Trip to Oregon

The Powells just got back from a glorious week long trip to Oregon.
Flying into PDX, we spent the first few days out in Scappoose and attended our niece's wedding on Sauvie Island. I was lucky enough to get to do my 25k marathon benchmark with my marathoning partner-in-crime, Carole on Saturday morning (58 degrees, NO humidity and nearly 100% flat!! YESSS!!!) and then run a trail race with my sister in law, Jess, and our brother Brian's girlfriend, Monica, on Sunday. After that we headed to Brendon's family's home in Dufur, OR, where we left Ev with her grandparents and took a dayhike on Mt. Hood. We intended to do Cooper Spur with B's brothers and their significant others, but the snow was still too low to go without snowshoes, ice axes, etc. and we weren't set up for that, so we opted for the Tilly Jane/Cloud Cap hike.  It was gorgeous. (We miss Mt. Hood so much and it was actually a hike we hadn't been on before.)  In our time in Dufur, we also got to visit the cabin we built on his parent's land and spend some much-needed, good quality time with Ma and Pa Powell.

From there we headed back into Portland, having dinner with some family and then OHSU grad school friends mid-week.  We finished up the week staying with some of our best friends who live in Vancouver.   It was a whirl-wind trip, but we really enjoyed it. Below are some pictures. (As a side note, I've made a list of the less-than-obvious ways living Oregon is different from Tennessee -for better or for worse-, which became apparent to me while I was there.... will post in an upcoming blog.)

On a personal note, in all honesty, the trip was really quite hard on me. Moving away was tough and I have always known that I miss it,  but don't think I realized how much.  There are so many things to miss- mainly the weather and the weather and landscape is the most obvious thing: maybe it's the Montanan in me, but give me cloudy/slightly rainy in July, some "real" mountains and streams and some evergreen trees and I am one happy girl. Part of it as well, is the memories of 11 years living there. I think that we are making some new, good memories in Tennessee and don't get us wrong- we are happy with our decision to have moved here- but I think it's ok to just admit that life in Tennessee isn't for us in the long-term and just try to enjoy the time we have here.

After traveling back, I can say with nearly absolute certainty that I will live in Oregon again one day. In the business of science (especially academic science), one can never be 100% sure, but I will do everything possible to live there again. (Of course, all good things in this world come from Oregon, as you can see in our sidebar. If you can think of others things to add to the list, please let me know!)

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and while it may be some time before we get back there again, we feel lucky to have had the chance to visit.