Matt & Sarah Visit

This past week Matt and Sarah came to visit for a long weekend.  I hadn't seen him since 2009 when he came out to visit and attempt Mt. Washington with me.  This time Sarah had the time off to also come along and see Oregon.  They came in on Wednesday night and I reserved a room at the McMenamin's Edgefield to surprise them after the long flight with a relaxing soak in the spa and a few good beers before bed.  The following day we got a weird (but huge) breakfast at the Cameo Cafe in Vancouver, WA, then visited the Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mt. St. Helens and hiked Latourel Falls in the Columbia Gorge before returning to Corvallis for some beer variety and Woodstocks Pizza. Friday we hung out downtown, checking out my office and enjoying some Gelato and had a bbq at our place that evening followed by watching the Hangover which neither had seen yet. On Saturday we drove up the coast from Newport after stopping to get some Dungenous Crab for Matt and Sarah to try.  We then stopped at Pacific City for dinner and did a short hike around Cape Meares.  Getting a hotel room was a disaster as the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn express made us go back and forth 4 times before finally giving us a room.  This was at 1am after a couple of relaxing drinks at Kell's Irish Pub in downtown Portland.  Matt was either sick or had a reaction to the crab (later found out he was sick).  On Sunday morning we woke up early and brought them to the airport where they missed their connection in Texas and had to drive 5 hours to get Sarah to work on time on Monday - Hopefully the fun trip was worth the cold and all the effort of traveling here!  Check out the great Pano I got of Mt. St. Helens after the clouds finally lifted from it by clicking the read more link.
Taken from an overlook on the highway to Johnston Ridge Obervatory.