A Hairy Situation

Many people know that I have been cutting hair for partners and friends for a few years now. I've only recently begun to document my adventures in the art of the 'do. Here are some of my more recent do's (including some rad dye jobs):

 

My first time with facial hair!

                                                                 

 

 

                                                          They both turned out swell!

Ode to a perfect meal

   Have you ever had a meal that captured your imagination and your taste buds at first bite? This was one such meal for me. Myself, Shaun, and Casey scoured the PDX farmers market for some of the most unique ingredients we could afford and brought it all back for a grilled feast. We had Purple Italian artichokes, asparagus, garlic scapes, fiddle head ferns, king oyster mushrooms, heirloom purple garlic and onions, and the infinitely tasty Mitake Mushrooms. The omnivores also ate some sustainably farmed elk meat. Paired with several local wine varieties, this meal was killer. 


Fiddlehead ferns on the left, garlic scapes on the right:

King Oyster, one meaty mushroom:

Mitake (hen of the woods):

  My beautiful plate:

Su Familia es muy grande!

Casey has a very large family. They are all spread across the US and once or twice a year converge on a pre decided location. Lucky for us, this time it was in Seattle! I had met her Mom once before, but this time it was her father's side that was gathering. Myself, she, and her brother Jake carpooled up to one of their Aunt's homes up there. We spent an entire week there, hanging out with them, and they really know how to pack a week full of fun let me tell ya. Her dad put us up in a nice hotel the whole time where he and a few other family members were also staying. It was up early every day to go somewhere and so something. We went to the Seattle Art Glass Museum for the Chihuly exhibit, The Pacific science center to see the King Tut exhibit, The Pikes Place Market, and we went sailing on one of their boats. Pepper all that with meals and gatherings at one of their homes and it was a non stop adventure.

The Glass museum was really cool, they had several other artists exhibiting in addition to Chihuly. Attached to the building was this curiously shaped silver conical structure. Turns out it is a hot glass workshop and auditorium where they have artists come and create bodies of work and let people watch how it's all done.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

The Pacific Science center is like MOSI. They had an awesome butterfly room, and their star exhibit King Tut. This was an amazing sight to see, all these artifacts that were thousands of years old. The craftsmanship and detail to these pieces was simply unbelievable, especially considering the crude tools of the time. We were treated to the audio tour and, despite all looking funny with these earpieces, we all learned alot more than we would have just looking at the signs.

Sailing was awesome. It was my first time on a sailboat and it was one of the most peaceful and enjoyable afternoons we had up there. Weather was perfect, and Me, Casey, and Jake had the whole front 2/4 of the craft to ourselves. We tanned, dipped our toes in the water as the boar turned corners, chatted, and tried to work out the realism and details of buying a boat like that and living on it full time.

The drive back down was great too. We took our time and made a few stops along the way, one of them was a beach that was covered with (dead) sand dollars. We went a little crazy and collected over a hundred of them for craft use later. We also stopped at this cute little garden shop and bought a couple succulent plants.

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Two for one

  This post is also aqua filled, and you get 2 blogs in one, how nifty is that?
Ash and Misha graciously lent their kayaks out to us so we spent an afternoon paddling the Willamette river. The weather was wonderful if not a tad hot. We were out for over 4 hours and let me tell you, we really felt it later that night. We had fun but next time we are going to choose another paddling location because this river was large and had a ton of large boat traffic, most of the day we ended up fighting ocean size waves put off by the speedboats towing skiers. The sunset was a nice touch at the end though.

CLICK HERE FOR PICS



 And the second little crumb of a blog is merely sharing some photos of a trip we took out to our old trusty swim spot for a bbq and crawfish chasing (the river is chock full of them.) The only difference here is that the road was closed preventing us from accessing our actual spot so we improvised and found another cute little swimming hole upriver.

    The drive out:

A watery grave?

 

    Despite the inherent danger of cliff jumping,  no one died the day we visited Moulton Falls up in Washington. Initially we were drawn to the area from reports of 84 degree water temperatures. That, it turned out, was a lie. The water was probably closer to 65 or 70 degrees. In all actuality, on a 100 degree day, it felt really nice. And it was warmer than some of our other would be swim spots where the water is closer to 40 degrees. The standout difference between this and other places we have swum at, had to be the people flinging themselves off of the tallest rocky structures they could find. The topography of this place was somewhat unique, tall rock walls looming over a narrow but deceptively deep green river? stream? creek? Nor really sure what you would call this thing other than super neat. We had a large group of swimmers with us this time, Casey, myself, Sara, Sandra, Shaun, Casey's brother Jake, and his new boyfriend Chris. And the dog. We brought the grill and beverages, camera, an inner-tube, fun noodles, and sunblock. All ingredients in a recipe of fun. We didn't anticipate the challenges that lie before we could even reach the water though. See the bridge above? Parking was up on that level of ground. You are probably thinking stairs to get down right? No. Of course not! All our people and gear had to be carried, passed, carefully navigated, and slid down steep dirt/rock/grass embankments, then hiked even further over and down huge rocks and boulders to get down to the water. Talk about working for your fun. It was worth it though, this place was like a natural waterpark. Upstream there were large rock formations that formed a bunch of private pools. A little further down there was a section of rapids (tiny and waterfall-ish) that we made use of by riding over it in the inner-tube. And if you let the current take you further down you would reach the cliff jumping area. There were various heights from which to choose from: "sissy" *The only one I attempted* to "you must be out of your mind." There was also one I'd call "dead man falling" in the form of a sister (same height) bridge behind where I was taking the above photo. One idiot, i mean, boy jumped off while we were there. Another interesting feature that some of the kids were trying out was this deep hole in the rock at the side of the river that formed a tube straight down into the water. We were told about 10 feet down there was an opening that lead out into the river. We watched for quite some time while some of the more experienced teenagers were teaching another exactly how to "pencil jump" into this narrow, 3' wide pitch black hole. "Just look for the light," they kept saying. He tried several times and gave up. It was pretty freaky to watch them jump into this abyss and emerge halfway out into the stream. A few of the people who tagged along for this swim were quite the adventitious souls, repeatedly jumping off the highest cliff. Not me, I was content to sit back and collect video and photographic evidence of their stupidity.. I mean, bravery LOL.

Here's the video, Make sure you maximize it for full effect after setting the quality to its highest (look on previous posts for instructions), Maximize is the rightmost button on the bottom of the movie window. CLICK HERE

A Pedestrian Pause

 

All that outdoor beauty and fresh air is great and all, but the urban scene here in PDX has some interesting things to offer as well. During the time of the Rose Bowl and Rose Parade there is a noteworthy nocturnal affair called the Starlight Parade. It is two hours long and draws crowds of 250,000 people annually. We got an amazing spot to watch from 3 stories high in a parking garage overlooking the street. It was chilly and windy, and to be honest we didn't dress all that weather appropriately. We still had a great time watching all the twinkling decked out floats and bands pass by. There were so many marching bands I lost count, all with glowing doodads hanging from their outfits and instruments. There were giant inflated character balloons ala the Macy's parades. We also observed much money was made by rolling street vendors selling light up toys, necklaces, and wigs. 

Most of the photos were blurry because my camera is for crap int he dark. Here they are anyways: 

CLICK HERE FOR THE PICS

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Tall Tails

One of Shaun's good friends was up visiting from San Francisco for their Birthday. To celebrate, we all descended upon Ponytail Falls. At only 2.5 miles and a book rating of "easy," we were hoping for a walk in the park. It was. An enjoyable 1 pie experience no one should miss out on. The awesome main attraction to this hike is the fact that you can actually walk behind the waterfall. There is an amazing natural cave that's quite large seated behind the downpour. If you felt like getting the beating of your life, you could even venture out onto the rocks and really experience the falls first hand (this is of course, not recommended.)You can still get pretty wet without being directly underneath, the mist it was pumping out was soaking anyone who stood in the cave for a length of time.  From this distance the falls are deafening. It's hard to describe the sheer volume of water one of these wonders can produce. While it's not the largest waterfall I've seen in person, it's one of only ones I've experienced this close up. Amazing.


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We had our hands full

  

 A picnic, we decided, was the plan. The hike was an ad-on adventure. We got two fabulous healthy meals boxed up from Whole Foods, and drove out to the gorge. We chose the scenic destination of Tripple Falls, a 4.3 mile loop hike, with 740' elevation gain and a rather impressive trifecta waterfall as the focal point. Two food boxes, backpack, and dog leash in hand we set out on this "moderate" hike. Maybe it would have been moderate on any other day when we weren't trying to juggle all our "luggage." It was a very Up-Down kind of hike, the kind where you are going up and down hill repeatedly all while continuing to climb into the sky. Several "what were we thinking"s later and a brush with almost getting very lost, we arrived at the falls. There was a lovely picnic spot across the gorge with the best view of the rushing water and the.... people? Yes, in the photo above you can spot 3 very small people standing treacherously close to the edge of certain doom. Watching them jump over and around the peaks of the falls made for suspenseful, if not amusing, dinner entertainment. I kept envisioning a wrongly placed foot and sudden catastrophe. My camera was poised and ready to capture the events for one of those reality TV shows about stunts gone wrong. But alas, the sun was quickly retreating and it was time head back to the car. I'm gonna assume, by the lack of their faces in the news, that the dare-devil family made it off the rocks unscathed. This hike, if carrying your pies in hand, rated 3 1/2 to 4 pies.

Mirror Mirror on the ground

 

This hike was quite the hidden jewel. Well, not too hidden as there were several groups of people camping around the lake, but it was pretty far out off a moderate (3 pie) trail that we thought might never end. At one point we thought maybe we had found the wrong trail, but soon after that it opened up into a meadow with Mirror Lake at its center. Mirror Lake was a small, calm, clear lake (you could see the fish from yards away) with amazing views of Mount Hood. The water looked so nice to swim in but was FREEZING. The hike up had some nice openings that looked out over a mountain landscape painted gold by a beautiful sunset. Around one side of the lake there was a neat narrow boardwalk traversing over a swampy area. It was cool because it reminded me of some of the swamp areas back in FL. I am excited to go back and check the patches of wild strawberries that should have fruited around now. 

CLICK HERE FOR PICS

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Pleasant Surprise

    *Knock Knock Knock* -Opens door slowly and peers out- "Oh, hi Ash!.....What are you doing here? "Lets go hiking!"she says. Never ones to turn an offer like that that down, we happily obliged throwing on our boots, and grabbing the dog. Fifteen minutes later, Ash and Misha's dog in tow as well, we arrived at Hopkin's demonstration Forest, a 140-acre privately-owned forest open to the public for self-guided exploration, tours, workshops, and education programs. Ash had hiked here a few times before and knew the best trails to take. It was a lovely moderate level (2 pie) hike through some pretty younger woods. This place was created to show how sustainable forestry should be done, as well as to teach people about Oregon's native flora.

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Everybody loves a good hiking blog right?

   I have five posts about new hikes I've done recently. I figure I'll start us off with the most exciting: Mt. St. Helens. Little sister to Mt. Hood on the Portland skyline, this notorious volcano has been a must see destination ever since I moved out west. Our whole household went the 2 hours journey up to see her. Two of the roomies were beginner level hikers so we chose an easy trek (only one pie rating for those who remember the pie system) around a picturesque lake, and did a lot of automobile exploration. We came across an interesting visitor center with a museum dedicated to the volcano and it's history. While we were driving we saw a heard of elk... they ran into a wooded area but I managed to capture a photo of one's rear end. The mountain itself was being unfortunately shy the day we visited. Most of her top was obscured by thick cloud cover but she was magnificent and breathtaking nonetheless. The sheer scope of the landscape was hard to take in. When surrounded by such a large vista I feel infinitely small, and I like it. This is definitely a place I will have to return to many times in the future.


The highlights in a video: 
Just a reminder (this goes for all the videos to follow), make sure your speakers are turned up to hear the music (I spend alot of time choosing music for my vids, I think it adds interest) and also to make sure you load the video in its highest quality by clicking the gear shaped button in the lower right area of the movie and selecting the topmost number. You may need to pause the video to let it load fully before you play it so it doesn't skip or lag.  CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO 

There are many photos that didn't make it into the video:CLICK HERE FOR PICS 

Procrastinators unite.. Tomorrow!

  Welcome back everyone. I've managed to go another 5 months without posting huh? I see a trend emerging LOL. At least this latest batch of blogs will keep you busy for a while.... I've got a whopping 16.. or more posts in store for you, dear readers. "What could she possibly have been doing all this time?" you ask. I'll tell you! I've been hiking, schooling, farming, foraging, making, showing, and selling art, dancing, growing and organizing my already ridiculously huge music collection,  relaxing, doing hair (more on that later,) going vegan with Casey, and traveling ALOT.  I'll be releasing these posts in smaller more manageable batches of 4 at a time, so stay tuned!