Monday, March 23, 2015

Portland

This was a last-minute trip, as Greg and Alyssa both found out the week before that they had off on Monday for Presidents Day, so it was a great opportunity for it. We took the train up and flew back down. The train ride was nice, especially in the second part of the trip when we went by the mountains.

The city was designed very well, and for the most part felt clean and new. Public transit was easy to follow, and most of the buildings were designed in a creative way. This is one building that was mostly glass, with metal rods going up the sides for vines to crawl up.



One popular spot in the city is a place called Voodoo doughnuts. You have to wait on a long line to get in, and their doughnuts are fun and wacky. For example - they have a maple bacon doughnut, and a few that were covered with oreos or cereals like fruit loops and cocoa pebbles. They even had a few vegan ones, which were delicious.



We spent a day hiking by Multnomah Falls, a beautiful (and very tall) waterfall right outside of Portland. 








One night while we were there we saw Wild, which if you haven't seen it yet is about a woman who hikes the Pacific Crest Trail, starting out in southern California and ending in Portland at the Bridge of the Gods. We had no idea that she ended at that location, but the next day while we were driving we found that very spot, the Bridge of the Gods.


Our last night we went to a bar called The Whiskey Library, which specialized in Scotch and Whiskey. That entire back wall is filled with their collection. 









Thursday, January 22, 2015

Mount Diablo State Park

Hey guys! It's been awhile since I updated, so I thought I'd share some photos from Mount Diablo State Park, where we spent our MLK day. The park has lots of giant rocks and caves to climb and explore. The rocks are made out of a soft, porous material so they're easy to carve into. Because of this a few rocks had foot holds and hand holds carved in for climbing.



My favorite message carved into a rock.





This was me scaling one of the rocks to get to the top. It was in a part of the park called Rock City, and there were many boulders set up like this.




This was the tallest point we could climb to. It had a nice view, and was also the only rock with rails on it.






There was a great summit at the park that we drove to, which had a view of the park and the nearby city as well.