Capital of the World's 10th Largest Economy

Among several other things, I caught up with some old friends some studying abroad while in Sacramento. Nicole, left, and I lived on the same street in Santiago. Her boyfriend Kip joined us. Quite similar, I know. And Scott, right, also studied with us. Nicole now teaches and Scott is in law school.


Amazingly, if California was an independent country, it would have the world's 10th largest economy. Wow. And they say 'Don't Mess with Texas!'


Scenes from around the capitol building where there are quite a few gardens. Scott and I did some reading, me for pleasure and him for homework, and played frisbee.



Sacramento is pleasant, but probably not a place I would want to end up long-term. It was great to see friends, but there didn't seem to be that much to do within the city itself. A lot of government stuff, as I had expected.


And a mounted policeman on his cell phone. Which is interesting, because it's illegal to talk while driving, so I would assume that applies to riding as well. Regardless, I didn't get a chance to ask him!

Sister Act...II

More photos from my visit to Jamie in Coos Bay, OR. These two are from a nice little hike we did to Golden and Silver Falls State Park.



Above is the final color of Jamie's living room area, at least as one when I left. Below Jamie is demanding that I paint more and at a much faster pace over the blue-ish and yellow-ish colors in the photo below, which she was unhappy with. Understandably!




My sheepish self trying to not catch more flack for my dismal painting skills! And to think that a vendor of paint supplies raised me! (My family owns a paint supply distribution business!)


Jamie hiding from the plethora of color swatches we littered the new apartment with. We weaved them together to make plates! Multi-colored plates!



At Shore Acres State Park (I have no idea why this is underlined, but I can't figure out how to shut it off!) Testing the versatility of my flippable shades!



Excited about something...probably the prospect of painting! More at Shore Acres.

That Tree Be Tall

Redwood National Park is quite impressive. Not as astoundingly jaw-dropping as I was expecting, but great. Unfortunately, it rained like crazy on me for the two days that I was in the park.

If I have time, I'm really looking forward to Sequoia NP, where the trees are supposed to be even HUGER! That being said, 300 foot trees are commonplace in Redwood. 300 feet. That's pretty massive. Every now and then I would stop and think...if some of the smaller trees here were put elsewhere, they would completely tower above things and drawf everything else!

Oh, and of course you get the coast then, also, with Redwood NP. And not just any coast, a great, amazing coast. The Pacific looked cruel and wrathful the two days that I was near it through Redwoods. Just a little arch (it was gigantic...as seems to be the theme of this park) during my drive.

Whiskey Bravo

So I visited my eldest sister Jamie at her new place in Coos Bay, OR. The repairman who came to work on the stove was walkie-talkieing back to the office with parts numbers and verifying things with full letter names, such as Charlie Foxtrot. But the part was WB123??, and he was like, "Can we get Whiskey Bravo ???...." I nearly lost it while painting and he's in the background sounding like he's sending in an airstrike on the apartment!

I won't beat around the bush. We painted. We did a lot of painting, considering it's a one room apartment! However, we had a great time. Even if I might act otherwise.

We went for a short hike out at Shore Acres State Park, which is beautiful. It's the former property of a former shipping baron...Simpson, I believe. The views and weather were both amazing. I could handle living 15 minutes from a place like this, as Jamie now does.

And I picked up some wicked clip-on sunglasses during a stop at Goodwill for random house necessities. They're pretty much pure awesomeness!

More photos to come when I have access for a bit longer!

Mount Helens was Canonized

I joined my friends and former rafting co-workers Chris and Chad (and his girlfriend Shannon) for a great weekend up at Mount St. Helens. We didn't make it to the north side, which was wiped out when she blew in 1980. The south side is still great and pretty much untouched. Chad, Chris and I having some fun at the Middle Falls on the Lewis River!





Rainier, above. Adams, below. From a knob on our day hike Sunday we could see Rainier to the north, Adams to the east, Hood to the south, and Helens to the west. It was a great vantage point.




Shannon and Chad having some fun around the campfire!



We camped about 50 yards from the above falls, The Lower Falls on the Lewis River. Chris near the Middle Falls, below.



Upper Falls, above. Middle Falls, below.






The colors were pretty perfect for our trip. And the weather was unexpectedly and unbelievably nice for this time of year in the northwest. Chris and I didn't even set up a tent, just plopped it on the ground.



Some tasty eggs for breakfast, above. By the way, car camping is soooo great because you can take just about anything you want. It's actually quite similar to rafting in that sense. I hadn't used a dutch oven, above, since I used to raft. It's a great vessel for cooking!


Shannon jokingly attempted climbing one of the largest Douglas Firs that any of us had ever seen. It was easily well over 200 feet tall. You just don't see trees like that in the Midwest!

Back to the Clack

Ahh, the good old Clackamas River. This is where I did most of my rafting when I lived and worked up in Portland. It was great to go back and see if I could remember rapids and how I ran them and all that good stuff! That's Carter Bridge Rapids, above. And The Narrows, below, a beautiful mafic basalt formation that I believe was a lava tube at one point before collapsing and forming this little gem of a rapid!




And I had to include Toilet Bowl, one of my all-time favorite rapids. I hope I can get out there to raft the Clack again some day!