchbacks. Mylegs were completely exhausted and wobbly at this point but when a couple passed us with some great beta on where to camp and told us we would be the only ones up there I found some renewed energy and made it up to the top with Emily. We were told to follow the Cairns around the left side of the main lake which saved us some trail time making itto camp. The temperatures had soared tothe 80’s in the afternoon so when we made it to camp by 5pm I was sweaty and ready for a swim no matter what the lake temperature was. After dropping our packs in what turned outto be the best spot on the whole lake I was pleasantly surprised at how warmthe lake was when I plunged into it to cool off. There was even long granite slab that ran into the lake which provided a platform for us to walk out into the lakeon.

For nearly two full hours we were the only ones in the entire Boulder Creek Lakes Basin. We setup our tent to establish that we had that particular spot and then laid out on the rocks and occasionally took dips in the crystal clear lake. The sun set over the ridge at around 6pm dropping the air temperature a bit so we decided to cook our dinner of penne pasta, sauce and shredded parm which was delicious. As we were eating dinner we saw a couple more small groups of people climb up to the lake and set up sites on the opposite side. It was nice being alone up therein our skivvies but we kind of expected we would eventually see others. Emily and I then spent the night with hot chocolate laying under the stars and listening to the Dan Brown Audiobook frommy iPhone. We were greeted several times by deer walking extremely close to us past our tent site to the edge of thelake. They didn’t seem to be phased bythe audiobook, our voices, or our headlamps on them and it was apparent that wewere blocking their normal path to the water. After Emily fell asleep and returned to the tent I spent another couple hours watching the sky get even darker and practicing some star photography with different settings on our DSLR. Eventually, just after midnight I was overcome with exhaustion from thelong hike in and climbed into the tent myself.

We had a wonderful, very relaxing day on Sunday chillin’ outat the lake. I had actually packed in myday camelback expecting to go on a 7-8 mile hike up the Cascade Canyon to someother lakes but I decided it would be best for my knee to just relax for a day before the pounding it would take on the way out with a heavy backpack onMonday. We debated hiking up a mile or so to another Lake called Forbidden Lake but decided instead to just relax at camp. We spent much of the day just lounging on the rocks and reading books, Emily for her book club and a photography book for me. When it got hot we would jump in the water for a swim or simply sit, half submerged on the granite slab just underneath the surface with book in hand. It looked like we were sitting on the waterfrom a distance.

In the middle of the lake was what looked like a rock with grass on it so I swam out to it. It turned out to be a large tree that was half sunk. When I stood on it the massive log would sink and then spring back to the surface when I stepped offmaking it a very entertaining underwater spring board for backflipping off ofwhen it rose to the surface. I alsospent some time floating on my Big Agnes Pad, but since it leaked I couldn’t stay out long without slowly sinking! Wedid take a walk around the lake in the early afternoon to check out some rock jumping areas and to venture to the massive 200’ foot cliffs at the edge of the glacial cirque for some unbelievable views of Sawtooth Peak across Cascade Canyon which we had hiked up.

Throughout the afternoon a few more younger groups of campers came up to the area and established spots along our side of the lake but we remained with the best spot for sure. For dinner we cooked up some easy Mountain House meals and I struggled with my SteriPen to purify some drinking water for the hike out. We repeated the evening before under the stars on our mattresses listening to the audiobook and once again I practiced some night photography, getting the hang of it a bit more this night. Instead of a doe like the night before we were visited by a large buck which I ventured a little too near as it put itshead down and pawed the ground a little bit before I wisely backed off. The shots I got over Sawtooth Peak and Mt.Hilton of the Milky Way really turned out great.

On Monday we took our time getting up and leaving the campsite. We had stuffed ourselves with most of the food and packed a little less water in our camelbaks for the descent to save weight. After are freshing last swim in the lake with some biodegradable soap to rinse out someof our hair grease we left camp around 10am. On the way out we stopped at the bottom of Upper Falls for some photos as well as Lower Falls so I could dip my shirt in to stay cool. We only stopped a couple times to give myknee a rest and I popped a packet of Gu down to keep my energy up. We were out of the woods by just after 2:30pmin the afternoon and honestly, besides the rocky and steep descent from BoulderCreeks Lake the descent wasn’t that bad for me.

Instead of taking the winding Rte. 3 back we drove 299through Whiskeytown back to Redding and I-5. It turned out to be pretty twisty too but not as bad as Rte. 3. It took us about 7 hours to get home and wejust about finished the Dan Brown book on the way. We had missed the first Beaver Game (a crazy disappointing loss to a crappy team we haven’t lost to in nearly 15 years) as well as the Squirrels camp out and BBQ but we were super stoked that we had chosen to go camping instead as it turned out to be one of our favorite experiences in the Northwest. We had managed to find one of the few lakes in the area that didn’t directly have snowfields draining into it making it a bit warmer than the others and we had perfect weather and clear skies. Can’t wait to go back to the Trinity Alps to check out another area!