Sunday, January 17, 2010

A Great Loss

Well, Blogger ate my last reallllly long post, and I haven't posted since and am thus wayyy behind in recording my summer seeing how it's uh, January!!!

And unfortunately, I was spurred to return to my memories by the following e-mail regarding sweet, sweet Toby:

A very sad day here at ALDF.

TOBY
3/1/98-1/15/10

One of the best co-worker's a girl could ever have. We'll miss you, Tobe-ster.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

On the Way to Mt. Hood

We left the Gorge, and headed towards my beloved Mt. Hood (the mountain that basically watches over Portland).

Loved this bus

More awesome ancient guardrails

And more

Had to go through some tunnels

You can make out Mt. Hood in the background (in your face, RightHand!)

Crossing the bridge to Hood River

Gettin' closer! And gettin' stuck behind slow trucks.

We turned a corner and there it was!!

A look down the mountain

And a look up the mountain!

And sans us. A very lunar landscape!

Crown Point

Next adventure stop: Vista House on Crown Point:


Walking toward it

Beautiful architecture, I think

UPS really does deliver everywhere!!

Close-up

Leaning and enjoying my nonfat chai latte :)

Looking squat, but still enjoying my latte ;)

The view

So happy together :)

Love this pic, too

RightHand was pretty floored that there was a guy in an Earnhardt jersey there

The ceiling inside

We climbed to the roof and enjoyed the views

Enjoying myself

Looking the other direction

And another half turn

Even the bathrooms were quite nice/marble

And onto more adventures!

The Hike

I'm not even kidding, they should have a doctor at the beginning of the hike to the top of Multnomah Falls, checking to make sure people won't DIE on the way up. Or, you know what, that's actually a waste of time, seeing as how I am 24, exercise pretty regularly, and am basically healthy, and I almost died. Let's relive this wonderful experienc, shall we?

Oh, great. They are going to count every. single. switchback. And by the way, I swear that the definition of a switchback to the park people is "left, right, zig, zag, 20 miles, annnnnd....done."

RightHand was movin' on out. And I can't tell if that is a little kid running down the path or that damned marathoner we passed, but either way, I wanted to trip every show-off.

Well, I guess I was too busy whinig; I thought I had more pictures of the hike. But anyway, here's the top. The extremely non-worth going up to top. Trust me.

There's Ol' RightHand, standing right over where the water careens over the edge.

Closer

And here's the pic of me he took from that spot where he's standing. Aren't we so clever?? ;)

The exact edge of the top of the falls. And that's ALL you can so. Nothing of the real waterfall-y part!

It's definitely beautiful, but not worth the insane hike!

A little perspective: water + parking lot.

The edge- pretty

A little scary though. You are right there.


This time, I captured the fun for you!

A gorgeous view of the world down below

Proof that I made it/looking up river

At the top together. RightHand is quite good and taking couple self-portraits!

A glimpse on the way down

Dramatically trying to breathe at the end of the hike :)

One last look

Loved this sticker on a trash can. I'm really developing a thing for Smokey the Bear!

Another sticker I really liked. Probably a band name, dontcha think?

Everything was made better by the AWESOME snack we had afterword. That was my best-smoothie-of-my-life peach smoothie with my poppyseed muffin and RightHand's chocolate muffin. Yummmmm, the memories!


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Multnomah Falls

Then we headed to the Big Kahuna: Multnomah Falls!

A neat rock and tunnel on the way there

The road was lined with beautiful stone guardrails

The railroad bridge across the street

On the bridge: Distances to nearby cities

Pretty native flowers

We have arrived!

The Falls!


Once again, RightHand captured the view for everyone at home ;)

The moss on that rock was nearly neon in person

Walking toward it

Apparently I got way ahead of RightHand

Handsome man! :)

Somewhat decent woman ;)

Cutest couple ever, right? RIGHT???

Cool trees on the way to the famous bridge

Information: More danger

A closer look

A picture of all the picture-takers

The bottom of the falls

Loved it!

And then, we VERY stupidly decided to hike to the freakin' top of the waterfall...

To Be Continued!