Attention Ladies!

Ladies: If you find yourself with someone who is manly enough to carry you across six stream crossings so you don't get your trail-runners completely soaked while hiking, but is still soft enough to enjoy the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living at the campsite, marry him.
MARRY HIM NOW.

I did. :)

Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend by the numbers:
Backpacking plans aborted because of snowed in roads: 1
Miles driven in opposite direction of aborted backpacking plans: 146
Old volcanic formations visited: 2
Temperature at Wildcat campground Sunday night: 30 degrees
Stream crossings on the Two Pillars trail: 6
Tan lines acquired: 2

What a great weekend.

Organized chaos

Two weekends ago, Bryan and I headed to Bend, OR so B could compete in the annual Pole/Pedal/Paddle. The PPP is a relay race from Mt. Bachelor into Bend-- it consists of 6 legs: downhill ski down a blue run, x-country ski four miles, bike 25 miles into Bend, run a 10k, paddle up and down the Deschutes river, and then sprint to the finish line. Our friend Travis had a team put together, but needed a cyclist to round things out, so that's where Bryan fit in.

There were 1200 teams entered and they had staggered starts all morning-- individuals (a.k.a. crazy people), pairs teams (a.k.a. not-quite so crazy people) and then bunches of mixed age, co-ed teams. In other words, organized chaos. People were everywhere. People had costumes on. I saw a guy skiing in a pink tutu and another guy did the x-country leg in a prom tux. It was nuts, but so much fun. I definitely want to be on a team next year and I think that B and I just might be crazy enough to do it as a pair....for the record, I did say "might."

-a shot of the whole team, "Bruised, Broken & Busted"

-Bryan taking off on his 25 mile DOWNHILL ride into Bend

Can you hear the fat lady singing?

The fat lady is singing a song about the end of my job at the Portland Opera. Friday is my last day and I'm leaving to go back to REI full-time. I'll be the new office manager at the Tualatin store. I'm sad to leave the opera-- my co-workers are a blast to work with, our office had a stunning view of the Willamette river and West Hills, and the free tickets sure were nice. I was becoming cultured! I actually enjoy opera now!

But careers must move on, and I start a new step in mine on Monday.

Hello bigger paycheck and more time off!

Kickin' it at the coast

Ever get the urge to drive up the Oregon coast and stop at all of the antique stores in the little beach towns?

No? Well, I do.

B and I drove out to Tillamook and then north up the coast to Cannon Beach on Saturday. The forecast called for a crummy day in Portland so we headed to the beach. Even if the weather is cloudy/rainy/windy, the coast is such a great place. We stopped in Manzanita for some fish 'n' chips and noticed the very hip Cyber Cafe.....
B recently bought an old camera and has been wanting to experiment with it, so we pulled off the 101 in a small town called Two Rocks. He took this by shooting his digital camera through the viewfinder of the old camera.
On the way back to Portland, we stopped at Camp 18, an old logging camp on the side of highway 26. It's one of those places that we've always driven by, just never stopped. If there were truck stops in the mountains, Camp 18 would be one of them. Big meals, chinzy souvenirs, and great people watching. Even a life-size, chain-saw scuplted Sasquatch.

A storm of thought

When I was a kid, thunderstorms terrified me. In fact, I think they scared all the Olson kids. Well, maybe not Scott, but Craig and I were complete wimps. I can remember yelling out for my mom and dad as I laid in bed under the window, watching the lightning and seeing the giant maple tree over our house sway back and forth. When the skies were especially menacing, Craig would gather up the flashlight and maybe a blanket and sort of hover near the basement stairs. Even though I wanted to look tougher than he was, I'll admit I wouldn't stray to far from a quick escape to the safety of the basement.

Tornadoes, especially, were these incredibly scary things, and they still are. I've never seen one, but I've been caught at the mall in Sioux City, the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, and in the middle of class at UNL. Its the same drill every time, the sirens go off, you search for cover. But, nothing truly devastating ever happened. A funnel cloud would touch down out in a field or skirt along the riverbank. It would never take out an entire town. That town in Kansas is gone. Completely gone.

We don't usually have thunderstorms in Portland. Last week, we had a couple of days of crazy weather. Showers and sun breaks is what the forecasters would call it, but hail and then blinding sunshine is what I would call it. During one particular rain spell, it thundered three times--pretty loud, solid cracks of thunder--with three bright flashes of lightning. We were all gathered in my boss' office watching out his window. When I hear thunder, I immediately think of home. I think of driving down the highway and seeing big thunderheads rolling across the horizon. I think of the color the sky gets right before that last crack of thunder that unleashes the rain. I think of my family and the warm dry basement.

Success, full success!

I'm happy to report that we had our first successful hike of the season on Sunday. We were beginning to feel like we needed to take a class called "Forest Navigation 101", but our egos have been spared-- we made it to the top of Munra Point in the Columbia River Gorge on Sunday.

Below are a couple photos of the day: hiking the Gorge trail in a canopy of green to the Munra trailhead, me on the trail to the top, the view from Munra Point with Mt. Adams on the horizon and Bonneville dam at the bottom. I learned two important things on Sunday:
1) When the guide book says the trail is 2.0 miles roundtrip with 2,110 feet of elevation gain, realize exactly what that means.
2) When hiking with water and a book in your pack up a huge mountain, make your husband carry the pack.

Bryan's new gig

Bryan recently took another step in his career and started a new job. He is now a graphic designer for LaCie, a technology company that designs and sells external hard drives, portable hard drives and monitors. He'll be doing some package design as well as product photography. His office is across the street from the Intel plant so he'll be surrounded by computers and computer people now.

His first challenge will probably be how to decipher the "geek speak". We were looking at the product catalog last night and the product names are especially wonderful. There's the "LaCie Two Big eSATA & USB" or the "LaCie Big Disk Extreme with Triple Interface". And don't forget everyone's favorite, the "LaCie Dupli Disc DVD125 USB 2.0".

I'm sorry, the what?

Yeah, good luck with that.