Convenient Conference Location: PDX

As far as I can tell, it is standard practice for conference travel to nice locations to tack a few extra days onto the end and make a vacation out of it. A few weekends ago, our friend Ariana was in town for a conference so she brought Marc and spent a few days visiting us. Amusingly, the last time they were in Portland was for our wedding.

Cheers! Dinner with Marc and Ariana at Russell Street BBQ.

We had a nice weekend visiting the Maritime Museum on the steamship Portland, walking along the waterfront, eating at yummy restaurants, and shopping at Saturday Market and Powell’s. Sadly we don’t have quite so many vacation days as we did in Europe so we couldn’t take Monday off and go with them to Multnomah Falls and the Japanese Gardens. At this point, they’re better versed in the essential Portland activities than we are!

When it rains apples, it pours apple sauce

Our new house has a rather large apple tree, which has been exceedingly productive. We can’t keep up with eating all of the apples and they make a huge mess in the yard so in a fit of desperation, we started giving them away. Of course, it turns out that canning is a local Portland hobby so it was easy to pawn them off. What we weren’t expecting was the generous apple sauce karma! Now we have several quarts from several chefs to try out. Amusingly, all the the jars were delivered in the same week, thus when it rains apples, it pours apple sauce!

Smith Rock

For Labor Day weekend, I met up with friends from Idaho and California at Smith Rock State Park in Eastern Oregon for a climbing and hiking extravaganza. Smith Rock is about 2.5 hours from Portland (in good traffic) and is in the glorious desert so I got a lovely break from the oppressive humidity of the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. After all, I’m a desert dweller at heart.

Nancy climbing with her trusty friend and belayer, Jessica.

We camped at Skull Hollow campground, which, although fairly rugged, is much less grim than it sounds. We climbed Saturday on Koala Rock and Sunday on The Dihedrals. By the end of the second day our arms and toes were worn out and we were grateful for some huckleberry ice cream before the drive back to Portland.

Luke showing us how it’s done with a view of Mount Jefferson in the background.

While we climbed, Hendrik and the hikers were circling the 7.5 mile trail around the volcanic formation. He reported that it was a lovely hike with an amazing panoramic view of the Cascades.

Portland to Coast

I participated my first relay race, Portland to Coast, last weekend. It is a walking relay that goes from Portland to Seaside, OR. It is part of the more famous Hood to Coast running relay event, which goes from Mount Hood to the coast. When I was invited to be on the team, I thought, how hard can it be to walk fast? The answer is that speed walking is actually very strenuous. Some of my teammates were waking 11:30 min/mile. That’s faster than I can run a mile!

We had a team of twelve people and each of us walked 2 legs of the 129 mile route. My first leg was 5 mi and I made a 13:53 min/mile pace! My second leg was long, 7.75 miles, so I couldn’t quite maintain the same pace and ended up at 14:54 min/mile. Our team got 4th place in the Corporate Women Walking category.

Walking my first leg.

The whole race takes a day and a half which means we had team members walking through the night and we only got about 3 hours of sleep. It was all worth it for the awesome after-party at the beach with yummy food and gorgeous weather.

After-party at the beach in Seaside, OR with my team.