Wednesday, August 27, 2008

photo shoot

So, perhaps I exaggerated a bit, because apparently the photo shoot wasn't a total disaster. Despite the kicking, screaming, and general crabbiness, the photographer managed to get a fair amount of good pictures of little Miss Sadie Rain.



He captured quite a range of expressions, I think...


Funny that this one ended up being one of our favorites; it was taken right after she flung herself down on the floor, full-on tantrum style:


And this one couldn't be more fitting for our sweet little thumbsucker:


All in all, a good snapshot of Sadie at 18 months...

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Monday, August 25, 2008

road trip, the fifth and final installment

It's been too long. I need to conclude this drawn-out saga before we embark on our next road trip---which just happens to be this Friday---and get buried under an even bigger pile of pictures and stories.

So where were we? The 4th of July, Missoula-style. Let me just say it didn't disappoint. There were meat smokers and wine pulleys, jello shots and monkeyballs, but oddly enough no fireworks. No matter. We had an epic time getting rowdy in Kevin's backyard:






The next day, we packed up our stuff at a comfortable hour and hit the road westward...in Butterball. We were feeling lucky, I guess, especially with Ken & Shawn at our backs. So we set out for Oregon, planning to camp at the best available spot before dark. We found a sparse and surprisingly unpopulated campsite on the banks of the Columbia River, a mere 4 hours from home. We were in the clear! The next day, seemingly invincible to a breakdown, we even found time to visit Stonehenge and a Columbia Valley winery:




Did you know there was an actual-size replica of Stonehenge in Washington, built to the exacting specifications of the original? Yeah, neither did we.

All in all, it was quite a trip---eight days of cavorting and caravaning around the northwest with a great group of peeps. I could have lasted eight more. We were in no hurry to get home, despite the fact that our engine could bust up into a churning mess of metal at any moment. But it never did. Butterball made Bend, albeit noisily. As of this writing, she's in the shop for a rebuild and that four figures worth of work I declined in Montana. Oh well, she earned it.

Next up? The Fuckaroos 5.5 crew (PAWS UP!!) reunites in Joseph, OR this Friday for Labor Day weekend. I'm pretty sure Joseph's not ready for this...

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

jah, mon

Reggae baby gots da dub beat:

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

road trip, part 4

I realize I left you all hanging, loyal readers. My apologies. But we obviously made it back from Montana, right? The question is: how?

Volkswagens may be a headache from time to time, but damn if they're not persistent. After our whirlwind tour of Glacier, we decided there was nothing to do but drive. We had AAA. We had a car full of friends following us. We had determination and all the time in the world to slowly coax Butterball back to Missoula. And she didn't let us down. That is, until we got the news from the VW mechanic that the problem was not a valve, or something in the drive train, but rather a head or a rod deep, deep within the engine compartment. Meaning: drop the engine. Disassemble. Rebuild. And 5 days and $1500 later, we could return to Bend.

Needless to say, this didn't fit our vacation plans nicely. The mechanic suggested we rent a car and have Butterball towed back to Oregon on a flatbed, so we could deal with the issue on home turf. That didn't sound ideal either. We decided to deliberate the issue over the weekend and enjoy the Fourth of July instead.

Missoula is a great town in that it has an outdoorsy, quaint, small-town feel without the pretentiousness of Boulder or Bend. It's all blue collars, cowboys, and hippies (oh---and Kevin, too). On Thursday, we hit the riverside park for the weekly food & music fest:

... and rode the historic carousel:


... and abandoned shopping carts:

... and even managed to check out the local bars that night while Reid & Ken babysat:


Quite a day, considering we had just left Glacier at 10:00 that morning.

Coming in the next installment: the Chillable flows in abundance on the Fourth!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

south sister

For the past two years, Sibila and I have talked about organizing a girls' South Sister climb. South Sister is one of a group of three volcanoes (the Three Sisters, appropriately) just 20 miles west of Bend. At 10,358', it's the third highest peak in Oregon and, though considered dormant, has recently shown "swelling" in the past few years which geologists speculate is caused by seismic activity at its core. So, we figured we'd better climb it before it erupts, right?

When the opportunity finally presented itself last weekend, our group consisted of merely three: myself, Sibila, and Leah. The weather forecast looked good, and we hit the trail at 6:30 am, planning to summit well before noon. What we encountered at the top could only be described as nasty: windy, cold, and sleeting, with visibility of about 20 yards. This video was taken at the saddle, approximately one hour from the summit. And it just got nastier from there...



Needless to say, we didn't enjoy 360 views or a picnic lunch in the sun once we arrived. Still, it was well worth the effort and felt good to push my physical limits again...it's been 8 years since my last Colorado 14'er. Anyway, here we are at the summit crater, which given the weather may as well have been a frozen lake somewhere in Antarctica:

Had it been a clear day, we would have seen this, instead:

Oh well. Maybe we'll get a view when we climb Middle Sister NEXT summer...

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

my advice to new parents

DO NOT, under any circumstances, take an 18-month-old for a "professional" portrait session.

Unless, of course, you would like to wrestle a tantruming toddler for 45 minutes, hoping to get them to stand still for two seconds, three wardrobe changes, and one---just one, please---smile. Yeah, it was THAT fun.

In retrospect, 6 months would have been the ideal age for a photo shoot: they can sit up unassisted, perhaps crawl and roll around a bit but are by no means mobile, and are easily amused by rattles and squeaky toys. Ahh, the good old days!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

postcard


Here's one pic I stole from Shawn, taken on the east side of Glacier near St. Mary. More to come soon, hopefully!

Monday, August 04, 2008

road trip, part 3

In case you were wondering what happened on the rest of our Montana road trip, I'll tell you now: the bus broke down and our camera died.

There, I said it.

I've been debating how to follow up on this part of the story without any pictures to document it, so I'll do my best to recollect from memory...

When we last left our protagonists, they had just settled into comfy digs on the outskirts of Glacier National Park. There was wine to drink and stories to tell, and a general excited anticipation to explore the park in the morning. So we woke at a reasonable hour, ate a substantial breakfast, and piled into our vehicles. We were unsure of how best to fit 5 adults and 1 baby plus a gigantic carseat into either Butterball or a Honda station wagon, so we settled on both. The idea of cruising around Glacier in separate rides was a bit disappointing, so we vowed to stop often and switch up passengers for maximum enjoyment.

For those of you who don't know much about Glacier (and I highly recommend checking it out), the park's main "attraction" is Going-To-The-Sun Road, a 50-mile winding road that courses from the east side to the west side, and every peak in between. The word 'breathtaking' does not even do it justice. Let's just say that the word 'wow' came out of our collective mouths hundreds of times in a few short hours.

We began at West Glacier, and had barely gone a mile when the sight of beautiful Lake McDonald inspired us to stop for a closer look and some photographs.

Well, it's not a great picture of Lake McDonald, but it's the last one you'll see with Butterball in it, because this is officially as far as she made it through Glacier National Park. About half a mile later, we pulled into a rest area to use the facilities and simultaneously relieved her of her duties, too.

What I didn't tell you is where the bus troubles first began, way back on Day 3 in Missoula. At some point on Lolo Pass we had taken a diversion down a washboard dirt road which, apparently, had loosened some bolts in ol' Butterball's gullet. The sounds she was making as we limped into Kevin's driveway could only be classified as "not good". Nevertheless, we proclaimed it to be an innocent "knocking" and hoped some super high octane (barely street legal, it said!) fuel cleaner could sort it out. And we crossed our fingers and drove, and made it to Glacier, and most likely would have made it over Going-To-The-Sun Road and back again if some jerkoff walking by had not said, "woah. that's a valve. you should NOT take that over the pass." So what do you do in that situation? Risk it? You don't want to break down on a 1.5-lane road with no shoulder and 100-foot cliffs on either side. No! You pile into the Honda accord wagon and make your gracious host sit in the trunk for the whole day, that's what you do!


Yes, that's his Cavaliers hat in the background. And yes, he had been to Glacier twice before so we didn't feel as bad giving him the bum view. And yes---in the long run, we couldn't have been happier it turned out that way, because it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun in two cars. (Besides, I think he sort of liked being Trunk Monkey.) And finally: yes, that is the last picture taken in gorgeous, ultra-scenic Glacier National Park before our camera battery died.

On the bright side, if your camera is going to die on an epic journey such as this one, it may as well happen when your good friend the professional photographer is in the car with you. Because Shawn had not one, not two, but THREE cameras with her! So when she gets the thousands of photos from the trip organized, I will be sure to share some of them here. In the meantime, I won't try to describe in words what we saw, other than: we saw a Grizzly with three cubs! and a grey wolf! and a black bear from about 20 yards away, right outside the bar where we were having a beer! Kevin said it was the most wildlife he'd seen in all his years in Montana, and we all agreed it was one hell of a trip.

To be continued...