Four Part Harmony

Summer’s in full swing here in Portland. The garden is growing like crazy, and the sun has been shining. There’s so much going on, I don’t reckon I’ll be spending a lot of time updating the blog these next few months…but I do still hope to put some pictures up now and then when I have a chance.

We’ve had a few nice hiking/camping trips these past couple of weeks. This photo was from a bridge over the little North Fork of the Santiam River…out near Opal Creek. We camped out there a couple of weeks ago, and spent an entire day hiking and playing on the river.

Milo and I on the river.

Anna and I crossing a bridge on our hike down the river.

We hiked about a mile downriver with the intention of finding a crossing to where we were meeting up with some of the other folks we were camping with. It took a while to find a suitable crossing, but we managed to find a place where the river got pretty wide and shallow, and we could cross. The water was pretty cold as you would imagine. In this picture I had already carried Anna across to the other side…we didn’t make her cross on her own.

Milo was in his element in the rocks down by the water. He sat happily for long stretches of time…picking up and tasting or throwing rocks mostly. It was a really nice trip.

Over 4th of July weekend we headed north to the foothills of Mt. Rainier. Nicki and I used to work out of Packwood, Washington, a tiny town at the southeast corner of Mt. Rainier National Park. We used to get put up in a little dive of a motel or camp out for a week off of some Forest Service Road while we were doing wildlife/botany surveys. We saw a lot of pretty remote parts of the forest up there, and the whole area feels (At least to me) a bit like an old hometown.

We set up camp in a campground just outside the Park boundary, and the whole weekend was just great. We were camped on the Cowlitz River, right at its headwaters. Ohanapecosh Creek comes down off of Mt. Rainier and merges with a few smaller creeks right where we were camped to form the Cowlitz.

Anna and Milo at the campsite. We spent some time Friday evening building little pinecone/stick/moss/lichen houses for the fairies, the elves, the gnomes, the dwarves, the squirrels, the deer, the bear…probably some others too. We had a little village built by the end of the weekend.

Anna and I taking a swim at Rimrock lake, a big alpine lake up past White Pass. The water was chilly, but much warmer than any of the rivers.

Saturday we drove up into the Park, and took a couple mile hike up to Silver Falls, and then beyond that to the “Grove of the Patriarchs”, a remnant piece of old growth with some gigantic old western red-cedar and Doug-firs. The sun was shining, and it was just a perfect day.

While we walked I introduced Anna to one of life’s greatest pleasures…dipping one’s hands and face, or even one’s entire head, into an ice cold mountain stream on a hot day. Anna thought this sounded crazy until she saw me demonstrate and then she was all about trying it out. We stopped several times along the way, whenever we were able to get close enough to the water to stop and splash some water on our faces.

Here we are after another cooling off session.

Nicki and Milo on the hike up past Silver Falls.

Just to get a few more photos in here…this past weekend we were down in Veneta for the Oregon Country Fair!

I didn’t end up getting a lot of “fair-ey” photos this time around, but a good time was had by all as always.

It was Milo’s second fair, and Anna’s fourth! We were there with a big crew of friends and their kids and we spent all day Friday from sun-up to sundown in full-on fair mode. The weather was spectacular and we couldn’t have had a nicer time.

As has been tradition these past few years, we went into fair on Friday, then spent all day Saturday camped out at the nearby reservoir. The kids got good and rested after the long day at the fair on Friday, so they had plenty of energy to run around and be crazy all day Saturday.

There was some sidewalk chalking going on for a while, which ended in Anna decorating her and Milo’s faces with the chalk as well.

The kids also made some delicious looking leaf and mud tacos on the grill. yummm.

We spent the afternoon playing games and just goofing around. Milo played with his friend Lilly quite a bit, and Anna ran around with the older girls and Niko. Anna and I went for a brief swim in the late afternoon which was a lot of fun. Sunday it started pouring rain as we were finishing packing up, which made for some hurried goodbyes.

I think we are staying in town this weekend…work in the yard or do some gardening maybe. We’re planning Milo’s first backpacking trip, which is a fun thing to look forward to. So long for now.