Dude, this tent is only $12!

As many know, I work full time 9 to 5 at the Portland Opera in the marketing department. I also work about 12 hours a week at REI. REI is a great store. We sell everything a camper/hiker/climber/cyclist/paddler would need to have an adventure. REI is also still a co-op so members actually get money back each year on their purchases. But the best part of REI is a little thing called "the used gear sale."

You see, REI has the most lenient return policy ever. 100% satisfaction. You can bring anything back. Let's say that you buy a pair of hiking boots. You hike for 5 years in them, you love them, they fit your feet perfectly. But, one day, your boot leaks just a bit and your sock gets wet. You are perfectly justified in returning them to the store. People do this all the time. ALL THE TIME. So, what do we do with all the returned stuff? We sell it again at a "used gear sale."

Four Saturdays a year, all this returned stuff gets marked down to unbelievable prices and laid out on tables in the parking lot. You'll find perfectly good things that might have only been worn once or things that have been basically worn out. It's a complete gamble, but so, so worth it. These sales are so popular, people camp out the night before in the parking lot so they can be first in line.

What makes them so enjoyable to me is getting to work the during the sale. People stream in from the parking lot with their hands full of treasures, trying to find the nearest salesperson to ask them if "the hole in this tent is really going to matter" or if "these trekking poles will still collapse if one section is bent?" I love these questions, because what you really want to say is "Please don't waste your money and just buy something new!" but you find yourself caught up the atmosphere and suddenly you are frantically special-ordering parts or digging through boxes in the warehouse.

Sometimes though, these people can't be helped. Yesterday, a guy came up to me with a bike lock from the sale. It was a U-lock and it had a combination on it instead of the usual key. It was unlocked, in two pieces and priced at $11.83.

Guy: "How can I find out the combination on this lock?"
Me, looking at him like he was crazy: "It's a combination. I have no idea."
Guy: "Do you have a book or something you could look it up in?"
Me, in my head of-course: Sure! Of-course we do! I have a magical book in the back that tells the combinations to every bike lock! Let's go steal some bikes together and sell them on Ebay!
Me, out loud: "You know what, you can buy a brand new lock for only $20."
Guy: "Well, I guess, if that's the only option. This is just such a good deal."

Seriously, are you kidding me?

I *heart* Guster!

Guster is one of my favorite bands. I have all of their albums, I've seen them in concert five times. All the credit goes to my friend Liz, she's the one that introduced me to their Guster-ific ways.

When Guster puts out a new album, they send an email out to their email list (yep, I'm on it) telling everyone to pre-order the album and it will be in your mailbox on the release date. About two weeks ago, I pre-ordered their new EP, a bunch of songs that just didn't fit on their last full length album. I *heart* Guster because my EP came to me in a manila envelope, personally addressed in teal blue ink with the Guster return address stamp. I even got a sticker.

A screw loose, literally.

Nine months ago, back in July, Bryan hurt his knee playing a pick-up game of soccer. He went to the doctor who said that he would need surgery, at some point, to fix it. Since our wedding was at the beginning of September, B decided to wait to have the surgery so he wouldn't hobble down the aisle.

Skip ahead to the day after our wedding-- we were playing sand volleyball at Cannon Beach when B went up for spike, only to hyper-extend his knee in the process. We had to have him driven off the beach in the lifeguard truck.

So, Bryan basically tore the ACL ligament in his left knee completely out with the volleyball incident and he had surgery to repair it in October. It's been about six months of rehab (or "kneehab" as I call it) since then and B's knee feels pretty good.... except for that strange lump on the front of his knee near the incision..... oh, and it kind-of hurts there too. Back to the doctor and B finds out that the screw they placed in his knee is "loose." As in, "coming out." As in, "your tendon has grown over the screw and is irritated. We're going to have to go in and take it out."

B went in for his hardware removal surgery on Thursday. Everything went fine, he's doing great now. Below is a photo of him in the recovery room (that would be a graham cracker hanging from his mouth. I'm not sure he remembers me taking that photo), followed by some shots of his trophy.

Seriously, who took the anchors?

Another Sunday, another hike. Trying to out-run the rain and catch up to the sun, B and I headed east into the gorge yesterday. We ticked another hike off in the book as we walked through a grassy meadow high on a bluff above the town of Mosier. The spring wildflowers are just starting to peak out and the hills are the most brilliant green right now. Then, we checked the book and realized we hiked the wrong way and should have gone up a little mountain, not across a grassy meadow......oh well.We headed east to The Dalles and took the bridge across the Columbia to Washington and a rock climbing area called Horse Thief Butte. Again, I will quote the guide book:

"A very popular, traditional place for teaching beginners as well as escaping from the mid winter blues. The crag offers limited lead routes and is best suited for bouldering and top-roping."

Ahem. Excuse me? Um, where exactly can we do this so-called "top-roping"? Because B and I couldn't find any anchors. Not a single one. Do you mean to tell me that we need to just loop some long slings around the broken out rocks to use as our belay anchor? That, um, sketches me right out. Someone please enlighten us because there was plenty of great climbing to be done. And, after you tell us how to do it, want to come along?

A blurry Friday night

"This just in...."

Last Friday, Portland was beautiful. Sunny skies, temps in the 70's. It was a great day to be outside. B and I were meeting some friends downtown for drinks and dinner so I decided to walk from my office across the river to meet them.

This was the view from the Hawthorne bridge, looking down the west side of the river.

You might have started to see a trend with my blog posts so far. I tend to go on and on about the weather. But you see, we Portlanders live for the sun. We plan weekends around 10-day forecasts and climbing trips around weather windows. Since it rains so much and its cloudy most days, when the sun does poke its little face out, we can't seem to get outside fast enough. And, we also can't seem to give the sun enough attention. Notice the "on-location" news truck in this photo.



They were "live, local and on location" to report the breaking news that it was sunny on Friday.

The great thing about this is that it rained the whole weekend. No joke. The entire weekend.

Triangulate This!

Another gorgeous spring day in P-town. While everyone packed their children and dogs into their Subarus and headed into the gorge to hike the easy-and-scenic hikes, Bryan and I took a different approach and headed south.We picked an unknown-to-us hike from our hiking guide near Mt. Jefferson. Titled "Triangulation Peak", it promised sweeping views of Mt. Jefferson and the surrounding wilderness. 5.6 miles round-trip, plus a we got to bag a summit– it was perfect. We could drive there, do a quick scamper up the peak and then make it back to Portland in time for a recital at the opera. All-in-all, a nice little Sunday.

The directions in the book to the trailhead read like this:
"From Detroit, drive six miles southeast on OR 22 and turn left onto FS 2233. Drive 7.8 miles (the road turns to gravel after four miles) to a road junction. Stay to the right and drive another 1.3 miles to the junction with FS 635. Turn right on FS 635 and park in the trailhead parking area."

Sounds fairly straight-forward, so we hit the trip meter on the odometer and headed off of OR 22 onto 2233 with confidence. About a mile after the gravel started, so the did the snow. A couple of clumps here and a couple of clumps there. Then, the whole road is snowed in, about 4 feet deep and the only tracks we see are snowmobile tracks. We drive a little farther and finally Bryan thinks that we might want to consider stopping, parking the Jeep and just hiking the rest of the way in. So, we pull off to the side of the road, strap on the packs and start walking.

And walk we did. After about an hour and half, when we just started discussing a turn-around time, we finally came upon the trailhead sign. Almost completely buried in snow. We had no clue which way to go. We could see where we needed to be, but no idea how to get there. By this time, we had already added 3.1 very-uphill miles to our hike so, we took a rest, had some snacks, turned around and headed back. We got back to the Jeep, kicked in the four-wheel drive, and tore our way out of there. (The sun had softened up the snow a bit which made for an interesting two or three miles.)

On all counts, it was a pretty unsuccessful day. No bagged peak, one almost badly stuck Jeep, no triangulation of any sort.

But, you know, it was a great hike. Sure, we drove two hours each way to get there, and yeah, we basically hiked up a logging road in four foot deep snow only to turn around at the trailhead. I'm probably sunburned and, we didn't make it back in time for that recital. But, we spent the day out in the sun and the crisp Oregon mountain air, laughing with each other, and hearing nothing else but the sound of the snow crunching beneath our shoes.