For months we’ve planned our time off from work and for months we went back and forth on whether we should go somewhere or stay home and, if we went somewhere, fly or drive.  As the time got closer and we hadn’t spent our money on a house yet and it was too late to plan for any major trip.

David and I have always wanted to go to Vancouver, BC, so at the last minute, we decided to grab our passports and take off for Canada on a Wednesday morning.  By that evening, we were strolling down the streets of downtown Vancouver, people-watching and window-shopping.  Two things we noticed right away were that drivers were more aggressive on narrower roads and that Vancouver had more Starbucks than what we’ve seen in Portland and possibly even Seattle. (Who would have thought that was possible?)

We noticed there was a high presence of Asian culture there, so for dinner, we were urged to try Korean BBQ.  We enjoying some of the best service we ever had, being served by a young college student who prepared our meal at the table and taught us how to make our lettuce wraps.

Early the next morning, we went to the famous Stanley Park to get some pictures of the Vancouver skyline at sunrise and to enjoy the park scenery.

From Stanley Park, we went to Grouse Mountain where they have what the locals call a SkyRide, which is a gondola that goes about a mile up mountain.  I, being from the Northwest, and David, spending much of his time in Alaska, Montana, and Oregon, have had the pleasure of enjoying scenery like this compared to people from the desert southwest.  Therefore, in lieu of spending money on the gondola, we had dinner at Vancouver’s Lookout, complete with a revolving restaurant and the downtown light scene below, much like the Seattle Space Needle.  As we sipped our drinks and ate our gourmet dinner that evening, it was more than worth what we passed on.

That night, we stayed in a quiet bed & breakfast where it we were surrounded by people who were grieving.  We were greeted by a gentleman named Wayne who was staying there while his 22-year-old daughter was laying in a hospital bed with a brain injury from a fall.  The next morning, at breakfast, we spoke with a man whose son had several complications from diabetes, which he had only been diagnosed with 3 months ago.  His son was in a drug-induced coma to help prevent any further damage from happening to his brain.  David and I have and will continue to keep them in our thoughts and prayers.

For our last day, we thought we’d go to Granville Island, a small island surrounded by boats of business owners and patrons.  The Island is filled with shops of local goods, handmade items and an indoor public market, much like Pike’s Place Market in Seattle.  We almost bought my bother’s dog, Eve, a Dino Bone that was much much bigger than my arm, but we decided not to, not knowing how good, old, or safe the bone would be for Eve.  We enjoyed walking around all the shops and were tempted more than once, but left empty-handed.

The next, and last stop in Canada, was the Vancouver Aquarium.  We saw some Goliath-sized fish, but were most overwhelmed by the jellyfish.  We fell in love with the miniature monkeys they had, who were about 4 inches high with cute little faces.  They were fun to watch.  They moved so quickly that I’m surprised that David got a few good pictures of them.

After a few more exhibits, we watched the sea lions for awhile who were very hyperactive.  They would show you a perfect face close up, but not give any time nor chance for a snapshot.  The same was true for the dolphins.  The almost seemed to know we wanted their picture.

As we were leaving, we saw a few very well-fed raccoons who weren’t people shy at all.  They begged a couple of girls in a stroller for some cheerios and only faced us once or twice.  I love the few pictures David was able to get.

We completed our short trip by having Korean BBQ in Lakewood, WA for dinner and that night we were home with the weekend left to relax before heading back to work.

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Wow!!  It’s been awhile since we posted.  Where has the time gone?  We wanted to write about our Central Oregon trip, but we just got too busy.  Well, actually, Julie wrote about the trip on paper awhile back and I never had the chance to type it up because I lost it somehow between the many trips from home to work and back.  Going through a stash of old papers today though, I found some of the papers Julie had written.

Anyway, about our trip to Central Oregon, we decided to go to John Day Fossil Beds over a weekend.  I had never explored Central Oregon and driving through it for the first time was just beautiful.  Julie and I snapped away on the camera, taking in the beauty and feeling small and insignificant in comparison to the mountains and valleys around us.  We went to go see the Painted Hills Unit of John Day first, where the hills were just layers of yellows, golds, blacks and reds. We then went on to the Clarno Unit, which reminded us of Bryce Canyon a little bit when we took our road trip back in 2007, but instead of orange and white pillars of Bryce, Clarno had pillars of brown and red and it was a lot smaller.

We took a few more shots and then decided it was time to search for a campsite.  We asked one of the locals from the small town of Fossil where the nearest campsite was and she said, “just a little ways down the road before you get to Shanko.”  It was just past 7pm and we were sure we’d be by a warm fire by 8.

We got on the road and started driving, and that’s when we caught up to a car going VERY slow on the highway.  As part of our entertainment for the evening, we named the driver of the car “Harold” and the passenger “Esther.”  While I was driving, Julie mimicked the conversation they were having in a twangy voice, “slow down Harold, this a downhill curve!”  On came the break lights and down to 25mph Harold went although the curve was probably safe at 50mph.  When a straight-away came, we were sure they’d speed up,” Hurry Harold, there are some maniacs behind us!  They’re going to get us!”  After awhile, we pulled off at one point, thinking we’d found a place to camp, but it wasn’t a campsite afterall; it was a day-use area.  We got back on the highway and, before long, we had caught up with our source of entertainment with Esther saying, “Harold, they’re back, I’m scared!!”  Harold responds as saying,” Hold on Esther, I’m gonna take this thing up to 40!”  Julie and I were sure they’d take flight at that speed.  We were a little sad when they put on their signal and turned off the highway.

By 8:30, we had passed through two towns, never seeing the campsite the local directed us to.  We decided to just park somewhere and sleep in the back of the 4Runner.  By morning, it became very clear that if we had slept in a tent we would have been cold, miserable and possibly sick.  It dipped below 30 degree with a moist air.  We had prepared for cold, but not freezing tempatures in August.

It was Sunday morning and we decided to drive the 25 miles back to Fossil and eat at the local restaurant, get gas, and then head on back home.  After all, we saw everything we came for.  During the drive, we were stunned by the miles and miles of valleys and the rolling hills.  It almost felt impossible that a road could exist within this landscape.  On a straight-way, we spotted and drove by a barn that screamed to be photographed.  Julie bugged me until I finally turned around and snapped some photos.  I tell you, if I didn’t turn around, I would have regretted it because I ended up taking some REALLY NICE shots that I turned into HDR photos.  It was just too amazing and I thank Julie for bugging me about it.

Breakfast in Fossil was amazing!!  Nice and full, we went to the town’s only gas station, which had opened just 30 minutes prior.  In the window of the station was a sign saying, “Be back in a few minutes.”  How funny!!  We laughed at the small town atmosphere.  While we were waiting for the attendent to return, we looked at “my” nicely restored corvettes and at all the thunder eggs on display in the gas station window.  Soon a man came back, filled our tank, washed our window and described how we could spot a thunder egg.  When he was done, he handed Julie half of an egg and told her to keep it and to tell her friends all about how nice the people in Fossil are.  We then introduced ourselves and thanked Everett for his generosity.  On a buzz from what just happened, we drove on, stopping when we felt like it, taking pictures.

We stopped in Hood River, OR and had a drink at a nice coffee shop and did some window shopping.  We headed home to Portland to check out the annual Art in the Pearl, which was an art show in a park in a downtown Portland neighborhood called the Pearl District.  We were in shorts, t-shirts and sandals when Portland greeted us with a down pour.  It was much warmer than the hills of Central Oregon though.  We walked along the art booths getting soaked as we saw everyone ducking and taking cover.  We love the smell of rain.  By 4pm Sunday afternoon, we were back home, amazed of what we did over the last two days.

On Monday morning, before heading out for the day, I noticed something on the office chair.  Our tent poles were safe and sound in our apartment, the whole time we were in Central Oregon!! Oops!!

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It’s the last day in July and Julie’s birthday has, yet again, gone through another year.  It’s tradition for the birthday person be surprised on the day’s events by the other loved one and I had a few things up my sleeve.  Julie’s birthday was July 26th, and the day started out by us going to one of our favorite breakfast places in the Hawthorne area of SE Portland called Jam.  For such a special day, we couldn’t pass up on the delicious lemon ricotta pancakes as well as the tasty corned beef hash.

After breakfast, we drove back to our side of town, but instead of going home, I exited the highway a bit early and got Julie in a very curious state.  I pulled into the parking lot of Borders bookstore and it was at that time I was attacked by Julie in her excitement as she know what we were there for.  One of Julie’s favorite drinks is called Trio chocolate, which is hot chocolate made with milk, white, and dark chocolates and is served by Seattle’s Best, which we know to only be in the Border’s bookstore on our side of town.  So we headed into the store, got the drink and headed to our next destination.

The next place we were going to was not too far from Borders.  I drove up to the Tualatin Park Recreation Center, parked in their lot, and then I started walking while Julie followed me, scratching her head.  Where were we going?  I walked to the field located at the back of the rec center at which time we saw a whole bunch of classic cars parked for show.  Julie started walking faster towards the cars.  She’s such a classic car fanatic that, every time we see one on the road or parked in the driveway, she yells out, “My Car!!,” but there have been many times I beat her to it and whoever is the first to yell it gets the car in all fantasied glory.  We walked around, amazed with all the old cars and chatted with the people who owned them, most notably Ray, who is a WWII vet and was an avid photographer at a young age with many great stories to tell, and Phil and Jerry, who are really outgoing, friendly people and let Julie sit in their ‘47 Pontiac and gave Julie a book for her birthday just out of the blue.  We hope to see them again at the next car show.

We went home for a bit to rest and then headed to Vancouver, WA to the Ho’ike and Hawaiian Festival where we enjoyed the arts and crafts, food, singing, and the dancing.  The lines for the food were extremely long, but we definitely couldn’t pass up the Hawaiian Shaved Ice on a hot day.

For dinner, I took Julie to a local Italian Restaurant in the Hawthorne area called Iorio’s where they made everything from scratch.   I read about this place on restaurant review websites and, from all the comments I read, it was supposed to be really good.   We ordered roasted lamb with pasta and smoked salmon ravioli.  Man……it was so good.  They were those types of meals where you couldn’t eat through quickly. We just took our time, having great conversation while enjoying all the flavors in our mouths.  For dessert, we went a different route from the norm and ordered milk and cookies.  After the first bite of cookie, we were definitely glad we didn’t pass this dessert up.  The cookies were large, homemade and just melted in your mouth.  From there, Julie and I went home and watched a movie to end the birthday.

Julie and I woke up early Sunday morning and headed to the beach.  We drove up to Long Beach, Washington, planning to camp out.  Julie and I both took Monday off from work in order to do that. When we first arrived, we parked downtown and browsed the shops.  I needed a pic-me-up so I was searching for coffee shops while Julie searched for art stores.  Believe it or not, we spotted a store that offered both called Scrapicinno, which offered scrapbooking supplies for Julie’s pleasure and coffee, which I needed.  Unfortunately, the environment wasn’t the best of places to sit down and drink coffee, so we want to a crowded coffee/bakery shop down the street.

After the relaxing morning, Julie and I wanted to get some good excersize and spotted a shop that offered bicycle rentals.  We decided to go for it and get on a bike that allowed Julie and I sit side-by-side while we both pedalled and it had a canopy that shielded us from the sun.  We drove around this small coastal town and took many fantastic photos of old architecture and many buoys.

The day was getting late and Julie and i needed to find a place to camp.  We went to the visitor center to scope out the campgrounds and spotted Cape Disappointment State Park that was south of Long Beach, WA.  We drove there and were lucky enough to grab a camping spot blocks away from the beach before the campgrounds filled up.  We quickly set up camp and then took off to walk the beach, discovering neatly-shaped driftwood, beach camps, and rock “islands.”

As a photographer, I highly value dusk and dawn for the light that those times put out.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get many good shots Sunday evening due to the overcast skies, but once dark, the clouds began to clear up and I was able to get a couple of good shots of the moon with the silhouette of trees.  With the skies cleared up, I was looking forward to Monday morning, which ended up being what I was hoping for.  Julie and I got up way early at around 5am, packed up, and took off for a morning coastal journey.  We were headed to a lighthouse that was 2 or 3 miles away.  Once we arrived, we quickly got out of the truck, ran down the trail to the lighthouse, and started shooting.  I, of course, got a few photos of the lighthouse, but I also took some of the beach, trees, and grass.  The photo below is actually two photos I took from the lighthouse and merged together to make a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo, meaning that the photo has good exposure throughout, and nothing (or nearly nothing) is blown out.  It was pretty much my first attempt to do an HDR photo and I hope to make and post more of them in the future.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this post and feel free to comment here or within the photo gallery.  I would love to get feedback from you.  This is probably the longest post I’ve written since putting up this blog.  I hope to write shorter ones in the future so it’s an easier read, but this last weekend was pretty fun and eventful.

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