Tomorrow is my dad's 60th Birthday!

This is me and my dad. He is awesome and almost 60 (7 more hours his time). Happy Birthday!


Here is his b-day post.

Silhouetted Seagulls

I enjoy watching birds in flight. Probably a throwback to childhood fantasies of wanting to fly mixed with the adult realizations that my home-made wings would melt and leave me mangled in a heap right where I started from anyway.

New Camera Lens

I got a new lens for my D40. I got the 55-200mm zoom with vibration reduction. I only had a little time yesterday, but here are a couple of photos.


It was a really nice day yesterday - cold, but sunny. All of the mountains were out. From Council Crest Park, I could see Mt. Hood (photo below), Mt. Adams, St. Helens and just a bit of Mt. Rainier.

My Favorite Utah Photo

So if you were here yesterday, then my photos might have been missing from the earlier posts, but I think I've fixed everything I messed up. So to make up for it, here is my favorite foto from the trip. It was taken at Zion National Park looking out from the top of the Hidden Canyon Trail. Enjoy.

Utah - Part 4

OK, I know you've all been waiting to find out my favorite National Park in Utah and perhaps in the country at this point. The park is Zion National Park. The place is amazing and we'll go back just hike...and I don't hike.

We even hiked in the Virgin River a little way up the Narrows.

Utah - Part 3

From Moab, we headed south to get to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We passed by Monument Valley in full moon light that was so bright you could make out features on the towers - it was like muted daylight and gorgeous. We split up the drive to the GC by staying a night in Kayenta, AZ and then drove up to the North Rim from there. Here is Kim, the Grand Canyon and the San Francisco Peaks in the far background. The sun was really bright.

We stayed a night at a campground just outside of the National Park and had our first really cold night. The water bottles froze and frost covered everything. So we split back to Utah and went to Bryce Canyon to see the crazy HooDoos Every new park we went to was more impressive than the last and each is so unique.

The other thing to consider is that the little newspaper style guide you get at the park entrance that has all of the main hiking trails, is written for the "average" tourist that would visit the park. Some of the recommendations the park service makes about time to hike, footwear reguired and other info is aimed (potentially) at the people in the parking lot standing around you.

The hiking is fantastic and the thing that was the hardest for me was the difference in elevations between Portland and everywhere else we went.

I'm going to save my favorite park for the next Utah post - stay tuned.

Utah - Part 2

Welcome to Utah...again. So the last post was sort of a quick overview of most of the trip. The beginning starts at a climbing area called Joe's Valley. It is in coal mining country and very close to the mine where the miners lost their lives recently. They also pump natural gas here as well.

We only climbed here a little bit and then decided to leave for Moab, because Kim really wanted to go to Arches National Park to see Delicate Arch. We rolled into Moab on a Saturday and went to Arches first thing. We walked out to Landscape Arch to get a feel for the park and because it will most likely not be an arch for much longer.

The hike out to Delicate Arch was really hot, takes about 45 minutes, and it was surprising how many people didn't have water with them. Arches is a beautiful park and worth the visit to Moab, but pay attention to the weather. After taking in the view at Delicate we headed back towards the car and off in the distance it was clearly raining. And rain in the desert means flash floods. Half way back to the car we started getting sprinkles and people were still heading out to the arch with no water, across a wide and exposed expanse of sandstone slabs. Crazy.

I said earlier that we rolled into Moab on a Saturday. Well never do that unless you either have hotel reservations or you don't mind staying at the RV park. It also rained and rained hard for the next several hours - which all of the locals working at Pasta Jay's wanted to go outside and watch. Coming from Portland we were impressed by the ferocity of the run off, but not by the rain itself.

Utah - Part 1

So, I got married 2 months ago today. And for our honeymoon, Kim and I went to Utah. When you tell people that they always seem so dissapointed for you, like, "You didn't go to a resort?" That resort link is to bouldering in Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands and if someone wants to pay for us to go, we accept.

No and yes - we spent most of our time sleeping in the truck, checking out national parks and when we needed showers we would get a hotel room, RV site, and we even stayed at a spa/resort our last couple of nights in St. George, UT.

The worst part about driving to Utah is getting through Idaho. We did drive past the Ore-Ida plant and had a fantastic sunset. We spent the first few days outside Castledale, where the Food Ranch is King, in the area around Joe's Valley Reservior, but that wil be Part 2.

Flat Tire Blues

This is a true story that must have started sometime Saturday night. My friend Mindy picked Kim and I up Sunday around 2pm to go out and go climbing. When we went out I noticed that my passenger front tire was totally flat, sitting on the rim. So, you know, I was like, "that sucks, but I'll take care of it Monday morning." I thought I had a nail or screw stuck in it and would be able to take it up tp the Les Schwab and they would plug it and I would be done.

But NO - some jackass stuck a knife through the sidewall. Lucky for me the Les Schwab folks are awesome and came out and put my spare on for me. My truck has a lift with 32" tires and so my little bottle jack wasn't enough to get it off the ground for me to change myself.

After the Schwab guy left, it then took me 4 hours and 2 Les Schwabs later to get a matching replacement tire that cost me $220.00. That was my Monday Morning Flat Tire Blues and I've been recovering from that until now.

The picture is my truck parked next to the U.M.W.A. boulder along Cottonwood Canyon Rd. in the Joe's Valley area of Utah, just outside of Castledale and some cows (all open range land). I was to distraught to remember to take a picture of my poor flat tire.

Day Trip to Astoria via Cannon Beach

My lovely wife, Kim, and I decided to drive to Astoria yesterday. We went for the purpose of visitiing the Lunar Boy Gallery because they were doing a themed group show on El Dia De Los Muertos and we are both fans. It is a good thing we went by way of Cannon Beach first and got to enjoy a very nice day at the beach, other wise we would have driven a long way to see just a few things at Lunar Boy.

But it was a great day for a drive and it was even sunny at the beach.

We had a lite lunch at Bill's Tavern in Cannon Beach which has tasty food and their own micro brews - next time I'll probably just have a Guinness. The pub is very nice and the food is good, so we stop there every time we're down that way. After Bill's we drove on up to Astoria, home of several movies - the most famous being Goonies.

Lunar Boy is a very cool little gallery that reminds me of some of the hip galleries here in Portland like Compound Gallery at Just Be Toys.

After we got back in town, Kim and I went and had a drink at a newer place, Thatch which is a Tiki bar on NE Broadway. Pretty cool place if you like the Tiki Bar theme. I especially liked the puffer fish lamps.

Willamette River

I live near the Willamette River and the river front greenway trail is a major portion of my ride to and from work, certain bars, and fantastic views. I took this photo the other night just after sunset when the weather was still nice. I call it "A Long Walk Home".

Which came first?

The misery or the pop music? Rob Gordon (John Cusack) from 'High Fidelity' says it best:

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

And I feel that sums it up. It has been nice here in Portland, OR for the last couple of weeks, but today the rain is going to start again and it could very well rain until June. Talk about misery.

But the goal with this blog is not to espouse so much about misery and rain, but the place I live - Portland, and the places I go - work, bouldering, traveling, hanging with friends and river hiking (more on that later).

So that's it for now.

Spencer out