Portland - Part 2

The next day we headed out to where Shane works. He's the head pastry chef at a really fancy shop. Think Panera but everything costs twice as much and tastes wayyy better. It was fun seeing all the groomed pure bred dogs (with papers I presume) and $200 sunglasses and nice clothes of all the patrons. Business was brisk. Shane kept cranking out item after item like a cool zen master.


Here's one of his works... an apple-bread-putting something or other. It tasted as good as it looked.
We gave our best effort to sample as much as was humanly possible.

As you can see, we fit right in with the yuppies. You can see these cheese puffs in the middle of the table that Shane whipped up for us. The remnants anyway, they went pretty fast. We felt special, they were off-menu, although the owner tasted them and I think that's going to change. Shane also sent us home with some blueberry crumble pastries that were "damaged" although for the life of me I couldn't see anything wrong with them. We choked them down.

We turned off the smart-focus on our camera and set it to focus in the center of the frame (you could then move the frame) so we would have greater control on what is in focus. Because of this, we have a lot of strange photos of Susan and I. So I thought I would include this (and give Eric a little crap) as representation of all of these types of photos we have. This is a terrific composition Eric took of the back of a guys head.
After bidding Shane and Tom farewell we headed back toward Seattle. (Eric rented a car and was driving us which was awesome!) Our tour guide took us on a detour to Cannon Beach. Susan has been all over Europe and stuff, but this was her first time at the Pacific.
I dared to wear shorts this day! It was nice here but a little chilly later on when we lost the sun.
Us cleaning our feet after playing on the beach. Eric took this too, which I think is really a terrific shot.
We stopped at the Rogue brewery on the way home as well. We were there at off-peak time and the kind barkeep must have let us taste at least 20 of their 25 beers on tap. Only a few of those varieties get distributed out East so it was pretty cool. They had a Hazelnut beer that was unique and pretty good. But in my opinion the best (and what I had a pint of) was the Double Dead Guy Ale. Although I think this is Susan's beer.

Portland - Part 1

From Helena Susan and I drove into Seattle and arrived in the evening. That night, Eric and his roommates and friends got us out to another fantastic brew pub (I'm pretty sure this one was Elliott Bay Brewing Co. in West Seattle.) Eric took this obligatory sampler pic.


We made our way to Portland (with Eric and his roommate Billy Bob) the next day and had dinner with Shane and Tom. The following morning we met up with Eric's friend Jason who took us through a huge park that runs through the city (Forest Park?? I think it's the largest park in the US in a major city, larger than Central Park). We took a train uphill and walked back downhill back to Jason's place. Good plan Jason! It was a great afternoon. It was impressive seeing so many mature trees after seeing seeing so many smaller trees due to the burn cycles and short growing seasons in Montana.

Jason's dog was pretty awesome... and got quite a workout.

There was a great, and enormous rose garden.
Susan took this one.
During our walk we encountered about 50 skateboarders that were taking turns racing down this road in heats of 4-5. I missed a couple of good photo-ops where a couple of heats were tightly contested and resulted in some nice wipeouts. This was the best I got.
That afternoon/evening we met up with Shane and Tom at the North American Organic Brewers Beer Festival. You just don't have stuff like that out East. Susan beat me to some of the good pictures here on her blog, but here is a photo of Shane in his awesome Silver Surfer shirt looking awesome. (Drinking from a cup made of compostable corn-plastic. Thanks hippies!)



Susan... having a good time I think?
Susan proposed getting a fried Snickers bar. I had never had one and I'll tell you that Yes, it is better than a non-fried Snickers bar (who would have thought). That's one more item scratched off of my bucket list.
This festival was crowded and we were lucky to have gotten a spot under the tent. The sun was so warm I almost wished I had worn shorts. But it was still an otherwise moderate Pacific Northwest day. And the beer was fantastic.
That night Tom took Eric, Susan, and I out to a bar where we played a board game outdoors while continuing our beer tasting. It was a great time. Shane unfortunately had to get to sleep for his early rise so he could make us the pastries that we enjoyed so well the next day. (See next post)

Helena - Part 3 - The Treehouse

Before I move on to the rest of the trip, I wanted to post the picture's of Calvin's Treehouse. Hopefully my engineering friends will especially enjoy this. Calvin is a friend of Rudy and Linda's, and a fascinating, clever, and funny man. And he has a vision.


The treehouse (below) was the beginning of the project. Later he added on the center building which has a bathroom and shower. The newest building (to the right) is "Garage-majal." He's got a workshop downstairs and a kitchen, living room, and a couple of small bedrooms upstairs. It's a really cool place. The inside has the same attention to detail you'll see on the outside, but I'm going crazy with the pictures as it is.

I wanted to show how the treehouse was built, because it's really a clever design. The house is built on a platform which is bolted into the tree. If you look closely, you'll notice a truck hitch bears the load.

Above you'll see a chain which provides a redundant attachment. This is a close-up of the attached plate which was bolted into the tree.

You may have noticed from the first picture the hillside was completely ravaged by a huge forest fire about 4-5 years back now. Firefighters were able to save his place. They left him a note which hangs framed in the treehouse.

Calvin is a lover of worn but useful things. When he buys chains he's notorious for throwing them in fires to 'burn the shiny off," that is, the galvanized coating which keeps them from rusting. This truck might look like a decoration, but he uses it often.

One of the trees that was saved and a bell that I'm guessing was made from a pressurized gas tank.

Calvin requires a well stocked junk pile (treasure pile?) to make such things.

Here's Calvin demonstrating the trebuchet he made. Any man worth his salt should have a trebuchet. This picture is also special because it documents the second or third time I've ever seen my dad drink a "cheap" beer. He stays to the import/craft beer end of the spectrum, or as Calvin would call: "Showoff beer." It's shameful how many great expressions I've stolen from Calvin... it's like Mark Twain meets Red Green kind of wisdom.

Helena - Part 2

After our first few days in Helena we headed to Dillon, MT (and then South to Lima, MT and the Montana-Idaho border) for Susan's cousin Beth's wedding. Susan has the pictures on her blog. After we came back to Helena for a few more days. There were a couple of days we were able to sleep in (Linda and Rudy didn't give us too much flak about "Wasting our vacation"). Mom and Dad also met up with us there for a couple of days before heading out to Alaska. One morning we took a bit of a hike up towards one of the passes from the Lodge.


Rudy took us out kayaking on the Missouri River not too far from Helena. Thanks to Rudy for taking the pictures. This is Susan before we put in. The river was as high as I'd ever seen it. (Oh yes, she was mighty that day) You can see it rushing around the columns over the overpass in the background.


This is a campsite that had been flooded by the river. It was pretty cool being able to paddle around in it. Susan did really well for her first time kayaking, and I worked on my steering. Not our (near) perfect synchronization.

We were grateful for the relative heat and sunshine. I think Susan and I counted three days on the trip where we were able to wear a T-shirt and shorts. This was the only day in Montana when that was possible.

We made it to a Helena Brewers game. I believe this is Pioneer League of the minors (which is before single A, often where very new players start). It was their second game of the season (they can't start until high school gets out). You can get a sense of how intimate the park is. We wished we'd brought the zoom lens so we could have tried our hand at some action shots. Oh well, at least we got the rainbow. Not as good as the double rainbow though.

I tried to tell Susan she'd had enough, but she just wouldn't listen.

Helena - Part 1

From the Badlands we had a nice relaxing night in Billings, MT which made for a pretty easy drive to Helena. We met up with our good friends (and hosts!) Linda and Rudy and wasted very little time getting to the breweries. Helena has (in my humble opinion) two fantastic microbreweries, Lewis and Clark and Brewing Company and Blackfoot River Brewing Company. Their beer is excellent across the board, and their tasting rooms are a very pleasant place to drink 1-3 pints (but thou shalt not drink a fourth sayeth strange Montana liquor licensing.)

Anyway, here's me getting down to business. Susan is showing great restraint by taking this picture. This is probably one of at least four different beer samplers we photographed on this trip.


That night we drove up to Linda and Rudy's place in the mountains (named "The Lodge at Austin Creek," or "The Lodge" if you're into that whole brevity thing. We (and by that I mean Rudy and Linda who you can JUST make out toiling in the kitchen) cooked one of many nice dinners we had there. Rudy was a good sport this night as Susan, Aunt Linda, and I had already gotten a bit goofy from the beer sampling.


I think nearly all of the shots in this post were taken by Susan. This is one she snapped off of the cabin in which we stayed. If memory serves, it's about 100 years old. The Lodge is on an old mining claim and I believe this cabin was used by one of the prospectors. Rudy just did a lot of work inside replacing the floor, resealing it, installing a new stove and propane lights.


The next day Rudy drove us up Mullan pass (a storied road running through their land). Here's a picture looking west from the divide at the top.


They were doing a lot of work on the railroad at the top of the pass. In fact, the picture on the wiki I linked above shows a tunnel that they were trying to shorten. It's nearly a mile long and I believe they were having trouble with lack of oxygen choking the diesel engines. Again, this might be another fact I've gotten wrong (sorry Rudy). They had things blocked off or we would have taken pictures of the tunnel work up close. Susan did take pictures of some of their toys though. I'm guessing this machine shoots railroad ties. Right or wrong I want one.


This is an attachment which they use to scrape ice off of the walls of the tunnel in the winter. Good times.


Helena has a little "train" in which they drive tourists around the city and give a guided tour of some of the cities history. We did this later in the day with Rudy. I would recommend it! It was especially fun to see the mansions that gold built.


Rudy supplemented local info as we rolled through town. Can't remember whether Susan or I took this picture, but I'd love to take credit for it.

Badlands

Unfortunately this was about 4 weeks ago, so it won't be possible to follow along in real time with the trip. For most of the trip, internet access was just too hard to come by without actually planning time at a Starbucks or in someone's apartment. However, Susan did much better with her blog.

She beat me to posting a couple of pictures which I'm going to duplicate here, but I'll try to be better about not doing that in the future.

We left Madison early in the morning, and made it to the Badlands in time to set up the tent and get in a quick hike. The light is very interesting against the textures of the rocks around sundown, and it's difficult to capture with a camera.

There was a crew from Minnesota working on the roads there. (Our stimulus funding at work, and in my opinion, well spent) It was difficult to get around because of it, but they were certainly working hard... down to the end of daylight.


Don't let Susan's expression fool you. This ladder was strung along two cables that were driven into the rock, and she was not particularly happy about the near-vertical incline. What a good sport though!


Our campsite... tent borrowed from Susan's cousin Katie. Thanks Katie!


The sun was so hot that we pretty much got baked out of the tent by 7am. After packing up the tent we got an early start and took about a 2.5 hour hike which started with a climb from the lower elevation in the picture to where I'm sitting. We overheard a child that couldn't have been much more than 9 or 10 years old call it "strenuous."


After the climb, the rest of the hike wound through a prairie. It was hot, a (thankfully) dry 90 degrees by the time we stopped. Here are some particularly striking flowers from that part of the trail.



Susan took this picture because a weird cloud made this mountain look like it was smoking. It also gives a bit of a perspective of the flatter, grassier portion of the hike. You can also see some clouds rolling in which prompted our last minute decision to leave around noon and get some more driving under our belts.