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Well, we went on my new favorite hike on Monday. I'm pretty sure my favorite hike will change frequently, especially this time of year. I guess it's a good problem to have... too many hikes that you love! :)
We explored Silver Falls State Park (aka Trail of Ten Falls) with a new friend named Jerrod. This will definitely be on our list of places to take visitors! The park is usually busy, but since we went on Monday, and a fairly chilly afternoon, we basically had it all to ourselves. Wonderful!
Hike highlights: good company, we saw a crane, waterfalls, and mushrooms! This land is plentiful of thousands of mushrooms, big and small.
I loved how the yellow leaves framed each waterfall. Let's just say the photo opps were very plentiful as well.
Friends, meet our new friend Jerrod. He also attends Pacific University with Heath and is studying Counseling Psychology. He kindly invited us to go on this hike with him and briefly showed us around his hometown, Salem. He even treated us to dinner at a roadhouse... I had bbq! Thanks Jerrod. I look forward to more hikes and good meals!
You could walk under/behind most of the waterfalls on this hike.
Christmas card spoiler below... if you want to be surprised, stop reading now! Another nice thing about hiking with a friend is getting wonderful pictures like this...
What a great hike. Let's go back tomorrow. Sound good, Heath?
For the next ten days, the high is only 60 degrees. Hello Portland weather. I think I'm handling this change of weather better than my summer loving husband. :)
Hope you enjoy the rest of week!
Heath and I had a morning date today. We explored the Portland State Farmer's Market, which is the largest and most diversified one we've found so far. If nothing else, it's fun to walk around, take in all the wonderful smells of fresh food, and admire the lovely dahlias and sunflowers.
Though many say the prices at farmers markets are unreasonable, I think it's well worth it to set aside $10 a week to spend. Here's a couple reasons why:
1. You support local farmers.
2. You get to take home amazing food, fresh and free from pesticides, which makes the tastes remarkably intense and juicy!
3. By supporting local farmers, you are taking away the control of superstores (aka Walmart) and regaining control in your community and the quality of the foods that you eat.
We purchased a pint of cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and blueberries, and 5 large red potatoes. We spent $9. Farmers market strawberries literally taste like sugar! MMMmmm, such a treat.
Heath recently finished reading Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food", and I hope to finish it soon. It's a book full of useful and challenging information on what we eat here in America. We highly recommend it. The Oscar nominated documentary Food, Inc. made me realize that I need to start paying more attention to the foods I choose to eat.
No, we don't buy everything organic and I certainly don't think that's necessary. Just thought I'd share some thoughts. If you ever visit us, we will definitely be taking you to the farmers market! I will be buying some flowers for your room, and you will be sampling the cherries, strawberries, peaches, cheeses, breads, and kettle corn. :)
I cannot express to you how nice it is to live in a place with actual seasons! It's so wonderful. Living in West Texas was not terrible, but in the middle of fall I always found myself becoming home-sick. The leaves never changed colors... the weather stayed warm until December...
Well today, Heath and I got to experience Oregon fall weather at its finest. We drove out to Mt. Hood (which is about a hour and twenty minutes from our house) to explore the Salmon River area. Imagine the sound of the leaves ruffling softly as the wind blows, watching them fall slowly around you as you walk along the trail, and listening to the river move rapidly over the shallow rock beds. (that was my sorry attempt of describing the most beautiful, serene place in the world!)
This was probably one of my most favorite hikes we've taken thus far. It probably won me over due to the golden, yellow leaves, the perfect 70 degree weather, and the abundance of wildlife.
We weren't able to spot any Salmon... I think they're spawning. However, we did hang out with some monster Steelhead Trout. (see picture below) It's amazing how amusing these things can be. We watched them for at least thirty minutes. And I probably could have watched them longer :)
I realized that Oregon has giant redwoods too.
I love living here. The past few weeks have been a little difficult. With the job search, finding our new everyday routine, missing friends and family... but today was a great day. For Heath and I, and for me individually.
I think I'm a mountains kind of girl. You know, some people like the beach, some people like texas, but I like the mountains. And the rivers and waterfalls that come with them. :) Thanks for reading, and I promise to share more pictures and updates soon!
Happy Weekend
Hello all. It's been a while! This past week has been fairly busy, and I have been a bit exhausted. I think it's somewhat due to our heat-wave here.... yesterday, we hit a high of 86! I know, I know. Tennessee and Texas have been close to 100 lately, but I'm to (and very much prefer) the cooler weather. My "perfect" temperature is 68-75. :)
Anyhow, I am now faced with the past 15 days of activities, and I have no idea how to share it all with you. So, I'll just choose my favorites.
First up... We conquered the Lookout Mountain hike! (Remember that one time we failed miserably on our first hike? Well, we tried the hike again; only this time, we drove our car up the majority of the mountain, and only had to scale 1500 feet. It was great!) Along our hike, we played in the snow...
On the summit, we could see 7 mountain ranges. Adams, Rainer, St. Helens, Jefferson, Three Sisters, Diamond Peak, and Mt. Hood, which was only 7 miles from us.
And, Heath stood somewhere where I will never stand... This terrified me, it made for a good picture though.
After this hike, we headed ten miles down the road to Tamanawas Falls. This has been my favorite thing so far! Hiking next to the spring provided a cool, refreshing walk, and the falls turned out to be sooo much better than expected.
(I'm glad my camera has a self-timer.) I also came across the largest dandelion ever! It made me happy.
On wednesday, our family came in for a visit! It was wonderful. I think Heath had been anticipating their arrival for weeks. :) We went to the Saturday Market, walked around downtown, ate from a food cart, visited the local farmers markets, and shared our church with them. It sure felt nice to share our home with family.
We also visited the Washington Park Rose Garden, of course!
And we finally visited Canon Beach! As you can tell from my over-exposed picture, it was very sunny thankfully.... recently, the coast has had temperatures in the low 60s, so we went on a great day.
We've visited several farmers markets in the last month, and I have grown increasingly anxious to buy a bouquet of flowers. Well, Saturday was my lucky day! While visiting PSU's market, I purchased these beauties. Aren't they lovely?
Last but not least, I wanted to add a sneak peak of our apartment. This is my favorite wall, found right above my craft/sewing desk. I'll try to post the rest of the apartment soon.
Though I do not have a picture to show for it, I watched a top-notch 80's movie on top of the Hotel Delux in downtown! Had a lot of fun with new girlfriends who have been so welcoming and nice to us. It was wonderful.
Sorry for the long post! Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of posting weekly...
Hope you have a lovely, relaxing weekend
Hello friends. Though I don't have that many pretty pictures from yesterday to share with you, I would love to tell you about it!
After my bike incident, I haven't had the desire to hobble around the city. We also took my bike to a bike shop in downtown Portland on Sunday, so we've been less mobile than before. It's been relaxing and I've done lots of crafting :), but I could tell Heath was ready to get out and explore.... So yesterday, we did.
Our first stop was Washington Park in downtown. Heath packed us a lunch for a lovely picnic.
We love Honey BBQ flavored Fritos. Yum
Our walk took us through the Washington Park test rose garden. This was our third time to visit the roses... I must say, if you want to visit when all of the roses are in full bloom, come in June! They are still beautiful now though, and they smell great.
Our trail was shaded for most of the walk. I think I've been spoiled by the weather already. For our first month here, we've had highs in the mid-70's and lows in the 50's... Perfect, in my opinion, for summer. But, the last couple days have reached mid-80's and it feels like a heat wave!
Okay, let me explain. On most of our walks and hikes, I've brought the camera along. This means, if I see a pretty flower, tree, blade of grass :).... I stop. So, Heath has started walking ahead on the trails. I find him hiding behind things with this mischievous face. Luckily he hasn't jumped out at me, atleast not yet.
After our walk, we headed to some bowling lanes in Beaverton. We had a Groupon to these bowling lanes, so it was a cheap afternoon date; I'll post more about Groupon another day! I learned several things at the alley: 1) Bumpers are a must when I play... the majority of my shots ended up in the gutter. 2) Heath has an actual bowling stance. 3) Arcade games are a lot more fun than I remember.
Our final stop for the day was Southwest Church of Christ. We met a small group of ACU Alumni that are living the greater Portland area. Heath and I had fun making connections and learning more about what this beautiful area has to offer. By far, my favorite part of the day was eating HAROLD's BBQ!!!! (The group from Abilene had packed the BBQ in dry ice.) When they announced we would be eating Harold's bbq for dinner, I almost cried. It was a wonderful meal, shared with new friends.
