Portland

I know, I'm not remotely done with posting about going to Arizona, but Xmass is almost amung us and this is fresher in my little mind at the moment, so here goes

Over the USS Hornet

Because of the new job I'm without any vacation or sick time at the moments, so heading up to Portland for thanksgiving meant that I'd have to leave on Thanksgiving this time around. Oddly enough the Oakland airport was rather sparce and stared off with no one in line ahead of me to get into the terminal. That didn't stop TSA from over searching my bag and chemical testing the wrapped charizo I had in my bag. I brought it along so I could make breakfast pasta for the family the next day. The flight up was aboard a turbo prop plane that seated about 40 folks, and I was happy to find that I wouldn't have share my seat for the trip too. The skies were rather clear so I was also able to snap a few photos along the way.

Over Mount Shasta

Over Crater Lake

Dinner with the rents and family went fine, for the first time in years I stayed home and didn't go over or out to see friends after dinner. I mainly hit the internet and started looking for places to go hiking the next day. For msot of time living in Oregon, I rarely crossed the Columbia, so this time around I looked north for a place to hike the next day. So after sleeping in a bit I got up the next day went about making breakfast for the rents. I made version of breakfast pasta (AKA Carbonara), but instead of prescuto, I used charizo I brought up with me. It was different, but wonderful none the less. Afterwards I got into my stinky smelly rental car and headed up north along the 5. This time around I found 2 places to hike both on the south side of Mount St Heleans, the first was called the Ape caves, the second hike was to be in Lava Canyon. After hitting the bottom of the mountain getting away from the river it tunrs out that this area had some snow recently, but it was clear sailing to my first stop. Climbing down into a lava cave was rather easy, at the bottom of the stairs the passageway split into two. One was marked as easy, the second as moderate hike.

A few years earlier I had explored similar caves in california and thought I knew what I was doing, so I chose the later "moderate" rout into the mountain. The trip was about 3 miles underground, with about a dozen semi cave ins along the way (a cave in meaning you'll have to climb and over quite a number of rocks and boulders in order to move forward). About a mile in I found myself looking up a 8 foot wall, at this point the whole moderate hike was pretty much in the toilet and I tried my hands and climbing in the near dark, up wet rocks and almost found myself tumbling back down. At this poiint I couldn't move forward so started to climb back over the rock dree I had passed before my impass. At this point I got lucky, and 20 something couple was at the bottom of the rock pile and starting to climb up. I told them of the impasss and they were nice enough to help me up said wall. I kept up with the couple for another half mile or so, but being old and fat I really found myself not being able to keep up and thanked them for the help and bid them adu. About a half hour later of shuffling over rocks in the near dark I finally came to the of the hike and was happy to see sunlight again.

Out of the hole

The Hike back

Climbing out revealed that I was back up the mountain and had passed into area of frosted snow upon the first around me. It was a rather nice and brisk walk back to the parking lot at this point and I was hppy to get back as I hungry and wanted to store up the backpack I brought along too before starting the second hike about 5 miles away. Unfortunately the drive over to Lava Canyon was a bust as the road had far more snow on it then expected. I actually ended up driving the car sideways at one point as the road was frosted up more then I should have been driving on at the time. So I had to abandon hike number two for the day and headed back to portland in smelliest car I had ever rented (I actually had to keep the rear windows partially open so I could breath).

The only hole and light during my hike

Friday night was spent with a few friends at a local dive bar, which was rather nice oddly enough. The bartender was pretty nice and generous with us to say the least. Though I wasn't up for that much drinking. Around 10 I bid adu and headed back to the rents for a nice long shower. Saturday was spent trying to find jewler who could fix an old watch of mine. I hit up 3 different places and all them said it would be too expensive and time consuming to do the fix in quesiton (broken crown). Oh well, the restof the day was spent helping my mon do her weekly shoping at a fe places so I my sister wouldn't have to deal with it. That night was dinner out with family. Sunday was rather bland and I tried stopping by my favorite german deli, only to find it closed on a sunday. Ugh, so no frozen sausage came back with me that afternoon to Oakland. Oh well. After all it was still a nice tight trip to say the least.

The Rent's cat trying to ignore me