lake weekend

After a weekend during which my diet consisted entirely of fried or deep fried meat, fried or deep fried non-meat products, coffee, beer and a high fructose corn syrup containing pop I most definitely needed a recovery afternoon. Since arriving home three hours ago, I have drunk about a gallon of water, heated up some veggies, went for a short run and ate a salad. I almost feel human again.

My grandparents have a cabin on a lake up in Washington. Since my mom was a little kid, it's been the site of numerous family reunions, swim fests and 4th of July parties. Some of them have had upwards of 100 people attend, with a core group of us staying the night, cramming our sleeping bags next to one another's on the basement floor and taking up all the couch and tent space available. One year there was even a live band! These days things are more mellow. The adults go to bed at ten, leaving us cousins to drink beer around the fire for a few more hours.

This weekend, Memorial Day, was really laid back, due to the continued atrocious weather. Above all, this family is known for cooking and bringing massive amounts of food. If it's hot out, we all get a little swimming or water-skiing in (not me for the latter), but since it was cold and rainy, we just ate. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious and I enjoyed catching up with everyone and seeing the little kids, but since I've been more careful about eating only real foods recently, this change of diet and lack of exercise was pretty killer.

Seeing my grandpa carry around his oxygen tank and hearing my uncle talk about having to starve himself into order to make the weight limit for a horse-riding trip he'd planned with his kids made me realize that I need to work on staying healthy, because my genes aren't going to do it for me. I'm better off that most in that side of the family, but in all honesty, I could be in better shape.

Hiking

A few weeks back we got a spring teaser. The sun was out, and though it was a bit cool, it lured many of us to buy sunscreen and light beer that goes well with lime, put away our long pajamas and flannel sheets in exchange for lighter linen and shorts. I may as well have washed the car for all the jinxing I put into it. But in any case, my friend and I managed to get in a few Friday hikes and I did some on my own on the weekends. Occasionally, I remembered to bring my camera.

This set is from the Columbia Gorge. The Columbia river flows from Washington south and then west all the way out to the ocean. A good part of the river, including this section, forms the border between Oregon and Washington. A freeway on the Oregon side parallels it for quite a ways and it's one of my favorite routes in the country as the further east you travel, the more dry and deserty the conditions become. You can fall asleep surrounded by fir trees and waterfalls coming off of moss covered cliffs and wake up surrounded by bald, brown hills. I used to imagine that the desert hills looked like someone had taken a giant erasure and took off all the trees and green bumps.


Rest break a little ways off the trail, looking west. It was quite the hike up to this point, so we took a breather and some photos.



Did I mention it's a big river? You can see a very tiny speed boat in this picture as well as a buoy. I was also impressed with the color of the water that day.



Typical Forest Service signage and map markings caused us to end up on a different trail than we had intended. While the road noise was a little annoying, the views were pretty good from this spot. This shot is facing east and little north. That parking lot way down on the right? That's where I parked.



Same shot as above, zoomed out. The climb was hell, thank you.






The next few came from a couple different trips to a park along the Willamette River. While the Columbia flows west through the north portion of Portland, the Willamette (rhymes with "dammit") flows north right through the middle of Portland and then intersects with the Columbia. The park is in the southern suburbs where the hoity toity have their waterfront mansions and docks. It's usually full of fishermen, but for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would eat something out of a river full of toxic heavy metals that are there due to our years of heavy industry. Maybe it's catch and release.


It was a wet winter. It just seems so typically Oregon that there would be a dead tree over the path that has ferns growing on it.



White legs need some sun.



I was trying to photo an elusive bird here. It's in the picture, but you'll never find it, because it looks just like a rock. In the background you can see some fishing boats and some of those mansions I referred to.



Here's a blurry close up of that rock-like bird.

Rainbows!

It's been this kind of day. I lucked out while working out earlier as it was pouring while I stretched and lifted weights, but by the time I'd driven over to the school with the running path, the sun was out and massive amounts of steam rose from the trail. Birds were singing, the power lines were making scary crackling sounds and a whole fleet of - I mean, at least thirty - ground squirrels had to make a mad dash for cover when I so rudely ran through their sunbathing strip.

This shot was from just a few minutes ago when there were sheets of rain falling and yet the sun was brightly shining through. The site more than made up for having to tolerate the trashy neighbors' domestic fight in the parking lot that happened about an hour earlier. These two incidents put together perfectly illustrate the benefits and downsides to living on the suburban edge of rural: your neighbors may be alcohol/meth-dependent domestic abusers with a penchant for really loud, shitty music, but hey - the views are great!

The Sun! It's Out!

I can't tell you how happy I am that the sun is shining every now and again these days. School is absolute shit and I wish they'd just give me my degree already instead of tricking me with the fine print. I've been working on these same three credits for over a year now without success. That's not great for one's self esteem, you know.

Anyway, it's been sunny here and there and I've gotten out to run, hike, and hopefully this week, bike. The trees have leaves on them, finally, and I actually had to open the windows when I came home from the soccer game last night, as it was actually hot and stuffy in the apartment.

I'm waiting for a particular job to open up in the Portland area and while I know they're not going to update their job advertisements on the weekend, I can't help but check the listings every few hours. It's a compulsion at this point. I'd just really, really like to remain in the Portland area. While I love lots of other areas of the country and know that I *could* live in those places, that doesn't mean I necessarily *want* to. In the meantime, I'm living off of credit and trying to distract myself from my financial, job and school woes by working out, going to soccer games and catching up on various TV series that I've missed through the years.

Perhaps in a bit I'll post some photos from the last few weeks.