Fall Hikes #2

"Hike" #2 isn't nearly as dramatic.

I got us into a conference in Vancouver, WA, across the river from Portland.

By "us", I mean my two employees from the Online Tutoring program, who worked for me over the spring and summer before I left the program. We presented on the realities and lovely bits of starting the program. It was fun.

We had to drive to the conference and stay overnight in a hotel.
Kimmy and Savvy are pretty much game for anything. Since the first evening had a mixer, they dressed nicely for the meet-and-greet. See? Don't they look nice?

Heh.

As we drove along the beautiful Columbia Gorge, I said "Hey, wanna pull off at Multnomah Falls?"

 "Sure." Neither had been to Vancouver, or to an education conference.

We pulled off and I said, "Oh, look. Isn't that beautiful? Let's go get a picture!"

Off we went with our cameras.

The lower falls, visible from the welcome center

Can you see the bridge in that upper photograph? I said "Oh, this sign says it's only .2 miles to the bridge. Would you mind?"  

Heck yeah, they'd love to go take pictures from the bridge. 

Pretty, right? 

Our best goofy smiles

Those kids are such suckers. Wait until I spring this on them...

This is looking up from the bridge. 

Yesssss

"Hey you guys, it's only .8 more miles to the top. Wanna go?"

I got "the look". The one that says I want to say no but I'm afraid of the consequence.  Kimmy used to work in my office and Savvy was my student and both have worked for me in the past. 

And I had the keys to the car. 

Victory.  

And up we went. There were helpful signs along the way. "Switchback 1 of 11" "3/4 mile" and my favorite "1.5 miles". 

"Wait, did that say 1.5 miles?" Kimmy was in a cute tunic and Savvy was wearing boots.  Both were lathered and sweaty.  I was wearing, oddly and so fortunately enough, hiking pants. 

A couple of men walked by on their way down. "You're almost there!" they said encouragingly.  We exchanged knowing smiles. 

It was .8 miles straight up to the top. It's longer when you add in all the criss crossing you have to do to get up that mountain. 

We were passed by a four year old girl and her dad and an elderly Asian lady. 

Respect. 

But we made it to the top. 

Top of the falls, looking down. 

Can you see that speck that is the bridge?

This is a little feeder pool to the falls

Nice view! 

They squirmed when I wanted their picture.  Savvy, on the far right, is ready to push me off the top.

I'm feeling very smug.

 On the way down, we passed several people.  Savvy kept saying "You're almost there!" to encourage others.

The following are shots I edited to make the light look different and more appealing. I like them, but I also like unedited stuff too.

 There is a nice conclusion to this.  Kimmy and Savvy got bragging rights at the conference, telling our other presenters and students from the university that I dragged them up a mountain. They were pretty stoked, after it was over. And we even went on a little nature hike during the conference since the campus is something like 20 acres and the day was fair.

Bonus: Since I'd had to break our date last Friday and spent this Friday driving to a conference, I had been thinking of ways to inject a little extra sunshine into Gs life.  He's not resentful or mopey or anything like that. In fact, he probably never felt bad at all about my poor time management.  But I did.

VooDoo Donut.

These are the best donuts in the world, if you ask my husband. And the only place we've had them is in Portland.  Which is across the river from Vancouver. And we'd only been there once.

Hmm.

The other people from our university drove separately, and fortunately, one of our party loves to travel with her husband. And he had the day off while we did our presentations.

HMM.

Was he going into Portland? Yes. Was he maybe going by VooDoo? He could.

Here's what happened:

They line up around the block for this place.  And he did wait the hour and 15 minutes, buying doughnuts for all 11 people in our group. That is a nice, nice man.

SWEET!

So at 10:30 p.m., having dropped off my exhausted kids, I dragged myself home with the biggest smile and a pink doughnut box of love to a man I'm lucky to get to come home to.