Hello, Seattle! Here we come, Cascades!

We spent a couple of recent weekends with Brendan and Billi visiting Seattle (Pike Place Market) and hiking/camping in the Cascade Mountains. Our main objective in the Cascades was to find a Rubber Boa, but we were unable to find one. We did, however, find long-toed salamanders, which was also a treat, and we did some great hiking in the beautiful Central Washington country-side.


Us on the ferry with Seattle still far in the distance.


Long-toed Salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum)

On another trip to Olympia, we went to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, where we saw our first Barn Owl, among other things, including:


An American Bittern hiding in the reeds.


A Pacific Tree Frog (Pseudacris regilla).


A beautiful Northwestern Garder Snake (Thamnophis ordinoides).


We got to see this playful river otter just long enough to snap a shot!

Taylor guys to Mt. Hood

A few weeks ago, a few Taylor grads who are all living in the area got together to camp and hike at Mt. Hood.


From left: Jeremy Heavey, Dave Iula, me, and Ben Reed


It was the perfect time to see the all the colors of the fall foliage


It was interesting to see both the plain and reticulated forms of the rattlesnake-plantain orchid (Goodyera oblongifolia) growing side-by-side.

It's fall and it's apple-licious!

We had a fall extravaganza last weekend with Billi and Brendan! We intended to go hiking with them in the Olympic peninsula and spending a day or so in Seattle, but it ended up that we did neither, and instead went to the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge where we saw our first barn owls! We also went to Oysterfest in Shelton, WA where they live (I ate my first oyster shooters, and no one told me I wasn't supposed to chew them up, although I probably should have understood that from their names. They were gross.) The best part, though, was that we also got to hand-make apple cider with Billi's best friend. Fall is my favorite season, and I've been a little disappointed at the lack of true fall colors out here. Whether it's because of the much larger number of evergreens, or whether the wet climate keeps even the leaves on the deciduous trees green until they die, there just isn't much "fall" in the air. But this weekend, I got my fall fix by doing such a quintessential activity, but one that was all new to us!


First things first...we shook the apples down from the trees!



Once the apples are picked, they have to be washed to get all the insects and dirt off before grinding them in the cider press.


Kelly churns the cider press to create fresh juice from the chopped apples.



Fresh cider pours from the press!


Billi strains the raw cider through cheesecloth to get out all the extra solids. The cider will then need to be boiled to make it safe for drinking and canning the extra for later.



Yum! Fresh, hot apple cider!

Ready, Aim...

We spent this weekend with our friends Billi and Brendan in Olympia, WA. A river borders their property, so they built a campsite on along the river's bank. It's pretty amazing. We slept there our first night, then spent a lazy day doing some hiking and birding in the area. On Sunday, Kelly and I got our first tastes of archery. They have a target set up in their back yard and we got to try both their recurved and compound bows. It was great fun, and although I still have a lot to learn, I did actually hit the target a few times!


Is it Kelly. . . or Legolas?


If you click on this picture to blow it up, you can see the arrow right through the deer's heart! Kelly hit the bullseye!


Okay, so my technique isn't the best yet, but hey! I'm having fun!

Hiking Hood

We had another awesome visit from Shawn, so we decided to spend the weekend camping and hiking at Mt. Hood. We found the sweetest campsite, thanks to a tip from our landlord. It was tucked away in the woods and the Hood River ran right alongside it. We decided to forgo the tents again, and slept outside next to our campfire with the sound of the river rapids in our ears.

The next morning we drove to the Timberline Lodge, where we set off for our hike. We made our own trails around the mountain and had a great day of hiking! It was gorgeous weather, too, which made the day absolutely perfect.

Family Fun

My parents came out to visit us this past weekend! We had a lot of fun showing them around the area and immersing them into the lives we've lived these past three months.

They came on Friday morning, so we got to spend the afternoon in Portland visiting the Rose Garden and the beautiful Japanese Garden in the center of town. That night, Kelly made a delicious stir-fry dinner - one of his specialties!






Of course we wanted to take them to the beach, so we drove our favorite beach drive, eating Tillamook ice cream cones along the way. We wanted to show them the haystacks at Cannon Beach, but it was so foggy we couldn't even make out their outline! As we made our way back along the shoreline toward Astoria, we stopped at Sunset Beach for a night-time fire. They loved it!

The next day, we browsed the farmer's market and went to the local play, Shanghaied in Astoria. The acting was horrendous, but the play was a cute vaudville-type complete with the audience throwing popcorn at the bad guys, booing and hissing at the villains and cheering for the heroes. Kelly attended a friend's wedding that day, so he missed out on the play, but the wedding was a great time as well.



Monday we went to the Columbia River Maritime Museum, which is a pretty interesting museum with lots of local history. It's in one of the most architecturally interesting buildings in the city. Afterward, we had to check out the local sea lion population, and they didn't disappoint! One of the males was fighting off competitors for his pier space, and giving us a really good show! We also drove up to the local iconic landmark, the Astoria Column, to get the gorgeous views of the river, the city, and the surrounding countryside. My dad and Kelly climbed the 164 stairs to the top!






My sister was supposed to come out with them, but she unfortunately got sick and wasn't able to make it. We were really bummed and missed her this weekend, but we still had a great time with my parents! We were really pumped that they got to see where we've been living and spend some time falling in love with this area of the country, just like we have.

A Bonding Experience

Last weekend, Kelly and I went with a friend of his from Ball State and his fiancee on a pelagic birding trip. We geared up in our warmest, most weather-proof clothes and took to the high seas about 35 miles off shore in a teeny tiny little fishing boat with guides that are experts at finding and identifying pelagic sea birds. For Kelly and Brendan, this was a chance of a lifetime to expand their birding life lists. For Billi and me, it was a labor of love.

Bleary-eyed and with coffee and scones in hand, we set off at 3:45 a.m. for the trip. Kelly and Brendan maintained excited conversation the entire three-and-a-half-hour drive, while Billi and I promptly fell asleep in the back seat. When we arrived on the dock, we were not surprisingly the youngest participants by a margin of at least 30 years. Excited for the trip, we boarded the boat and stored our food, our seasickness preventatives (candied ginger, Pepto Bismol, and Tums), our water, and our extra clothes in the cabin and took our places at the prow of the boat. That was the last time we’d see most of the things we’d brought with us for the entire 10-hours we were at sea.

At first, the 15-foot swells racing toward the boat and the crashing of the hull upon the water were anticipated with glee, and maintaining our precarious balance like bull riders was exhilarating. After a few hours though, the captain stopped the boat to put out some bait to attract more birds, and that's when it all went downhill. The back-and-forth rocking of the boat was more than our empty stomachs could handle, and Kelly, Billi, and I, all of us a sick shade of green, ended up spending the next few hours hanging over the side of the boat--downwind, of course. There's nothing more intimate than loosing your breakfast (again and again) in front of 20 strangers!

Aside from the few hours of green pallor and churning stomachs, we were we were still able to see a lot of great birds, and Kelly and Brendan added about 15 species to their life lists. After we reached the dock at the end, though, we were ready to put a little good food in our stomachs and none too sad to pull away from the rocking boat!

We camped out under the stars that night, tossing our sleeping bags down on the ground next to our campfire, and had a great breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, coffee, and orange juice for only $4 the next morning! Sunday we continued up the coast back towards home, stopping every half-hour or so for a jaunt out to the beach, across a jetty, or into a small town for a home-grown treat, like cheese from the Tillamook Cheese Factory, Tillamook ice cream from a sweet shop in Gearheart, or clam chowder at Bill's Tavern in Cannon Beach. It was actually a great weekend shared with good friends, and the seasickness became the joke of the entire trip — once it was over, of course!


Brendan, Billi, Kelly, and me with sunburned faces at Bill's Tavern, feeling much better after a good night's sleep!

The crackle of the fire; the roar of the sea

One of the best things about living where we do is having fires on the beach at night. We got a visit from a very close friend of ours this weekend, and spent both nights around the fire, with great conversation and delicious fire-grilled teriyaki steak kabobs, all set to the natural soundtrack of crashing waves and crackling flames. Does it get any better than this?






We also had a great time at Cannon Beach showing Shawn the puffins and the haystacks.

old faces, new places

The past few weekends have been pretty low-key for us. We got to hang out with some Taylor friends of ours in Portland a couple of weekends ago, which was great. We got to tour the town from the eyes of locals, and it was really nice to see the familiar faces of people that we share some history with.

Last weekend we went to Long Beach in Washington, which claims to be the longest in the world. It's a beautiful area, and we were virtually alone. . . which is an amazing thing on a huge stretch of sandy beach. It's a breeding habitat for the endangered Western Snowy Plovers, so a lot of the beach is blocked off to preserve their nesting sites.

Almost Famous

Last week, Astoria was transformed into the backdrop for scenes from the upcoming movie, Into the Wild. Based on the book by John Krakauer, the movie tells the true story of Chris McCandless, a college student who left his Georgia home to cross the country and live in the Alaskan interior only to die of starvation a few months after reaching the wilderness outside of Fairbanks. Krakaur, the journalist who originally reported the story for Outdoor magazine, felt that there was more to his death than met the eye, so he wrote the book to uncover the real truth.

Sean Penn (who is directing the film) and Vince Vaughn spent the week in Astoria shooting scenes for the movie. (Vaughn was rumored to have been visited by Jennifer Aniston for a day or two during the shoot. Also, in an unrelated star-sighting, Johnny Depp was supposedly in Seaside, about 20 minutes from Astoria, checking out potential sites for Pirates of the Carribean III.)

Evidently there was a casting call the week before, but I didn't hear about it until afterwards. I could have been an extra!

for the birds

I love the West Coast! We climbed a mountain one day and went to the beach the next!

On Friday, we hiked a rather treacherous trail up Saddle Mountain, about half an hour from Astoria. It was absolutely beautiful, and well worth the life-threatening feats it took to make it to the summit. (I'm exaggerating, Mom...slightly...) From the top, we could see the peaks of all five snow-capped mountains in the region -- St. Helens, Hood, Rainier, Adams, and Jefferson. The trail has a lot of biodiversity, beginning in dense forest and ending in wild-flower covered prairies.

Saturday we went to a number of local beaches on the hunt for a Tufted Puffin. After driving five hours to where we heard they were breeding, we arrived only to find out that abnormally high tides had recently washed away their habitat. We still managed to see some other interesting birds, though, like Common Murres, a Rhinoceros Auklet, and a White-tailed Kite. It was pretty chilly, so no swimming this weekend, but as soon as the weather gets a little warmer, we'll definitely be back.

O, Canada! ...eh?

We spent this past weekend (all 5 days of it) in Vancouver, British Columbia with Kelly's coworker who is from there. We had a great time and did tons of fun stuff, including:

• celebrated Canada Day on Granville Island (The public market is sensory overload!)


• visited the Vancouver Aquarium


• lounged on the city's beaches


• ate amazing food


• went birding at the Reiffel Bird Sanctuary. (We got up close and personal with the resident sandhill cranes!)


• attended free concerts at the weekend's International Jazz Festival


• spent a day at Whistler, where many of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games events will be held. On the way, we drove the breathtaking Sea to Sky Highway, hiked out to Shannon Falls and Brandywine Falls, and ate a delicious Indian dinner in Whistler Village.

We did, of course, make it back to Astoria in time for 4th of July fireworks over the Columbia River.


The mountains of Whistler seen from the Sea to Sky Highway



Us at Shannon Falls

Having a "blast"

Last weekend we trekked out to Mt. St. Helens for a camping/hiking trip with a few of Kelly's coworkers. We hiked an arrid, scrubby trail through the blast zone, and the next day hiked through the lush forests unaffected by the eruption. It was interesting to see the contrasts in the landscape, even 26 years later.

The mountain is smoking again, and rumbles have been heard from within it. Many of the trails are closed to hikers, and warnings were posted for rock and mountian climbers to "climb at your own risk." They are concerned there might be another eruption soon...


See the smoke?


Mt. St. Helens on the right; Mt. Rainier on the left (the small white mound in the distance).

home sweet home.

After two days of fearing we might be living out of our car all summer (not a pleasant proposition given that we have two cats who were NOT happy about being in the car for five days straight), we found an apartment! Though it has elements of living in a basement, it's a pretty decent place. I think the Columbia River view makes up for the circa-1972, honeycomb-patterned indoor/outdoor carpeting.

For the next few months, we can breathe free - we're home.

On the Road

On June 10, 2006, we packed our car, filled our tank, and headed West. All told, we drove almost 1900 miles from Austin, MN to Astoria, OR. Going 85 miles an hour on the "American Autobahn" of I-90, we basked in the vast and barren country of the Great Plains. We faced the setting sun as we drove through the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota, the cattle ranches of Wyoming, the endless skies of Montana and Idaho, and the fog and rain of Washington.

On June 12, we arrived in Astoria, where we will be spending the next four months of our lives . . .


The Montana mountains.


Our first view of the Columbia River.