With the last few bits of my home improvement budget for the year, I bought some cheap chairs at Tar-jay and a charcoal barbeque, and for the fourth of July, Pete came over and we did some slow-cook barbeque and had a good 15 or so people over--neighbors, friends, hikers, anyone who was staying in town this year. After that, we walked up Mt. Tabor to watch the fireworks downtown.
Eliza, Zak and I decided that we simply had to get out of town to go hiking. With the Gorge rather exhausted of opportunities, we turned our attention southwards to Iron Mountain, a shortish hike just off US-20 in the middle of the Cascades somewhere. It turns out that we chose well--this particular mountain is well known for its abundance of nearly all the species of wildflowers that grow in Oregon. As Eliza commented "It's as beautiful as Dog Mountain, but not as hard!" Well, except for the 2.5 hour drive each way. :) It looks like there had been a lookout atop the mountain until quite recently; when we got there it had been torched and smashed, with someone spray-painting "Thanks, arseholes!" on the foundation. In any case, one could see quite a few mountains from there--Jefferson, the three tops of Echo Mountain, and a short one in the southerly distance that we couldn't identify.
Ever wonder what a wedding would be like if it were held at a doughnut shop? On Monday, Adam called me up with the news that he and his fiancee Sally were planning to push their wedding up to Wednesday, and one of the places they could get was Voodoo Doughnuts downtown. So on Wednesday I put on a pin stripe suit and rolled up at the doughnut shop with camera. After a while of standing around outside looking weird, the owner(?) of Voodoo pulled up in his delivery go-cart, put on a bright red jacket, and after he conferred with the bride and groom, the rest of us went inside. The ceremony was odd enough, with the owner declaring himself to be called "Cat Daddy", scribbling on the floor to signify bride and groom uniting, and standing underneath a giant plaster doughnut that reminded me of Treehouse of Horror IV. Vows were exchanged, the two were married, and rock-paper-scissors determined who would be the signatories to the marriage certificate. Dinner afterwards was at La Bonita, a taqueria in NE. Joachim, the guy behind the counter, realized that we were a wedding party and raced home to get his guitar, with which he serenaded us.
Just for kicks I implemented trip sequences in the maps that one can see on this site. Each map has a hojillion markers for every photo album that I've taken, and now the albums that are a part of a trip have semitransparent lines linking each marker, sort of like what we used to do with a globe, tape, and twine fifteen years ago.
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