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A few pics from Saturday's hike.



The ringbearer (Mike) leads the group just before it crosses over into Mordor.

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I know everyone on my FL who gets real snow will scoff at what we're getting, but I'm a Southern boy. I'm not getting any closer to the Snowpocalypse than my balcony.



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My flight to Mississippi is Monday evening. Currently, just about every flight out of PDX is delayed or canceled. The snow should stop tomorrow, and I have some wiggle room for a delayed flight with a four-hour layover in Vegas.

cascadianrain and I hiked Latourell Falls yesterday. It was a perfect cold weather hike. The skies were blue and the hike was relatively short. Unfortunately the camera battery was low.





There's talk of snowshoeing sometime this winter. Stay tuned for those shenanigans.

Portland from Pittock Mansion with Mount Hood in the background

I met stopword and cascadianrain at Washington Park for an urban hike this morning. Actually, I ran into Mike on the MAX so I didn't feel as bad about being late. Slackery loves company.

We took part of the Wildwood Trail through Washington Park, Forest Park, and Macleay Park, with a short side trip to Pittock Mansion, on a sevenish mile hike to the NW 23rd area. We stopped for beers and food at... a bar that starts with an "L". There was lots of great conversation about the state of the economy, bailouts, the election, and how Portland > Los Angeles. We also kicked around a few ideas for future hikes and camping weekends. Lots of good stuff coming up.

Nine mile run scheduled in the morning, hopefully early enough so I can get back in time to watch the Saints.

Yesterday, solteronita, rekre8, and I hiked Dog Mountain. There is a 2,800 foot elevation change in the 3.8 mile hike to the summit. I'm avoiding stairs today.

We got an early start to the day with solteronita and I leaving Portland at 6:45am. We met rekre8 at the trail head at 8am under cloudy conditions. Fortunately the clouds kept us cool on the ascent and then quickly burned off as we sat at the top. Believe it or not, the Columbia Gorge is under these clouds.



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It was a fun, challenging hike. Today is a recovery day. I'm either going to nap through football games all day, or go see Tell No One this afternoon. Or both.

The first half of today's hike was done in the fog. We expected an escaped lunatic to come running at us with a machete at any moment.



It's an underexposure, but I like how it turned out.

So fricking sore.

...and needs some inspiration.




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I haven't played around with photography much lately. I snapped this one when I showed up early for yesterday's run.




As a follow up to reading What is the What, last night I watched the documentary Lost Boys of Sudan. It was more about Lost Boys who were sent to the U.S. and not so much about the atrocities committed in Sudan. If not for reading WitW, I think the gravity of what was being talked about in the documentary would have been lost on me. There was a chilling moment when some of the Lost Boys were racing in a swimming pool in the U.S., and I couldn't help but overlay that image of these same boys swimming the Gilo River with Ethiopian soldiers shooting at them. I'm fortunate my biggest challenge today is a leisurely run and finding enough tasks to occupy an eight-hour workday.

This was taken on the Tillamook Head hike yesterday. stopword and I took a break on Indian Beach to watch the surfers and get chased by the tide.

Off in the distance is "Terribly Tilly," a lighthouse that was operated from 1881 to 1957. It was bought in the '80s and is currently being used to house cremated remains.

Unfortunately my camera battery died halfway through the hike, and I don't have any pics of the radar bunker built during World War II.

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We also saw a dead seal on the beach. :/

Yesterday the company took us to see the Portland Beavers, the AAA farm team for the San Diego Padres. Not a bad way to start a work week! This was my first time to both a Beaver game and PGE Park. It's a pretty nice stadium. I was impressed.

Since shift tilt focus is my new toy, I'll lead with:



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BTW, our boys won 2-0.