Eugene & Lost Lake

We ate breakfast at a West Coast gem called Elmer's before hitting the road for Portland. I made us stop in Eugene to see the University of Oregon's campus which turned out to be a real snore. BOO!

Eugene uses a middle of the road parking technique

We got to our hotel in Portland finally after gnarly traffic and a snafu with my navigator putting in directions to the wrong hotel. *ahem* We took a little break, got cleaned up and then headed over to the Bride and Groom's house for dinner. It was SO fun to see everyone and laugh with the groom's hilarious extended family.

The groom trying on his "wedding gifts"
HA!!

The evening went quickly because I was having so much fun and before I knew it was time to pick Jackson up from the airport. REUNITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was SO happy to see his pretty face that I just stared at him for a good 3 minutes when we went to grab him some dinner after his long, delayed, cross-country flights. I love that man!

He didn't want to miss out on all the fun of exploring Oregon so we used Friday as a catch-up day for him. We drove out towards Mt. Hood to an area called Lost Lake to do some hiking.

We found Lost Lake- HaHa!

The view of  Mt. Hood from the lakeside trail

Jackson and Susan climbing around

Mt. Hood is amazingly beautiful

Petefish.

Petefish.

A gorgeous trail

Easy hiking!

Likely waiting on Susan- ha!!

We loved the clear water

From Lost Lake we headed to see the famous waterfalls, but first stopped for lunch.

Roadside burger stand (East Wind Drive-In)
aka this town's Ivanhoe's

The malt at this place was amazing. It rivaled the one from Marion's drive-in, Myer's, which is just hard to do. (My Mom used to get us malts from there when we visited her at work at the license branch many moons ago and they still taste that good today!)

Treating herself

Multnomah  Falls

Anyway, we did a morning hike and had lunch and then went to see waterfalls. I heard nothing about climbing them. I was wrong. We climbed them.

542 feet of waterfall 

Mid-way up views

Down the falls.

STRAIGHT DOWN
View from the top

Jackson being an idiot at the top
note: there was a railing there

The smaller feeder fall

Proof of Darwinism 

Tired and Proud at the top

Looking out at the Columbia River

Petefish at the top

Pretending to take a post-hike shower on the
way down

One more view of how high we climbed

I can honestly say that was the hardest hike of my life. I was so glad when it was over. If possible, the way down felt worse and more unending than the climb itself!

I'm glad to be back and resting before we head out for the evening!