around the world in 80 days...or something like that!

We are out of the mountains and I'm going to try and be brief (good luck, eh?) as I recap!

Day 1
We took off July 11th about mid day. The morning was spent packing and repacking. I carried the group gear and let G-dog carry his personal stuff plus some food. We only hiked a couple of miles to get "into" the area. Oh, we were in the Wallowa range of eastern Oregon...Anyway, that day we found a pretty little meadow above little Minam river where Garrett exercised his G-man vs wild skills and did all sorts of cool things like find 'old man's beard' in the trees to start the fire and built a fish trap in the river ( guess trout aren't fond of chex mix!). Who says TV wastes minds??
Day 2
We had a big day planned with a 2600 foot elevation gain as we made our way up and over the ridge. Unbelieveable views, snow crossings, G-dog skiing, flowers, flowers, flowers, original campsite had no worthy water so we plowed on to to Lackeys lake, big ass storm!



Day 3
Slept in because it was raining, very cold day, downhill hike to the Minam river, campsite by the river, big campfire, marshmellows



Day 4
River hike, 1st Ford, yummy lunch of macs and tuna!, first people sighting (horsepackers), another river side campsite, slept in and dried everything out from the storm, elk in camp!


Day 5
river hike, hiked past our intended campsite (doh), garrett bathed (yay), slug snake (Oregon rubber snake we found out later).

Day 6
Day 6 was special for so many reasons...G-dog turned 13 !!! Then we surprised him with the Minam lodge! I had down played what the place was and had simply told him we were resupplying there...we arrived in the morning both so excited about his birthday and the resupply box!! His face went from happy to ecstatic as he realized he was getting lunch, then a shower, then dinner then...we ate, we tubed on the river, we played all day, we had an amazing dutch oven dinner, birthday cake, presents, farkel, Mike and his Jesse stories! Beth was the woman who was taking care of the place and she was incredible! She made Garrett's 13th really special...thenks Beth and the Minam Lodge!


Day 7
Beth made us a big breakfast of pancakes (Garrett's special request), eggs and sausage. We took off after breakfast because we knew we had a 700 foot climb right off the bat. Slack packed the Jim White ridge which was a big disappointment! Camped on Whiskey Flats, thumb wars, last nite...

Day 8
We treated ourselves to an entire dunkin stick with breakfast and 2 cups of coffee-wahoo! Big climb (1500 feet) out, went back to the really nice RV park, showered and went to town. Ate an entire loaf of challah, saw Harry Potter, grilled steaks and corn and had an amazing heirloom tomato washed down with a Portland, Oregon IPA!



We took off yesterday for McMenamins Grand Lodge and got side tracked in Hood River, he he. In our pursuit of ice cream we stopped in Hood River a really cool old town in the Colombia Gorge area. We found ice cream, a slalom skate boarding competition and of course the local bike shop which guided us to the local freeride trails about 4 miles away in the national forest. So off we went up the mountain with awesome views of the impressive Mt Hood, cherry trees and lots of little birds! We rode all over the freeride park and G-man perfected his bunny hop on my 29'er, learned how to ride those crazy wooden bridges you see in the movies (well, just a liitle), and had a blast on the middle school trail! What impresses me so much about this area is all the public land with so much cool stuff on it. Texas is so different...everyting is private.
Anyway, we drove thru Portland and got to our destination about 5:45 just in time to make the 6 o'clock show of Land of the Lost...the lodge has a way cool old theatre that they show movies in...kinda' like the alamo draft house in Austin except much smaller. G-man had a burger, I had some sweet potato fries with chipolte ketchup washed down with McMenamins own home brew...Hammerhead! We played some disc golf and had a merry old time! It was our first bed in weeks and it felt gooooood!


We are off today somewhere...not sure yet. we are on the hunt for the Mckenzie River trail...
later, rob