XCIX - Portland Trip - Rooster Rock and Nature

Don't worry Chris and Szeto.  We're almost there!  Well not really.  We squeezed into a car and found ourselves in nature.

Portland has a lot of green that's worth seeing and we were lucky that we had a tour guide.  It was quite an adventure and the bottle(s) of wine definitely added to the fun.

I took a handful of amazing shots with lots of colors!

We got our tourist on at Multnomah falls.  But this was only the beginning of our adventure.    Our tour guide told us that we were going to get wet... I wasn't too sure how wet he meant.

We ended at a hike where we had to wade through chest level water.  It was cold, but manageable.  I risked dropping my phone to grab these pictures.

We made it!  It was refreshing and exciting and not that strenuous.  Bring water moccasins and waterproof all your gear.

Definitely worth a trip to Oneonta Falls!

Our next stop was calmer, but also very gorgeous:  Rooster Rock... which is also a gay beach... and by beach I mean sand island in the Columbia River.

The water was warm and the weather was perfect.  We had more wine and enjoyed the day.  It was spectacular.  Our tour guide flirted his way to getting on a speed boat with some new friends.

We took a walk to change scenes and found another part of the river that was extremely shallow.

You could walk across.  It was amazing.

On our way out during sun down.  Unforgettable colors!

Exploring the LA River

I really wanted to check out the bike trail along the LA River and dragged my friends out to explore. We specially walked along the greenway trail.  There are projects to revitalize the river to make it more appealing to the public, but for now it remains what a lot of LA is - Ugly Beautiful.

The LA River is all concrete, but there is vegetation and life in between.  The bike trail was intense but clearly underused.  One day I will take a bike out there.

We saw about 10 people total hiking, fishing and hanging out in the perfect weather on a Saturday.  So much neglect.

What's amazing to me was Highway 5 was separated by a small metal fence.  As we walked back to our parking spot, cars were going 70MPH - too close for comfort.  There was essentially nothing protecting us from disaster if a driver lost control of the wheel.

I'm excited to see what the LA River becomes starting with 6th Street bridge.  Like all the other dozens of projects happening in the city, it's going to take lots of time.  But this is the city to be in.

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I'm starting to realize that I have a lot of sufficient looking pictures on my iPhone and I should stop stealing Jimmy's.  I should take the time and do some edits and create my own.  So far, I like the results.

But Jimmy's LA River photos are amazing - there are a couple of boyband pictures that he took that are quite amusing.

Channel Islands

Not sure why it took me so long to blog about this, but in August 2011 Jimmy and I took a mini vacation to check out the Channel Islands.  It was meant to be a 6 month celebration, but it was difficult to pick the perfect weekend.

I don't remember if it was intentional, but we dressed alike for the day.  The one hour boat ride was thrilling because of all the bouncing.  We went through Island Packers.  We ran around the boat like little kids and tried to reenact the iconic Titanic scene at the bow of the boat.

Upon arrival we discovered that this National Park was full of trails and nature.   There were these AZN kids with speakers blasting terrible dance music from their portable speakers.  Jimmy and I hauled ass to get away from them.  Stop ruining nature!

See my candid duck face and Jimmy showing off a little bootay.

There were great views off the cliff where the ocean met land.

There were a lot of photo opportunities, but we were hikers that day, not models.

I surprised Jimmy with a cupcake during our lunch picnic.  That shit hard to hide.

Muah muah muah. JIMMYYYYYYY

This year Jimmy wants to hit the Channel Islands again, but bring some friends along for a day trip.  We only went to Santa Cruz Island so there's more to explore.  Come join us!