June 13, 2012

Weekend in Portland

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Some scenes from last weekend's trip through Oregon. We spent two days in the Portland area visiting Lan Su Gardens, Powell's Books, Voodoo Donuts, Multnomah Falls, and a few wonderful restaurants(I heartily recommend Santeria and Mama Mia's). Also while we were there, Josh proposed to Catie, who promptly said 'Yes'. :)  In Powell's I picked up a book of Wilfred Owen's poetry, "The Social Contract", a small collection of Oscar Wilde's poetry and Ursula LeGuin's "Four Ways to Forgiveness".

Sadly I don't have any video of our adventure on the dunes in Coo's Bay, dinner with Josh's grandma in Lakeside or our trip down the river and subsequent beach activities in Grant's Pass.

Coo's was interesting. It had been a damp day and the sand wasn't in the best condition for quads. We spent a lot of our time stuck on hillsides, but it was still a good experience. Directly after that we had dinner in a local pub with grandma, which was delicious.

On the last day we headed down the river on a 10 foot raft. I learned that I can spend a large amount of mostly-idle time with these three and still be at ease; something that does not come easily to me. On the beach we skipped rocks (or tried) and played with the creatures we found around the rocks. There may have also been some stick fighting involved, which is probably the thing I from which I most wish I had video.

We spent a good 24 hours in a small car, singing and laughing and sleeping and talking. Time well spent.

Thanks to Josh, Catie and Adam for being great friends, company and adventurers. Hopefully we will have many more trips in this vein. :D

June 4, 2012

Half Dome Hike

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Best friend Kaitlyn, brother-in-law Nathan and I headed to Yosemite National Park at 3 AM to hike 16.4+ miles to the top of Half Dome. As it was my first time, I figured I should make record of it. :) Definitely one for the bucket list.

We started out that morning on the Mist Trail, going past Vernal and Nevada falls. From there we went on the Half Dome trail through Little Yosemite Valley. Close to an hour was spent 8000+ feet up on the top of Half Dome. Really amazing. Originally we had planned to take the John Muir trail on the return hike. However, sore feet and urgency brought us to simply hurry back down the Mist Trail. Probably not the best choice, but it got us the short return trip we wanted. X) This is a very long, exhausting hike to accomplish in a single day--but well worth it!

The majority of this was filmed on my Nikon, with some shots from Nathan's camera.
Follow along on: http://twitter.com/Laurmott  Thanks for watching!