Backpacking in Oregon

Remember when I bought a sweet sleeping bag to complete our set of backpacking gear?  Remember how I said that I would be using it in Oregon.  Well, the time has come to tell you about backpacking the Eagle Creek trail.

I totally got a picture of the sign so you know i'm not lying about the name of the trail.

Eagle Creek is a trail in the Columbia River Gorge outside of Portland.  It's a beautiful area hiking through a rain forest.  The whole trail is about 13 miles long and ends at a lake.  We decided we weren't quite hardcore enough for that entire length.  I decided the destination I wanted to hike to was Tunnel Falls, which is a little over 6 miles one way.

But truthfully, it's all about the journey as much as the destination.  We really enjoyed the experience of travelling along that trail and seeing all that there was to see.

Look at that cute backpacker.

That is a less cute backpacker.

Just posing in front of the wilderness.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am not a huge fan of heights.  Most of the trail was just fine.  Even though the trail was often pretty high above the river, I'm fine as long as it's not a sheer dropoff and I don't have to be close to the edge.  However, every once in a while the trail would get relatively thin and it would have chains you could hold on to.  This usually meant there was a fairly steep dropoff.  Even if I didn't notice the dropoff the chains were there to notify me that I should be terrified.

The trail itself doesn't seem that scary.  But you're supposed to be terrified.  The chains tell you so.

Look how not scared of that dropoff Robyn is.

More cutenes

The trail follows the river, and though we were hiking to a specific waterfall, there were a number of really pretty ones along the way.

I don't even know the name of this waterfall.  But it's pretty.

We saw several of these birds along the way.  I'm not sure exactly what it is, some kind of grouse I'm guessing.

This was a common sight.  Robyn is much faster than me.

I think the destination of Tunnel Falls was perfect.  By the time we got there, I was tired and ready to quit, but it wasn't so far that I was dying.  The first view of the waterfall is through the trees.

Robyn makes the waterfall look precious.

The waterfall makes me look precious.

The trail is super cool, it wraps around until you actually go through a tunnel underneath the waterfall.  (Hence the name Tunnel Falls.)

I'm pretty sure this is Shelob's lair.  But the good news is that I was eaten by zero giant spiders.

This is what it looks like coming out of the tunnel.

This is what I look like coming out of the tunnel.

Looking back on it from further up the trail.  From here it looks less like Shelob's lair, and more like a hobbit hole.

It's important to get both of us in a picture.

After finding tunnel falls we decided to head back to one of the campsites we had seen on the way up.  It was about 3/4 miles back.  We setup our tent, and more importantly our hammock.  My back was super tired, and I was way excited to lay in the hammock.

The view looking up at the sky from the hammock.

That's what I look like in pure happiness.

Robyn took a turn too.

There was one negative to the hammock.  I had changed into flip flops when we got into camp, and I had kicked off the flip flops while I was in the hammock.  Robyn looked over at me and said, "There is something moving on your flip flop."  I looked at it and there was a 6 inch slug crawling over it.  I picked up the flip flop and shook it to get the slug to come off, but to no avail.  I finally had to get a stick to pry it off.  (Because clearly I wasn't going to touch it with my hands.  Gross!)

Neither of the slugs below are the one that crawled on my flip flop.  I didn't have my phone on me in the hammock because I left it in the tent.  But I took these pictures the next morning of a couple others I saw.

Ginormous + slimy = gross

My encounters with wildlife in the hammock weren't over.   I settled down to read some more and then this spider was crawling on my hammock.  I don't mind spiders at all when I know what kind they are.  I'm always uncomfortable when I can't identify them and don't know if they're dangerous.  I just flicked this guy off my hammock and all was well.

 After resting for a bit, I had to go gather us some water.  We have a little filtration system that filters out the dirt and then we have a little lightsabre that you stick in the water to kill all the germs.

She is a Jedi, like her father before her.

That evening before going to bed we put our food up in a tree.  We didn't want any bears visiting us in our tent to get at our food.  We also didn't want any squirrels chewing through our tent.  In the middle of the night, Robyn woke me up because she heard something she thought was eating our food.  She told me I needed to take a look so that if it was dangerous it would eat me and not her.  I poked my head out of the tent, shined the light on the food and saw nothing.  I showed her that we couldn't see any animals.

The next morning we looked at the garbage bag that was also outside our tent.  It had a hole chewed in it.  Robyn used that as evidence that she really had heard something.  I conceded that point, but I did point out that she strongly implied that she heard something larger than a chipmunk, which was the likely culprit of the tiny hole.  But who knows.  Maybe it was a mountain lion that chewed the quarter inch hole in the bag.

The next morning, we made breakfast, relaxed a little more and then headed back down the trail.

Robyn took this selfie to show how gross she was.  I thought she looked precious.

More evidence of preciousness

The bridges frightened me, but look how brave I was.

After backpacking, we headed back into town and checked in to our hotel.  We showered, which was glorious, and then went out to eat at Giant Burger.  It was the perfect meal to end our backpacking adventure.

After a backpacking trip there is pretty much nothing better than a good hamburger, and The Giant served us well.  My sister, who is a Portland expert, had suggested that we eat there, and I'm glad she shared her wisdom on this issue.  She had sent me a picture of her in front of the sign, so naturally I had to emulate her picture.

I know I did such a good job of copying her picture, that you can't tell the difference, so I'll just let you in on the secret.  The first one is me.  The second one is my sister from Christmas time.

Cheese, Drones and more

After our adventures in Lincoln City, it was time to move on to the rest of our trip.  We had enjoyed the relaxing beach condo so much that we were a little bit sad to move on.  But we were also excited about the other things that we had planned.

We got up in the morning, packed our things and got back into road trip mode.  We drove north toward Tillamook, but we had to stop off along the way in Neskowin.  Neskowin beach has a fun little landmark called Proposal Rock.  I don't actually know why it's called that.  There were zero people making any kind of proposal when I was there.

However, if you've seen Neverending story, you'll note that it does look like the giant turtle Morla.  If you prefer to call it Morla Rock, or just Morla, I could support that.  However, it never rose out of the water or sneezed on us, so that was disappointing.

Robyn did make this cuteness in the sand.  It was the closes thing to a proposal that happened.

After Proposal Rock, we continued our northern journey.  We went to the town of Tillamook so we could visit the cheese factory.  I just have to take a moment to talk about the fact that we drove by the high school, and their mascot is the cheese makers.

Can you imagine when they play other schools?  They'll go up against eagles with giant talons who can spot their prey from a mile away, or lions that weigh over 400 pounds, have giant claws and can run 50 mph.  They stand there holding blocks of cheese menacingly while these great predators eat them alive.

I'm just saying.  It's not a very intimidating mascot.

Anyway, on to the cheese factory.  It was amazing!

The most important thing you do at the cheese factory is to eat cheese and other dairy products.  If you don't tolerate lactose, the cheese factory doesn't tolerate you.

We had the fried cheese curds and they were epic.  Here I am demonstrating the stretchiness of the cheese.

Showing off my grilled cheese sandwich and my cup, which shows where we are.

There is a short tour where you can look through windows at workers in the factory.  It's kind of like a zoo, if zebras and orangutans made cheese.

The real hero of the factory is the cheese slicer guy.  You'll notice he is not pictured, because he abandoned his post!  He is no longer a hero.  He is a traitor to the cause.

This machine seals the cheese blocks into the plastic.  It also looks like a terror from the deepest depths of the ocean.

After, the tour it was time for dessert.  We clearly couldn't leave the factory without buying Tillamook ice cream.

Yummy!

After Tillamook it was time to head east to the Portland area.  We have some good friends who live just south of Portland, and they were kind enough to let us stay the night with them.  If you're ever in the Portland area, I highly recommend staying with the Glaziers.  They have a comfy bed, they provide breakfast in the morning, and they might even let you play with a drone.

Me with the controls, and a drone floating behind me.

Look what a good photographer I am with the drone.

After playing with the drone, it was clear to me that I need one of my own.  If you've been hankering to buy me a gift, just keep that in mind.

We had tons of fun with the Glaziers.  We spent the evening with them and made sure to take precious pictures.  We also kept Lisa up way too late since she had to work in the morning.  Ooops.

Aren't we so precious?

The next morning we departed from the Glazier bed and breakfast and went backpacking.  So stay tuned for that!

Crabbing

There's something you should know.  Crabbing is pretty much the coolest thing ever.  Although, you should also know that the crabbing I did was nothing like Deadliest Catch.  It was not remotely deadly, and I really liked it that way.

We went to Taft Beach, which is just a couple miles from where we were staying in Lincoln City.  That's the official place to go crabbing.  The beach drops off pretty quickly, so you can cast into pretty deep water fairly easily.  (I'm sure there are other reasons why this beach is great, but that's the main reason that I was able to observe.  I also observed that I was able to catch a bunch of them, so there's that too.)

A friend of mine had loaned me the trap, so I took it to the beach and just did my thing.  There was a nice family who had been there crabbing all day and a couple teenage kids took me under their wing and taught me how to work the magic.

The trap is basically a net with a hook in the middle.   You put a piece of chicken (I used chicken legs) on the hook and you cast out the net.  It opens up on the sea floor and then when you pull it in the net closes up and catches anything that might be chowing down.  When you pull it out of the water, your job is to shout for joy at all the crabs you bring in.

It's not too difficult, but there was a little bit of a learning curve as far as figuring out how to aim your cast, figuring out how long to wait before pulling it in, and things like that.

The first time I cast it out, I pulled in one tiny precious cute little crab.  Naturally, I took a selfie with it.

At first, I was so excited that there was anything in the net, that I took a picture with everything I got.

As time went on, I either get better at it (what I like to believe) or just got more lucky (a very real possibility).  I brought in some pretty big hauls.  Like this one below.

Here's a video of me bringing in some goodness.

You'll notice that Robyn told me to throw them back after I pulled them in.  You are only allowed to keep males that are really big.  (There's a certain size they have to meet, but I don't remember what it was exactly.)  As my teenage friends were training me, one of the things they asked me was if I had a bucket.  I told them I was just there for fun and wasn't planning on keeping anything.  But I told them if I caught anything that was legal, I would give it to them.

It took me a good 90 minutes of casting the net, but I finally caught a Goliath sized one that was a full inch bigger than it needed to be.  I got a picture with it and then gave it to my little friends.

They were super excited about it.  They had been there all day (we got there in the afternoon) and they only had 2 so far.  Mine was bigger than the 2 they already had.

After I gave them the big one, they made even more effort to give pointers to other newbies.  I think they realized that helping others be successful was a good investment.  (But I should note, that they helped me out before there was any promise of reward.)

But don't worry.  Lest you think that I missed out on great seafood by not cooking up the crab that I caught, we went to Mo's which overlooks Taft Beach.  We had delicious seafood and we didn't even have to cook it.

Robyn wasn't very into the crabbing, but she was much more into eating amazing clam chowder while we looked out at the beach.

That's the last of my writing about Lincoln City.  But don't worry, there's more to come about the rest of our Oregon vacation.

Road Tripping to Lincoln City

Robyn and I recently got back from a fabulous road trip to Oregon.  It was quite the adventure, and we had a fabulous time.  Over the next few posts, I will chronicle some of the highlights of our trip.

The first destination on our trip was Lincoln City.  Fun fact: Lincoln City, Oregon is really far away from Lehi, Utah.  It took us about 14 hours of driving to get there.   I actually really enjoy road trips.  I love the time alone with Robyn.  I love just putting it on cruise control and watching the world go by.

And, of course I love sing-along time.

Robyn prepared a packet of fun for the road.  She had such things as Mad Libs, the license plate game, a list of get to know you questions and other madness.  I should note, we rocked the license plate game.  We saw the license plates of 45 states (including both Alaska and Hawaii), but we also did some extra credit and got 4 Canadian provinces.  With our extra credit included we have 49/50 which is 98%, a solid A.

I told Robyn we should drive to the east coast to pick up the last few we needed.

I mentioned above that I really do enjoy road trips.  However, the 14 hours to get out there was just a little much.  (We did it over 2 days.  We drove to Twin Falls, Idaho after work on Friday, but that was still 10 hours on Saturday.)  When we pulled in to Lincoln City, I told Robyn that I was done driving for life.  I made her drive the 1 mile from our condo to go out to eat.  Luckily, I was over my hatred of driving by the next day so I was able to drive again.

Once the road trip part was over, it was time for the fun to begin.  Lincoln City is such a chill place.  Our condo was right on the beach, so we loved to just sit and look at the crashing waves.  We opened the windows so the breeze could come in, and it was amazing.

This was one of our favorite things.  It's like a picnic on the beach without the sand.

Of course, we loved relaxing in the condo, but I clearly wasn't going to be that close to the ocean and not get wet.  One of my favorite things on this trip was waking up early while Robyn was still sleeping and going on walks along the beach to discover all the various forms of life.

I learned this is called a moon jellyfish.

There were some tide pools not far away.  I liked to walk over to them and see what I could see.

A starfish chillaxing

An open shell where a mussel once lived.

Lest you think that Robyn didn't enjoy the ocean either, she did come to the tide pools with me once as well, it was just later in the day after she was done sleeping.

Just hanging out with a whole bunch of mussels.

I even got her to touch the ocean once.

Lincoln City was even amazing at night.  As the sun started to get low in the sky, campfires started popping up on the beach near our condo.  Naturally, we had to participate at least once.  We just gathered drift wood on the beach, and we didn't have a ton of it so our fire didn't last long, but I feel we got enough of the experience.

I make this cute little baby fire look good.

Robyn makes it look even better.

I think one of my favorite things was watching the sunset over the ocean.

 One night, Robyn captured the moon and venus shining in the sky during the sunset.

As you can see, Lincoln City was pretty fantastic.  But probably the coolest thing in Lincoln City was when I went crabbing.  So stay tuned for the next post when I tell you about that.

While The Wife is Away

Sometimes Robyn leaves me all by my lonesome.  It's usually to visit family.  This time was one of those times.  She flew to California to babysit our twin toddler nephews for a few days.  (She's an epic babysitter.  There was not a single person with her qualifications within a 700 mile radius.)

Every time Robyn goes out of town, people ask me, "What are you going to do while she's gone?" or afterward, "What did you do while she was gone?"

Well, the simple answer is, "Not much."

Mainly, I do a lot of reading.

I make sure to be as precious as possible when I read.

But there are a few things that are important to note about when my wife is 700 miles away.

1. There is no one to dispute that just because something says "Star Wars" on it, doesn't mean it's amazing.

If it says, "Star Wars" you just buy it.  You can ask questions later.

It turns out that Star Wars cereal looks like Lucky Charms and tastes like Trix.  But it has tiny Tie Fighters, Yodas and lightsabres, so it's clearly awesome.

Don't you just feel The Force?

2.  There is no one that makes me kill spiders.

Here's the thing about spiders.  They eat insects that we like less than spiders.  So I consider them to be friends.  Robyn considers them to be incomprehensible horrors.  I noticed a spider perched on the wall on Thursday.  He was still there Sunday morning, because he knew we were friends.  Unfortunately, he should have hid himself because I had to terminate him in preparation for Robyn's return.

3.  There is no one to impress

I usually make Robyn breakfast on Sunday mornings.  It's a tradition that we enjoy.  She gets to sleep in a little bit, and I get to enjoy her happy face when she wakes up to something yummy.  My cooking generally does not include baking.  And while Robyn does not ask to be impressed, I do like to make sure that what I make is something she'll enjoy.  I thought it would be fun to try to make muffins from scratch.  What better time to try it than when Robyn is away so that if I epicly fail, she never has to know?

I got the batter all made.  (I was impressed that I got this far.)

I think I probably filled the individual cups a little high because the muffins merged together.

The hardest part was getting them out of the tins.  Many muffins died to bring us this breakfast.

The good news was that I didn't care what the muffins looked like.  They still tasted great.

I totally didn't eat the ones that survived the reaping from the tins.  Thus Robyn could come home to these and be totally impressed.

So there you have it.  That's what I do while Robyn is away.  It's safe to say that I have accomplished more in other years.  But I'm happy with how I passed my time.