A Week in Hood River

  • December 11, 2009 8:46 PM

More than once, I’ve been told that Portland is my kind of city. Last week, we headed to Oregon where Thomas visited one of his company’s offices. We flew into Portland, but only spent an hour in the city. I don’t think I got a good feel for it – it felt a little too big for me (and reminded me of Indianapolis). Afterward, we headed to Hood River, two hours east of Portland where we spent a week, and I loved it!

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Base of Latourell Falls

Hood River is surrounded by beautiful scenery. The little resort town is on the coast of the Columbia River – Washington is on the other side – and it’s at the base of Mount Hood. We drove along the Historic Columbia River Highway from Portland to Hood River, where the roads were lined with tall evergreens, ferns, and huge waterfalls. It was a gorgeous drive.

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Multnomah Falls

Downtown Hood River feels like a little mountain town, filled with boutiques, coffee shops, live bluegrass bands, and microbreweries. Most of Thomas’ coworkers that we met with brewed their own beer in their free time. They also did a lot of skiing, and graciously lent us ski gear for the weekend. We drove 30 minutes up Mount Hood to Mount Hood Meadows and skied one day. It was beautiful and even snowed while we were up there.

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While we were in town, Mount Hood had a little Christmas celebration – a parade, caroling, and free hot chocolate. I was shocked at all the families gathered together, catching up with old friends. There really was a sense of community. And I can tell why – whenever I went in a store, the people inside looked me in the eye, smiled, said hello, and asked me if I’m having a good day. Maybe I’ve been living in Belgium for too long, but I haven’t experienced this kind of friendliness for a while. I particularly liked this poster I saw in a restaurant stating instructions on How to Build Community.

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The Main Drag

I don’t know about Portland, but I would say Hood River is my kind of town. I really enjoyed it.  We joked that it’s a Yippie community – part hippy and part yuppie.  From the Eddie Bauer-style, to the many surrounding camping and hiking places, to the folk music playing everywhere we went, to the many restaurants and stores selling organic, locally-grown, fair-trade, and green… There were also a ton of VW buses, though I’d be a little worried about mine with all those hills.

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Full Moon in the Afternoon Sky

Who knows where we’ll end up when we eventually move back to the States, but this is a place I would want to explore more. If you’d like to see more of my photos, I’ve posted them on Flickr:

Aunt Dallas

  • December 8, 2009 7:02 PM

Pulling my toes to make me grow tall, making up silly nicknames, and singing songs like Little Bunny Foofoo…these are some of the great memories I have of my Aunts from when I was young.  I have always thought that some day, I would like to be an Aunt just like them… After Thanksgiving, we had 24-hours in Raleigh, so we spent it with Thomas’ younger sister, Suzanne, and her family. She has two kids – one year and four years old – and I had a great time being an Aunt.

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Dallas and Thomas with Suzanne and family

Yesterday, I came across an old photo of me holding the now-four year old when she was just a week old.  She was very cute, but honestly, I was a bit scared of her.  I wasn’t really in child-mode at that time, and for a while after, I was more worried about making her cry, than I was with trying to engage with her. This time though, I finally felt like the kind of Aunt I want to be.  The four year old is now old enough that I can talk and play with her.  We had a great time together.

Dallas and Niece - 4-years ago

Since Thomas and I don’t get to see our niece very often, we try to send her a postcard from every country we visit, telling her about the places we go.  (Remember, Uncle Traveling Matt from Fraggle Rock?)  This trip, we gave her 3 pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelopes so she can send us “letters”, and even before we finished explaining it, she had filled it with something to mail us.  I can’t wait to see what she sent us.

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Kiddie Bowling

While we were there, we went bowling with the family – our niece’s first time.  They had special ramps to help her aim, and bumpers popped up whenever it was her turn – she even got a couple strikes.  Her little brother seemed content just watching.  I can’t wait until they’re both old enough that we can take them hiking, camping, or on other little adventures.

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Dallas and Nephew

We were just passing through Raleigh on our way to Oregon, and our time there seemed too short. We got a quick visit with Thomas’ friend Dave (Thomas is going to be his Best Man in a Dominican Republic wedding this Spring), and a quick visit with my friend Gorski. Thomas’ older brother, Mike was also in town and we got to play some tennis together.

If you’d like to see the rest of our photos from this part of our trip, they’re posted on Flickr:

Reunited with Clover

  • December 8, 2009 2:05 AM
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Clover and Dallas

One of the highlights of Thanksgiving week in the NC mountains (Black Mountain) was being reunited with my pup, Clover, a 7-year old, 10-lb shih tzu.  Although dogs are very welcome in Belgium – in shops, restaurants, and buses too – Clover is not a good traveler.  She stresses out in cars and does not do well in kennels either.  With all of our travel in Europe, we decided she would do better staying with my parents in NC.  And even better, my parents have her litter-mate, Bailey. Thomas and I both miss her tremendously, but we know she’s really happy, and we’ll get her back someday.

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Clover

Other than lots of Clover-kisses, Thanksgiving week was packed with fieldtrips, boardgames, and lots of good food. We toured the Biltmore Estate (the largest house in the US), visited a winery, saw the National Gingerbread House Competition, and explored Asheville. Even though we had a full week, I still don’t feel like I had enough time to visit with my family, but it was enough to tide me over until they visit us in Belgium, hopefully this next year.

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Bailey and Clover

Before we drove up to NC, we visited Atlanta and saw a lot of our old friends. We had a fantastic time, but sadly, I didn’t remember to pull out my camera even once while we were there.  And remember that 8-lbs of chocolate I carried across the sea? We forgot that at our first stop too. Whoops! Sorry to the folks we’ll visit on the rest of our trip.  Anyway, I did take photos in Black Mountain, and I’ve posted them on Flickr, along with a few taken by my mother, aunt and grandmother:

Tree Quilt Block Tutorial Ready

  • December 7, 2009 9:17 PM

Remember the tree quilt I’m doing for my month of the Another Quilting Bee 1? I made a test block, sent out the fabrics, and finally got the block tutorial posted online. It’s my first time writing a quilt block tutorial, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

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Uncomfortable in Marrakesh

  • December 4, 2009 11:07 PM

Thomas and I agreed that before we start trying for kids, we wanted to go to Africa.  Morocco sounded exotic enough that we could feel like we were just stepping on the edge of another world. It’s not that young kids can’t be taken there (we did see some brave tourists with some), but some travel is a lot easier without kids in tow. We kept this in mind throughout our trip – wondering if we would have felt comfortable taking a kid with us, if we had waited?

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For most of our trip, kids would have been fine.  We stayed in nice hotels, traveled in an air-conditioned jeep on paved roads, and people were very friendly, mostly hoping we’d buy something from them.  The only big challenge we saw was that strollers were not really part of the culture.

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I had been expecting Morocco to feel edgy, and for most of our trip, it didn’t…that is until we arrived in Marrakesh, our last city.  Marrakesh made me feel tense, exhausted, and physically ill.  It’s a large city known for it’s very active market that runs late into the night.  Like Fez, there is a maze of shops with people trying to sell you their goods.  Within our first hour there, we got so lost that we had to pay some kid to show us back to our hotel – of course he ripped us off.  The next time, we took our GPS with us and eventually became familiar with the route.

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My least favorite part of the Marrakesh market was a big open area filled with street performers – musicians, actors, snake charmers, etc.  If you took photos of any of these, they would demand money, even chasing you down to get it.  I especially couldn’t stand the performers putting monkeys and snakes on us so we would pay for a photo.  There were also henna artists harassing me to paint my hands.  When I turned one down, she sprayed me with the staining ink.  To say the least, I was very upset.

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Needless to say, I would not take a child to Marrakesh – it was too crowded, too noisy, too dirty, and too smokey.  I’m glad I went, but it was not representative of the beautiful places we visited throughout the rest of our trip.

If you’d like to see the final set of Morocco photos, I’ve posted on Flickr: