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Class V without the raft

This was my first time being a best man, and I think I might have gone a little overboard on the bachelor party – I almost lost the groom. I’m reminded of camping trips we used to take in college with Thien-An where he would always say that he only had to bring 80% of the participants back. In this case it was a rafting trip, and I managed to bring everyone back, but there were a few moments where I think that was in doubt in a lot of the participants minds, myself included. Rather than the usual bachelor party shenanigans, I thought I’d treat Jacob to some rafting and a class V rapid. I didn’t expect that we’d do the class V rapid outside of the raft.

The trip started out as usual, with Jacob showing up late, yes, even for his own bachelor party. Once we rounded Jacob up we headed out for the rafting trip. We first found a pretty sweet, isolated campsite next to the river a couple miles from the Skykomish ranger station. Once camp was setup we went back to Gold Bar to Alpine Adventures to begin the rafting trip. After suiting up in wetsuits (the water was around 42 degrees), jackets, helmets, etc we all got on a bus to go to the rafts. We ended up with a guide named Rena who hadn’t had a lot of experience guiding rafts on the Skykomish. This proved to make the rest of the trip fairly interesting, as we’d go through the rapids in what seemed a most unconventional manner compared to the rest of the rafts.

Helmet popped off… That’s not good

This became a really big deal once we got to the most interesting part of the trip: the class V, boulder drop rapid. They had everyone get out, walk down the river, and look at the rapid to make sure they were willing to give it a try. The guides gave a talk and pointed out lots of really big rocks that they had funny names for and said where the rafts would go while we nodded like we had a clue what they talked about. Since our guide hadn’t had a lot of experience we stayed at the observation point to watch most of the other groups go through. It definitely looked exciting, but nobody made it look terribly difficult. One group even bounced off the gigantic rock with the raft, and kept going like it was all part of the plan. Things didn’t go according to plan once we tried to take the rapid.

Immediately, without even any excitement to preceed, the raft flipped in the very first drop of the rapid. I was on the left front corner of the raft, which was what went under first. Somehow our guide was flung out of the raft ahead of everyone else. Once I came up for air I saw her fairly easily since she was wearing yellow, and tried to follow her through the rest of the rapid.

The raft is there, it’s just in a big hole

Adrenaline and tunnel vision definitely took over, and it was hours of time spent corroborating stories with everyone before we really had any kind of picture of what had happened, even to ourselves. One especially strong memory for me was going over a large drop and realizing that my helmet had popped off. Turned out the buckle was defective. Other memories include finding out the wrong way when you’re supposed to breath (at the troughs of the waves, not the crest as would seem intuitive), realizing that I might as well just hold my breath for a while because the current had decided that I wasn’t coming to the surface for a bit, turning around to see a raft falling on top of me and pushing me under water (I thought it was someone else’s raft at the time and just thought they were assholes for not waiting until we were through), and FINALLY seeing other rafts with people who would get us out of the water.

Oh sweet, sweet air

I’m sure everyone involved has some pretty strong memories. Fortunately there were a lot of photos for us to view once we got back. Some of us spent more time in or near the raft than others, some more time under water. Jacob and his cousin Steve suffered exhaustion and minor shock after the event, and it was decided by anyone with any medical knowledge that they were done for the day. So they went back to headquarters and sat in the hot tub while the rest of us finished up in the rafts. The adrenaline wore off and we all realized that we were a tad hungry and that the water was cold.

Thankfully, Steve and Jacob were much better off when we met them back at headquarters. We looked at the photos, which they gave us for free in light of all the trouble we went through, ate dinner and swapped stories. Luckily Steve and Jacob were recovered enough that we decided no hospital visit was in order, and we all even felt good enough to go back to the campsite and spend the night outside. We built a fire and spent most of the rest of the night swapping stories about the rapid. I think in hindsight we’re all pretty psyched having done the rapid, but I don’t think anyone has any desire to repeat the experience.

We’ve been kept busy the last week by visiting family – Kim’s parents. It’s been a fairly mellow visit. For the most part we haven’t changed our schedules too much. Kim is working her normal schedule and I took one day off so that we could go to visit the coast. We’ve done a few of the touristy things such as the Saturday market and visiting Multnomah Falls, but generally we’ve made dinners at home or gone out to eat at some of our favorite places like Hopworks and Nicolas. Kim and I have really enjoyed showing off our new city of Portland this past year while getting to know it ourselves. That’s right, it’s been a year that we’ve been here now. I feel like it must be time to start planning the next trip somewhere…

The last 3 weekends have been jam packed with activity. This has mostly been to do with Travis and Lucy’s wedding. Two weeks ago Jacob and Jesse came down from Seattle for Travis’ bachelor party. We took some guns and went out to the woods to shoot at toys we bought at the dollar store. The weekend of the wedding Jacob and Jesse were back with their better halves, and Jake even flew in from Italy and stayed with us for the weekend. We all helped setup for the wedding the night before, which was a good thing for Travis and Lucy cause there was a LOT to do.

The wedding was a blast. It was one of the most unique weddings I’ve seen too, with a bit of comedy built into the ceremony, donuts instead of cake and trivia in a basement. The other guests weren’t much for dancing or drinking, so we tried our darndest to make up for both. Alas, at the end of the night the keg was barely half empty, so we had to take it home and spend the next few days trying to kill it. Thankfully, Laura moved into our house that weekend, so she and her boyfriend Eric were able to help with that task. On top of all these happenings, it was Kim’s birthday, and I made her a special present this year involving memories. If you contributed you know what I mean. If not, ask me because I may have forgotten to include you in the gift and that was totally unintentional…

This last weekend Brendan come up from Sacramento for a visit. Unfortunately, Kim’s grandma passed away in the middle of the week and she flew back east, so wasn’t able to hang out. Fortunately, we had fun seeing the sites of Portland anyway. We spent quite a bit of time talking and I learned about some cool new stuff like ted.com where they give fascinating talks on a variety of subjects. We tried to see the free Battlestar Galactica showing at the Bagdad theater, but there was a line around the block over an hour before the show, so we didn’t get in. The next day we tried to go to the OMSI (science museum), but the parking lot was full and everything was ridiculously crowded. I guess we just kept picking overly popular activities. We did end up going to the Saturday market, watching the Urban Iditarod’s crazy costumed participants run around, touring the Portland Art Musem, taking Ubuntu to the dog park, visiting some other friend of Brendan’s, and eating a lot of good food.

Phew. Thank goodness it’s the work week and I can slow down again :-)

Big group. Don’t lose your exit buddy. Whoever that is…

I went with Danny and a dozen or so of his friends to hike through Ape Caves near Mount St Helens. This was the second time I had been, although this time there was practically nobody else there besides our group since there was so much snow on the ground. The signs on the way up to the caves all say that they’re closed, but that just seems to mean there’s no tours. We had to walk a little farther than normal to the entrance since they don’t plow the roads as far, but once you’re in the caves snow isn’t really a concern since they’re a constant temperature. I think that’s the largest group I’ve ever been hiking with and was somewhat impressed that we didn’t simply lose someone. We did both the lower and upper parts of the cave fairly quickly. Most of the group headed back to Seattle after we all had Thai food together. I woke up the next day feeling incredibly sore, but it appears that’s due to a nasty cold Kim has managed to give me, and not the 3-4 miles of hiking.

Ubuntu the Dog

Kim and I were so busy this fall with house hunting that we didn’t make time for our semi-annual fast, so we decided to do one this weekend. However, we didn’t last very long. Not because of will power mind you. No, it was because we got a dog! That’s just too much excitement to try to not eat for 2-3 days.

We had already juiced two of our “meals” for the day and decided to try to take a bike ride on the Springwater Corridor trail, but we only went about a mile because the wind was ferocious! I don’t think the wind we’re having now is normal for Portland. I can’t imagine being in a hurricane. Anyway, it took about 15 minutes to go a mile pedaling into the wind and about 2 seconds to pedal back. On the way back we saw a dog shelter and stopped in. They had a 1.5 year old ridgeback mix named Sally. At least we think it’s a ridgeback mix. There’s no ridge, but she has most of the other characteristics. We almost decided to take her immediately since everyone who came in the doors also wanted to see her. I think she was shown to 6 other people that day. We decided to go back home and warm up and rest a little since being cold, tired and hungry make it really hard to make a decision. Once we had a chance to think it over though we knew we wanted her. Fortunately nobody else took her while we were making our decision.

It took about 20 minutes to sign all the paperwork and ask all the questions we needed. The adoption fee was $200 at Family Dogs New Life, but it included getting her spayed, shots, a leash and collar, some dog food, toys, a month of pet insurance, one free vet visit, a six week training class and a ton of great information in both printouts and a DVD. I was really impressed with all the things they included to make getting a dog easier, and the shelter is a no kill shelter. Seems like a great organization.

Not much was known about our new dog since she came from a shelter in Yakima and was only at Family Dogs for a couple days before we took her home. She had been called Sally and Skinny Minnie since you can see her ribs so well. She didn’t really seem to be attached to the name Sally, so we decided to call her Ubuntu since it’s a Zulu word (Rhodesian Ridgebacks were bred to be hunting dogs in Africa) that describes a nice concept which is loosely means “humanity to others”. It’s also a Linux distribution that I use both at home and at work instead of Windows. Ubuntu (we also like to shorten it to just two sillables “oo-boo”) has been at home for one day now and is doing really well. She’s extremely eager to please and already seems to have learned the sit command pretty well. She weighs 42 pounds, but is a tad underweight right now, and we’re not sure if she’ll keep growing since we don’t know her exact age. We got her a crate which is something pretty weird to me as I’ve never done that, but everyone recommends it, and it does make sure that she doesn’t get into any trouble while we’re asleep. She follows us everywhere in the house, but isn’t needy since if we stop moving, she just lays down and chills out nearby. She was just spayed a couple days ago, so we’ll have to remove the stitches in a week or so. We didn’t know if she was housebroken, and she had one accident in the living room right after she got home, but since has been very good about going outside. She seems to make a weird bark/cough sound to let us know she needs to go out, so we weren’t sure if she could bark, but we heard her bark once today at something out the window.

I’m sure that’s plenty of info about our awesome new dog. I hope you all get a chance to meet her soon.

Rockin’ in the New Year

I kinda disappeared from my blog recently. I think after all the blogging in South America, and all the newness of moving to a new city and buying a house, I was just a little overwhelmed. I’m finally beginning to feel settled again. I can tell because I’ve started wondering what the next big traveling adventure might be, although I know it’s probably a year or more off.

Until then we’ll find plenty to keep us busy this new year. There’s always house projects. I’m going to be starting a dodgeball league this month. We’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of local hikes. Kim will probably be doing some more aerial classes soon, once she manages to pry time away from cooking a bazillion new recipes in our new kitchen. And we’re going to be getting a dog in the near future. The dog has been planned for a while now, we’ve just been slow about it.

I’m looking forward to living in one place for more than a year in a row again. Haven’t done that since 2006.

Lots of light in the new house

Finally! If anyone was wondering why I stopped posting the last month or so, it’s been because we’ve been in house hunting mode. We’ve been pretty much nonstop looking at houses, or working to close on a phew. We actually made offers on 3 houses before we finally got one that worked for us. Third time’s the charm, eh? I won’t go into all the boring details, but let’s just say a whole lot of frustration had to happen to let us get the house we really wanted, at the price we wanted, at just the right time. It’s kind of all fallen into place even if it’s been a struggle. I know that seems contradictory, but you can ask me about it if you want the full, long winded story.

And closing hasn’t been a moment too soon. Our little studio apartment is daily closing in on me and driving me bonkers. It was an awesome place during the summer with the giant porch to hang out on, but lately with the weather getting too cold to hang out outside it’s begun to feel kind of like a prison cell. So I’d say we’re timing the house closing pretty well, because if we weren’t buying the house right now, I’d be looking for a bigger apartment to move to.

All this house stress and apartment shrinking really screwed up my goal to meditate 30 days straight. I got about 15 days in and that’s when the house stuff got crazy and the weather got cold at the same time. I know I should consider meditation even more important during such stressful times, but I’ve found it so hard to concentrate on anything but loan/move in/inspection/insurance/paperwork/house stuff that I couldn’t make myself sit down long enough. I feel like now that we’ve signed all the documents I can let go of all those details and get back to having time to focus on pleasant things.

So even with the closing tomorrow we’ve got a few weeks until we move in. The closing was actually done in slightly over two weeks, which if you’ve ever closed a house purchase before you know to be really fast. Because of this, the sellers needed a bit more time to move out after closing, so they’re paying us rent until we move in. Even though it would be nice to move in tomorrow, it’s probably good with all the other stuff going on the next few weeks (Halloween, trip to the East Coast for a wedding) that we’re not moving.

For all you friends and family who have been wanting to check out Portland, we will now have a guest bedroom (or two!) for you to stay in, at least starting mid November. So come on over for a visit!

Getting cozy in the falls

We finally got outside this summer. Portland has just kept us too busy these last couple months. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved all the stuff we’ve had to do recently (out of town visitors, street festivals, beer festivals, board gaming, biking, parks, bars, concerts, etc), but it was time to get out. So we went camping and hiking with our new friends Justin and Rachael at Silver Falls State Park.

We headed down Friday night, about an hour and a half drive, and totally lucked out by getting the last open camp site. Phew. Saturday morning we started hiking the trail of the ten falls. Can you guess why it’s named that? That’s right, ten waterfalls, and all crammed into an eight mile loop. There were even a few we stopped to swim in even though the water was not very warm. We took our time, so it took us a little over six hours. At the end we were hungry.

Can you see the face?

We had bought plenty of food for the campsite, but we figured we’d check out the cute little town of Silverton not to far from the park. We picked the Red Thai Room, but it was pretty darned expensive and only pretty good, so we were still hungry. So we walked around and ended up at the little, family Mexican restaurant. Big mistake. We ordered quesadillas and it was the worst cheese ever. Oh well.

After dinner we went back to camp to enjoy a fire and some cocoa and 99 bananas. Some rowdy neighbors moved in next door and were a tad annoying, but that mostly just meant that we didn’t stand out as the noisy ones for just talking late into the night.

We had to return home Sunday morning for Kim’s work, but it was a great outing that was long overdue.