smith rock state park - part I the way up

On Saturday February 2nd me, Pat, and our friends Megan and Tony drove out to Terrebonne Oregon to go hiking around Smith Rock, which is somewhere I had been really excited to check out. I took a ton of pictures, as usual, so I will be splitting this post up in to two. 


We definitely picked a beautiful clear day to do our exploring, and it was relatively warm and sunny when we started out. However, we got off to a bit of a late start so it started to get cold and dark while we were finishing up. I am really hoping we can get back over there within the next few months, hopefully a little earlier next time. 

Once we arrived, we made our way down in to the little valley and across the Crooked River that runs throughout the area to the start of the trail head. There are a ton of different trails meeting up at various points along the rock, but we decided to head straight up to the summit along the cut back trail aptly named Misery Ridge. (Here is a trail map for reference).

The walk up just about killed me, clearly I am in need of some more exercise and hiking practice, but since this was my first real hike ever, I suppose it was to be expected. I am not sure how long it took us to get up to the summit, but it was definitely worth it for the view. We stopped to rest for a while before making our way around to the backside of the peak to snap pictures of the gorgeous mountains. From the top we could see pretty much all of Central Oregon, and a ton of mountains, including Bachelor, The Three Sisters, and Hood. It was pretty incredible.

[[ smith rock from the ground. rock climber. posing before our trek. the crooked river. trail runers. posing along the edge. beautiful views of below. our victory dances. fellow hikers. everything below. more posing along the backside. mt hood. the three sisters. ]]

I will post the second half my pictures tomorrow. 

early valentine

For the second year in a row, Pat is headed to NBA All Stars and will be gone over Valentines Day, so we decided to go out for a nice dinner last night. We went to Zydeko downtown and it was delicious! I had an ahi tuna dish, Pat had something with wild boar that he said was amazing, and we both had a few glasses of wine. He also surprised me with a dozen roses! Such a thoughtful fiance. I am going to miss that boy so much while he is gone!! Hurry home babe!

[[ surprise flowers. ahi tuna at zydeko. ]]

slainte!

Before we left Corvallis, Pat and his friend Alex finished the full whiskey list at Cloud & Kelly's, making them the first official members of their Whiskey Club! Congrats boys. I know you are excited about your plaque, so I figured I would do a little post on your behalf. :)

[[ the plaque, sorry they spelled your name wrong frace. ]]

[[ happy boys back in december. ]]

cotton candy

Check out this gorgeous candy colored sunset I caught today! I have a feeling I am going to be doing a LOT more posts like this from now on...

[[ cotton candy sky from my balcony. ]]

[[ panoramic, click to view larger. ]]

old neighbors / new neighbors

When me and Pat lived in Corvallis at our last residence we had some very interesting neighbors across the street... cows. Sometimes when I would walk past them to get the mail they would moo at me, and on the day we were leaving for good they were pretty much going crazy. Personally, I think they were saying goodbye (not really, but kinda).

Anyway, it appears that we have some new neighbors of interest, although since we are kind of living in the middle of nowhere right now, their placement makes a little more sense. There is a large family of deer that lives somewhere in our neighborhood! The first morning I saw them I was on my way to work and had a stand off in the middle of the road with one. Since then I have seen them almost every day, and there are also lots of quail and bunnies around as well. I am certainly not complaining about all of these cute woodland creatures, but I do wish that they would refrain from running in front of my car and scaring me.

[[ old neighbors / new neighbors. ]]

weekend adventures 66

Last weekend our friends Megan and Tony came for a visit, we climbed Smith Rock, explored Bend, baked a cake, and watched the Superbowl. It was really good to have some visitors and turned out to be a really fun and productive weekend. 


saturday
Our friends Tony and Megan got here pretty late on Friday, so we just had a few drinks, caught up and called it a night. Saturday morning when we got up Pat made us all breakfast, we packed our bags, and then headed out to Smith Rock. The trip was amazing, but super exhausting. We decided to hike straight up the rock on the aptly named "Misery Ridge" trail, down and around on an extremely steep, muddy, and slippery trail past Monkey Face (which is a rock), and around the entire thing. Our hike took several hours, and by the time we got back to the front we were completely exhausted, but still had to hike up the path to the parking lot, which was torture. It was all worth it though to see the panoramic views at a top. I took a ton of pictures, which I will be posting on their own in the future. No promisses for competing these by the end of the week though. In the meantime, here is a really small preview of some of the pictures I posted on Instagram throughout the day.

[[ me and pat at smith rock before the hike. monkey face on the steep trail down. ]]

saturday night
Once we finally made it to the car we were all starving and decided to go straight in to Redmond to grab some dinner and a celebratory margarita at Diego's. Dinner was extremely satisfying after all of that exercise, and we were really looking forward to enjoying the hot tub when we got home.

Since it had been Tony's birthday a few weeks prior, me and Megan decided to go to the store and get the supplies to make him a cake. We also decided to wrap those supplies up like a present and bought him a ridiculously cheesy card and a balloon as well, which he was very surprised to see. When we got home we made some greyhounds and got to work on the cake, which turned out to be a bit of a disaster and probably the ugliest cake either of us has ever been a part of making. Lets just say that baking at high altitudes is not something I am quite used to, and that microwaving frosting to soften it up is only a good idea if monitored correctly. Either way, we ended up with a perfectly edible confetti cake that everyone enjoyed a slice of. Success. After all of our hard work we finally made it in to the hot tub to massage our sore muscles and relax for the rest of the night.

[[ the ugly birthday cake we made for tony. ]]

sunday (superbowl)
Pat had made plans to watch the Superbowl at his dads place near Sunriver, so we headed in to Bend in the morning to run a few errands first. The four of us grabbed breakfast at a little cafe called Cafe Sintra which I thought was delicious. I had a substancial egg sandwich on fresh baked rosemary basil bread with avocado and tomato, some fresh fruit, and a mimosa to start off my day. Pat had a delicious looking Monte Cristo sandwich with potatoes and some fresh coffee, which also looked delicious. I really dug the atmosphere of this place, and will definitely be back again soon.

[[ breakfast at cafe sintra. ]]

After breakfast we ran to Boneyard to pick up some growlers for the game, and then went to Crux to do the same and have a beer. I love their Flemish Red, as I believe I have mentioned before. We ended up getting a growler of the Sugar Daddy from there, and brought a few growlers from Boneyard over to his Dads place.

[[ crux fermentation project. ]]

The game, was pretty terrible... and with the Ravens dominating the first half, no memorable commercials, which was disappointing, Beyonce doing whatever it is Beyonce does at half time, the power outage putting a stop to the game for half an hour, and the Niners almost coming back to win it at the end only to be thwarted by a holding penalty by the defense that was never called, it was definitely the oddest superbowl I have ever seen. Aside from being disappointed in the Niners loss, I was a little disappointed that there was no reenactment of the SNL sketch with Justin Timberlake when Beyonce sang "All The Single Ladies"... although, after the whole Janet Jackson controversy the NFL might not be too eager to welcome JT back on stage. Still, that would have made it all worth it.

After watching the game and eating lots of football game related foods, like hot dogs and chili, we called it a night and went home to sleep. Megan and Tony left bright and early this morning.

[[ me and megan on superbowl sunday. ]]

to chief from mylanta

Our friends Tony and Megan are coming to visit this weekend, and I am super excited! I am also excited because we are going to be hiking Smith Rock tomorrow, which is somewhere I have been wanting to explore for a long time.

And speaking of my friends, I got a text message with this picture today from my friend Alena who is back in Corvallis. It made me smile, so I thought I would share it. Don't worry Mylanta, I miss you too. Come visit! All the cool kids are doing it.

[[ chalk art text from alena at block 15. ]]