Get the latest photos and ramblings from Corinne, Mike, and Anders living in the Columbia River Gorge.
This is something she's been contemplating for some time, and since her hair has been long for such a long time. This December, she finally did it!
before...
...and after!
Too bad it was an inch too short to donate (10" minimum). Maybe next time.
- Mike (& Corinne)
(the holidays continued...)
Soon it was time to return west and spend a week visiting the other half in Seattle. Although the West Coast is known for its slower pace, at least compared to the East, things tend to move pretty fast in this family.
Mmm, our favorite. Food.
Cousins (no, not that kind.)
A night at the IMAX for "Polar Express 3D". This was just before we discovered that our car stereo had been stolen. (Merry Christmas!)
Our New Year's Eve plans involved relaxing in Lake Washington in Reidar's new boat. ("The deck is teak, you know.") Unfortunately those plans were aborted earlier that day by a sudden loss of rudder control... so instead of Lake Washington, we took to the Washington State Ferry system. Hey, we were still on a boat, right?
She looks perfectly relaxed, doesn't she?
Hey, where's Leif?
- Mike (& Corinne)
Boy, it's hard to believe that we're more than a month into 2005 already. It seems that the holidays get busier every year! With the number of trips and visitors we've had these last couple months, it's no wonder this is our first post since early December! As our neighbor Jeff Lemley recently told us, "I think you guys are secretly running a B&B over there." For now, I'll try to catch us up to New Years.
Let's see... ah yes, Christmas. We're still doing the "split coast holidays" thing, so we spent the week of Christmas in NJ visiting my family.
We helped Drew & Michelle move into their new house. It's a small house - smaller than the apartment they moved from - but hey, they own a house! More than we can say...
Cooked (and ate) a 7-lb Northwest Salmon ordered by Drew from Pike St. Market. (Dad sometimes gets a little carried away...)
Saw an opera at Lincoln Center. The opera, Les Contes d'Hoffman, involved a guy who fell in love with a robot. Seriously.
Visited with some extended family and their enormous pets. Mindy's cat is one of the largest I've ever seen. (BTW: She is an amazing artist.)
And just generally had a good, relaxing time.
Stay tuned for "West Coast New Years"...
- Mike (& Corinne)
Why do the holidays always get so crazy? Since Thanksgiving, we've had lots of long hours and two business trips between the two of us. And of course, the end of my trip overlapped just enough with the beginning of hers - 6 hours - that we missed each other at the airport. Ah well.
Corinne was in Orlando for an AIAA conference and committee meeting, while I was sent to Slidell, Louisiana for a flight exercise. Not as an operator, but just to ensure that the results of those late night coding sessions didn't do bad things to the aircraft. :)
Thought you might enjoy a few photos from my trip.
Inside the Winnebago that acted as our ground control station. Pretty sweet setup.
The outside of "the Winnie". We spent some long hours here. (Luckily, nobody slept here)
The plane, ~1 second before capture. (That's the Skyhook it's about to fly into)
- Mike (& Corinne)
So here it is 3 weeks after Thanksgiving, and no updates? What gives?
No, we didn't die during our long weekend in our small house with guests. In fact, the house didn't seem so small at all; I think that says more about what we think of the other 6 people who stayed with us than it does about the house. :)
My favorite photo from the weekend. :)
Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. The food was all "yummy" (as Corinne would say), and the number of desserts rivaled the number of dishes in the meal, as it should be. Even our kitchen proved to be up to the task, despite its diminutive stature. And in true Northwest fashion, we consumed buckets of coffee throughout the weekend. Huzzah!
Three cooks in the kitchen? Don't worry - the "pot" turned out just fine.
AJ & UP, clearly excited for the meal.
On your mark, get set... Eat!
Carol and Mark brought their two Westies, Fannie and Chloe, with them on the trip. 6 extra people + 2 dogs = no Max. He spent virtually the entire weekend under our bed. He really is a fun, energetic cat. Really he is! By the end of the weekend, I think he was starting to get desperate for attention. He finally started to venture out, but it was too little, too late - if only he had come out earlier, he could have had 8 pairs of hands petting him! He hasn't quite figured that out yet.
Carol & Chloe
We packed quite a bit into a short time - Uncle Pete of course was very excited to get in some fishing, bringing us to his favorite local fishing hole: Drano Lake. No kidding. While we didn't catch anything in our attempts, we had a relaxing time on the beach watching the water (and avoiding stepping on the dead salmon washed up on the shore.) And I learned what a "backlash" was, to Uncle Pete's chagrin. Oops.
I don't think I've mentioned DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) in my posts yet, but it became a big part of the weekend. With a little coaxing, we managed to get everybody up and dancing, even the "adults". By the end of the weekend, everybody was hooked and feeling the groove. It's a pretty good workout, but I still don't think we quite burned off as many calories as we consumed. I guess that's what New Year's resolutions are for, right?
Quite a bit has happened since Thanksgiving, and Christmas is just 2 weeks away! But that's another post...
- Mike (& Corinne)
It's been a while since our last post - we've been pretty busy with visitors, preparations for visitors, and extended "crunch" hours at work. (Before work Wednesday morning, I had already been in the office 30 hours this week.) Hopefully things will slow down a bit in the next few weeks - work should, now that the deadline is met. But time always seems to compress around the holidays...
After much anticipation (and cold evenings), our new propane stove has finally been installed! Now that the early mornings hover around 20F, the stove is a welcome addition and much preferable to the electric baseboard heaters that we relied on before. The stove is from Vermont Castings; even way out here, people stil recognize that New Englanders know how to deal with cold best.
Max is obsessed with the stove. He is smart enough to realize that it is really hot (and therefore shouldn't touch it), but that doesn't stop him from getting as close to it as he can while it is on. On several occasions, he has disappeared only to be discovered underneath the stove. Crazy cat.
Max, enjoying the view (and warmth)!
A few years back we decided to stay home by ourselves for Thanksgiving; it was the first time for either of us. Now it's time to take the next step and host it ourselves. We're hosting 6 family members for Thanksgiving weekend this year, for a total of 8 for dinner. Let's hope we still all like each other after spending a weekend together in the same house!
Happy Thanksgiving!
- Mike (& Corinne)
As one of our astute blog readers recently pointed out (we have readers!), there are some definite benefits to having all of the leaves fall off of the trees at the same time: you only have to rake once! We spent Sunday working outside, raking leaves and planting bulbs for spring.
But with that many leaves, what to do with them? The following exchange is entirely fictional:
City boy: So where do people around here take their yard waste?
Local: Yard waste? You mean them there leaves and sticks and stuff?
CB: Yeah - does the county take them to convert them to mulch or something like that?
L: The county? Why would you give it to them? Are you some kinda big-government Democrat or somethin'? If ya want, I can bring over my wood-chipper and we can shred 'em; or throw 'em out back with the voles; but if you really wanna have fun, just burn it!
After living in New England for many years, it's hard to imagine a fall without brilliant colors. Since the Pacific Northwest is not known for its fall color, we were preparing for a boring fall. So we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the Columbia Gorge has quite a few deciduous trees mixed in with the evergreens. The autumn colors are not quite as impressive as some areas in NE; but on the other hand, we didn't see too much color living in Somerville, while we pass countless forests every day on our drive to work here. Less brilliant, but more often.
One of the nice things about our house is that there are three 100+ year old walnut trees right in front, providing shade from the sun in summer and blocking the house from the road (which is about 75yds away or so.) But now that fall is here, the trees were slowly losing their leaves, leaving the house a bit naked. The leaves have been falling slowly for the last two weeks or so, but the trees were still mostly full. That is, until Thursday...
It has been getting gradually colder; 30F would not be an unusual overnight temp, though it still gets up to 50F during the day. When we awoke Thursday morning, I checked the outdoor thermometer to discover that it had reached its coldest overnight temperature yet - 22F, plenty cold for a hard frost. Looking out the window, you would almost think that it was raining, only the "flakes" were orange and shaped like leaves. When we left the house at 8am for work, Corinne stopped to take a few photos.
Thursday, 8am. The trees are still pretty well populated. (You can see the frost on the field in the background.)
We came home at lunch that day (since we left our packed lunch on the floor next to the door), and were shocked - SHOCKED - at the sight.
Thursday, Noon. Hey - where did all the leaves go?
In approximately 4 hours, all of the leaves fell off. I guess that means winter is around the corner...
- Mike (& Corinne)
So, I guess the Red Sox are no longer the most disappointing team in professional US sports. And it only took 86 years to get there. :)
If you want to talk about surreal, we watched the Red Sox win the final game of this World Series in Spanish (Fox Sports Espanol) in a Mexican restaurant in Hood River, OR. (During breaks in the action, we watched a Spanish soap opera on the other TV in the room.) And of course, there was the lunar eclipse happening right outside the window. It sounds straight out of an X-Files episode; too bad the World Series wasn't as entertaining. I guess the real excitement was in the ALCS.
But as Becky said: I'm just so excited to be a regular baseball team now.
- Mike (& Corinne)
Once a Red Sox fan, always a Red Sox fan. We lived in Boston for an average of 13 years a piece, and during that time it was easy to love the Red Sox. So even though we are now 3,000 miles away, we're still Sox fans. We had a World Series Game 1 party last weekend, and had a dozen or so people from work share the game with us. And of course, the game ended well, which made it even more fun. :)
There's been so much said about the 0-3 ALCS comeback that it's almost not worth mentioning. But now that they are on the opposite side of that score in the World Series - close to winning their first since 1918, in case you hadn't heard that before - I thought I'd share a clever email I received this morning. I am not the originator of the poem and graphic below.
Sunday night, Corinne and I were watching ALCS game 4 (Go Sox!). During a break, I was bringing in a few boxes to unpack, and during one of the trips Max managed to slip past me into the garage. He's always been very interested in the garage; whenever we open the door, he always seems to be right there, ready to run out. Once in a while, he'll get out, but since the outside door to the garage is closed, we're not concerned. In this instance, he was outside for a few minutes before he came back inside, and as he walked down the hallway towards the entertainment room, I noticed something strange. "What's that in his mouth?"
A mouse!1
We were so shocked at the sight that neither of us reacted at first. When it finally sunk in that Max had caught a mouse1 in the garage, we still didn't know if the mouse1 was dead or alive. As far as we knew, he could drop it on the floor at any time and it could scurry around the room/house, bleeding and trailing internal organs behind him. When he did drop it, we quickly discovered that we had nothing to worry about - Max had apparently already "terminated" him. Cleanly, too - not even much bleeding.
"Quick, get the camera!" says Corinne. While I run off to grab out camera, Max continued to play with his catch as if it were a toy mouse (or perhaps that should really be the other way around?), batting it and tossing it into the air. I got a few quick shots, and brought in some paper towels both to help dispose of the creature and help give some contrast to the photos. :) In the process of getting the shot below, I almost ended up getting hit in the face with a dead mouse1 carcass.
Max, with mouse1 in mouth. He's about to toss it into the air (and almost hit me in the face)
We were such the proud parents! We felt bad taking it away from him, since he was having such a good time, but we really didn't want him to eat it and deal with the potential disease/worms issue. I wrapped the poor little dead thing in the towel and tossed it into the field. Maybe the neighbors cats will eat him.
Mouse1, dead.
Max got some extra wet food and attention for that one. I guess we should let him go into the garage more often.
1 Edit: Upon further review, it has been determined that the creature was not a mouse, but was in fact a vole. We apologize for any confusion we may have caused.
- Mike (& Corinne)
This past Saturday, a group organized from work decided to "ventilate our brains on the slopes of Mount Adams". Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. Cold rainy, windy, all of which got worse the higher we climbed. We made it to just below treeline, shortly before 7000'. It all made the dinner we shared afterwards taste that much better.
Just below tree-line on the Mt Adams south face trail. Lovely weather.
Becky and Gordon were here for a week, and we had great fun with them. I love to cook, but there's nothing quite as enjoyable as coming home to a home-cooked, gourmet meal prepared entirely by someone else! Thanks, Gordon!
B&G spent the week hiking around the Gorge, hitting a few of the countless "hikes with waterfalls" in the area. When Thursday came, it was time for all four of us to take off for the coast! We made lodging reservations along the trip, so we had definite goals for each day.
We left Friday morning... well, okay, maybe it was afternoon. But you can't start a trip on an empty stomach after all. By mid-afternoon we made it to Cannon Beach, where we stopped at Clark's Restaurant & Bar for a snack, some free billiards, and a TV on which to watch our coveted Red Sox in the playoffs (which they won). A nice stroll on the beach followed, with some really interesting dynamics when a river (don't remember which one) feeding into the ocean collides with the surf. Water rushes up the river for several minutes, then out, like mini-tides. Cool. But our B&B reservations were in Depoe Bay, another 100 miles down the coast, so we continued on our journey. We stopped at Tillamook Cheese, but unfortunately we missed their business hours by about 20 minutes. No cheese or fudge for us. Corinne was very disappointed. We did manage to stop at another cheese maker, Blue Heron Cheese, where we picked up some supplies for a French-style picnic sometime later that weekend.
Lighthouse Deli - best dang seafood on the OR coast.
We reached our bed & breakfast in Depoe Bay by about 8:30pm; since we had made 9pm dinner reservations at a local seafood restaurant, Tidal Raves, we dropped off our bags and head out to the restaurant. It had been quite a while since we had eaten last, and it was getting late, and we were getting hungry. While waiting for our table at the restaurant, suddenly the restaurant went entirely dark. Looking outside, everyplace was dark. The entire town of Depoe Bay had lost power! We waited for about 15 minutes, hoping power would come back and devising an alternate dinner plan if it didn't. The restaurant decided fairly quickly that it was closing ("what if we only wanted dessert?" we pleaded), so after a few phone calls we determined that the next town south, Newport, still had power. So off we went, with the sole goal of finding food in Newport. We wandered for a while, but eventually ended up at Rogue Brewhouse. It's on these occasions that I wish I enjoyed beer; they had a very large selection of their own brews, including such interesting concoctions as Mocha Porter and Chipotle Ale. We mostly stuck with the food. (Power was out in Depoe Bay for about 2 hours, so it's a good thing we didn't try to wait it out.)
Becky & Corinne at Heceta Lighthouse (not pictured)
Our Saturday schedule included the Oregon Coast Aquarium, many viewpoint stops along the coast, stops at one or more of Oregon's eight historic lighthouses (we ended up stopping at Heceta and Umpqua), a fabulous lunch at the Lighthouse Deli (I'll be ordering some more of their beef jerky - best we've ever had!), reaching our resting point for the night in a yurt in Tugman State Park near Reedsport, 90 miles further south.
A yurt?
Our Yurt
Yurts are cool. Based on a structure built by the Mongolians, they're kinda like a cross between a large tent and a cabin. The best part is that they have beds! Many of the state parks in the PacNW have them as an alternative to traditional campsites; since they are enclosed, they can be used later into the fall/winter seasons when the weather isn't always the best. Very cool.
Sunday we had another 100 miles or so to go to reach Harris Beach State Park and our second yurt, stopping at the Oregon dunes and any place else that struck our fancy: walks on the beach (and in the water, at least for Gordon); a picnic lunch of apples, brie and grapes; and many more viewpoints. We attempted to rent dune buggies, but since we didn't have reservations and had a schedule to keep, they couldn't fit us in. Bummer.
Oregon Dunes. It was a 2 mile hike over the dunes to the ocean. We never did make it.
Gordon in the ocean at sunset
Sunday night was our campfire night - sausages, roasted peppers, s'mores, and roasted chocolate-bananas. I'm still trying to get that smokey odor out of my fleece. :)
Monday was the long travel day - we spent the morning getting to Crescent Bay in Northern California, but then it was time for us to say goodbye to B&G. They would continue for another few days until they reached San Francisco, while we had to return to work on Tuesday morning. After we departed at about 12:30pm, we started our long trek back, heading north through Eugene (where we stopped for lunch), then east through the mountains and all the way up to The Dalles. By the time we got home, it was after 9pm! All in all, a fun trip with good friends! Looking forward to the next time we see them!
- Mike (& Corinne)
You probably all know that both Corinne and I work for The Insitu Group, developers of UAVs. While I won't say too much about the company or what we're currently doing (you can read our website to get the publicly available info), I did want to share a very cool photo take on a recent flight.
Last Friday night, while Reidar and Loren were still in a holding pattern outside the compound, Becky arrived in Portland! She has just finished her PhD thesis, so she and her fiance Gordon are taking a two week, West coast vacation, starting with a week with us in the Gorge. Hurrah! (Gordon had already made other plans in Miami for the weekend, so he wouldn't arrive until late Sunday night.)
Night on the town
After picking Becky up from the airport, we decided to head into Hood River to listen to Django's Cadillac, a local band. We first heard Kerry Williams, one of the members of Django, performing with The Cascade Trio at the Huckleberry Festival a few weeks ago. We liked the Trio so much that we actually came back the following day specifically to hear one of the Trio members perform a set as part of a different duo. We then saw Kerry at another performance - this time a kid's concert with Victor Johnson, another Django member. (We were literally the only people at the concert who didn't have kids with them.) Through this circuitous route, we discovered Django. Anyway, the sound at Dog River Coffee Company wasn't that great, but we still enjoyed the music - and the company. Thankfully, Max returned soon enough in the evening so that we could all relax together after the day's stress.
We all crashed at our place that night - no problem sleeping 6 in our house (as long as somebody sleeps on the floor, or several people are "cozy"); the following morning, we shared my famous scrambled egg breakfast before Reidar, Loren and Leif had to head back to Seattle.
Breakfast at home
Walk on Condit Dam
The rest of Saturday was spent doing nothing in particular. On Sunday, we decided to chose a hike from the "Curious Gorge - 50 Ways to Leave Hood River" local guidebook. Condit Dam is a controversial old dam on the White Salmon River. Built in 1913 as one of the first power generators in the area, the dam now supplies only about 0.1% of the power for the area - most comes from Bonneville Dam on the Columbia. The controversy comes from the proposed removal of the dam, which would allow salmon to migrate upstream again, but would eliminate Northwestern Lake which is currently created by the dam.
Anyway, the dam provides a very interesting hike/walk along the top of the large, wooden pipe which transports water from the dam to the generating station about 1 mile away.
Walk along Condit Dam. You can see the pipe behind and below us. Beautiful weather. It was really just a walk, not a hike, but unlike any we've done before.
- Mike (& Corinne)
We've been here now for over 2 months, and in that time we've had quite a few visitors. Time to play a bit of "catch-up" here...
Way back in mid-July, Donna and her good friend Pam were gracious enough to offer us a ride from Seattle (where we flew) to our new home in Husum. Since our big-rig full of stuff wouldn't arrive for at least another week, it was a bit difficult for us to properly play host. But they do have the honor of being our first official, out-of-town guests. And they brought some basic cooking/sleeping equipment borrowed from Carol, to help us not go crazy sleeping on the floor and eating take-out. Thanks! :)
Donna & Pam, enjoying the drive from the back seat. (The best way from Seattle to The Gorge is via the "east" route - I-90 East to Rt97 South. Avoids I-5 traffic.) We even saw a bear about 100feet or so from the road!
Donna made another trip down in mid-August, this time with cousin Carol and her newly acquired Westie, Chloe. Despite being incredibly antsy and not quite understanding where it's appropriate to "do your business" - the back window of the car is definite no - Chloe made the weekend more interesting, especially for Max. His first close encounter with a dog went fine. Our short drive around the Hood River Fruit Loop was enjoyable and relaxing; the fruit is so incredibly fresh (though the farm-bought Gravenstein apple pie was disappointing.)
Donna & Chloe. If you hold her out far enough in front of you, she can't get any leverage to squirm.
Carol & Chloe, after a walk in the early evening sun.
It would be another month+ before we received our next visitors, Reidar and Loren. While no particular activities were planned for their visit, some "unplanned" excitement did take place (see previous post). During the long waiting periods, they spent some good quality time climbing trees and just relaxing in the sun. The unanticipated events caused them to stay another day, so it wasn't all bad. :)
Leif, Reidar, Corinne & Loren, just after R & L arrived via train. (BTW: I'm not counting Leif as a "visitor" because he lives just a few miles away, not to mention the fact that we see him every day at work. But that doesn't mean we don't love him anyway.)
Loren, hanging in one of the amazing walnut trees next to our house. (He spent very little time on this trip working on his Clevermill projects, which was unusual. Perhaps it was the lack of broadband...)
Reidar & Loren, waiting for Godot. Or maybe it was Max. Or perhaps Guffman, I can't remember.
We love visitors! Come visit us!
- Mike (& Corinne)
Let me start off by saying that you likely have as much information (or more) about Mount St. Helens as we do. As we all know, Mount St. Helens "erupted" this weekend, throwing steam and some ash into the air; latest indications are that similar eruptions - possibly with magma - will continue for a few days. We're about 50-60 miles southeast of the volcano, so we're well beyond the range that would affect us in any way. As long as there isn't a large-scale eruption on the order of the one in 1980, there's little likelihood that we'll even know about it except by watching TV. If it's a big eruption, it's possible we'll be able to hear it. Oh, and although one news story mentioned that there is a "very small probability" that some downstream communities may be impacted if large amounts of ash are spewn, we are not a downstream community from Mount St. Helens - we're too far east of the mountain, on the other side of the Cascades. So no worries there, either.
But there was an event this weekend that was even more disruptive than Mount St. Helens: Max, our indoor-only cat, was outdoors for ~11 hours!
He escaped Friday morning at ~9am through a window inadvertently left open by a visitor (who shall remain nameless... for now) Since Corinne and I were at work, we didn't even know what had happened until 2.5 hours later. We rushed home to help in the retrieval activities, which were elaborate and totally ineffective. Here's a breakdown of the actions of both parties:
This is what it looks like around here all the time... :) Actually, this was taken 3 weeks ago from our deck at about 7:30am. We've seen a number of others in the area as well - the early morning fog must create the perfect conditions. We've even seen a solid double rainbow (though I still prefer the ice cream.)
