A group of Vernier employees and family rode around the Portland Waterfront for a summer wellness challenge bonus activity. It was a beautiful day and just the right temperature to enjoy the waterfront.
I enjoyed lunch at Nicholas’ restaurant with Jake and Tom afterwards, then challenged myself by riding home from the Oregon Zoo. It’s been the longest ride I’ve done in a long while and everyone had a good time.
One of my coworkers bought a drone for inspecting rooftops. Unfortunately, he crashed it and when he reported it to the manufacturer, they kindly sent him a replacement. He was shy to fly again and asked if my kids wanted to a drone. They might, I thought, but I was more interested.
Ever since I saw the Milky Way on a camping trip in 2015, I’ve been hooked on photographing our galaxy center each summer.
I found a blog post that included a download with a chart when the Milky Way would be visible in my area and started planning when I could see it again.
Cannon Beach was my first choice, but as the day arrived, the weather forecast showed clouds. So I used a combination of Dark Sky Finder, Google Earth, and Google Maps to find a new location. The chart showed that the Milky Way would be south and I also wanted to find an interesting foreground.
L.L. Stub Stewart State Park has been a good location in the past, but the campgrounds are closed to the public after dusk. I explored further north and found Vernonia Lake, which didn’t appear to have a gate in their parking lot.
It turned out to be a great spot and I managed to snap several shots before a patrol officer parked nearby to suggest that my time was up.
Originally, it was just for a week or two. Maybe a month. Or a few months. But I returned to the office 15 months after Oregon closed down because of the pandemic. Not wearing a mask for the first time was abnormally normal and normally abnormal.
We asked our realtor where his favorite hike was, and he named Saddle Mountain. Then our friend Leah mentioned she was going to climb Saddle Mountain the coming weekend, we joined her for the ascent.
Saddle Mountain is a difficult hike up about 1,600 feet in elevation, often with trails of loose rocks and steep paths. We arrived around 7:40am after driving up 7 miles from Highway 26. At the top, we were at 3,290 feet in elevation. We could see several mountaintops and marveled over the clouds below.
At first, I don’t think I’d ever want to do this hike again because the top was so windy so the reward wasn’t as satisfying as say, a waterfall. However, after seeing some other photos taken from the summit, perhaps I could be convinced to do it again so I could photograph a sea of clouds passing by.
On Pointe’s performance for Sleeping Beauty was delayed, like many events last year, due to the coronavirus. Thankfully, the pandemic is getting closer to a new normal, and they were able to showcase their hard work this weekend.
Jenni and the kids all attend On Pointe School of Ballet and performed in Sleeping Beauty.
See the photos below for brief recap of the story.
See all of the photos from the performance.
And here’s a brief video highlight of the sections Jenni and the kids performed in.
It’s embarrassing that we only have two blog posts about our gerbils. And the only other one was when we first got them from the store. They have been an adorable addition to our family and we love spoiling them.
