Lindsay got a job studying sea birds in Mexico on the Pacific Coast for a year so we drove down to Corvallis to say goodbye to her temporarily with a party at Scott and Danielle's. It was a great party and we also got to see Garrett and Cassie who were visiting with their new adorable son Felix. After Garrett's defense they had moved to Vermont to live. Cassie still works for QSI so she was in town for a work meeting. Great to see them, sad to say goodby to Lindsay, and great to totally beat the shit out of a piñata of Donald Trump that Scott made :)
This weekend Emily I decided to not lose any more time of the summer due to the lawsuit and decided to venture out of cell phone reach of the lawyers to do a hike around the north side of Mount Hood with Leo. We decided on an out and back from the Top Spur Trailhead to Elk Cove for the night. Read on...
With the lawsuit in full swing against us and a lot of stress in my life Emily and I decided we needed to get out of the house with Leo so we headed to the dog park at the Sandy River Delta to take Leo for a long walk. I had literally been living at home ready to answer any needs the lawyers had for a while and I needed to get out. We walked far out onto the delta and actually waded out through some shallow water to an island on the Columbia River. Leo of course had a great time and Emily was as supportive as ever for me. Both her and her parents realized what I couldn't at the time - the lawsuit was a bunch of horse shit and would eventually go away. The night before was a low point in my life but thankfully my friends and future co-workers were incredibly supportive of me and I felt better about things in the morning.
This week Kevin and Alexa made it back to Oregon for Kevin's PhD defense and everyone was super excited to see them and Ronan. When they got to Portland they stayed with us for a night before heading down to Corvallis. Their visit was right in the middle of the ugly QSI lawsuit against us which was super unfortunate but it didn't stop us from having a good time with them and our friends in Corvallis who still work for that horrid company. Read on
Today Emily and I decided to float the Sandy River from Oxbow Park to the Lewis and Clark State Park on the Columbia. I guess the entire 7.5 mile float would take about 5 hours and with us getting to Oxbow at 2pm I new it would be cutting it close to float the river and then drive back to Oxbow to pick up the other Prius by the 8:40 sunset gate closure. The water was super low and very slow. We barely felt like we were moving at all! It was a beautiful day though and we saw lots of wildlife including eagles, tons of ospreys fishing, a deer and plenty of ducks.
When we passed Dabney Park at around 7 I new we still had about an hour and half left so I needed to speed things up. This involved me pushing Emily along on the inflatable mattress she was riding, running my feet along the river bottom to keep us moving in the slow current, as well as kicking and breast-stroke kicking us along the way. It was exhausting and I got very tired, and… very chaffed. When we got to the takeout it was 8:25pm and I sprinted to get the Prius and raced down the road to Oxbow Park. We got to the park at 8:50pm and thankfully, they let us in to get the car which also thankfully didn’t have a citation! I think next time we’ll plan a full 8 hour day for this float to play it safe!
Lindsay got a job studying sea birds in Mexico on the Pacific Coast for a year so we drove down to Corvallis to say goodbye to her temporarily with a party at Scott and Danielle's. It was a great party and we also got to see Garrett and Cassie who were visiting with their new adorable son Felix. After Garrett's defense they had moved to Vermont to live. Cassie still works for QSI so she was in town for a work meeting. Great to see them, sad to say goodby to Lindsay, and great to totally beat the shit out of a piñata of Donald Trump that Scott made :)
