How Time (And my Sandwich) Flies!

Saturday was my one year anniversary of moving to Portland. We can't believe it's been a year already! I know it's cliche but time really does fly when you are having fun. Well Saturday we had quite a bit of fun. The day started with flowers (ftw!) and a card that read 'Happy one year of adventures'! After situating those in a vase we headed out for Mount St. Helens. The goal was adventure, and the scenic twisties of the Windy Ridge drive. Despite a road closure cutting the drive off sooner than we'd hoped, it turned out to be a fantastic trip. We mostly went for the roads, but we did make a few stops along the way for pictures and lunch.

Our first stop was the volcano overlook at Bear Meadow where we shared a picnic lunch; just us... and 10 hungry grey jays. I had packed cracker crumbs for them but they seemed to have other ideas. I made it halfway through my sandwich before they decided it looked tastier than crackers. Every other time I took a bite a bird would swoop down, brace it's little feet on my hand and face, and snatch a piece of crust away. I finally gave up and let them pick at the last bit of bread. I put out more crumbs for them and tried to eat my apple only to have one little jay abandon the crackers, hop over to me and then up onto my apple. It couldn't quite figure out what to do with it though so it ended up just perched there. Needless to say, I didn't eat that part.

After lunch we drove down to Iron Creek Falls where I had a losing battle with gravity, and fell down a small embankment. It didn't do too much damage, just a little bit of hurt pride as I had a bit of an audience. To the amusement of some though, I gave them a shrug and a thumbs-up from the spot on the ground where I had so inelegantly landed. We spent time taking photos there at the falls before heading back in and ending the day with dinner on the river at McMenamins on the Columbia in Vancouver. Photos from the trip are on my fotki!