Tobi & BJ Return to Portland

Get right to the pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/mattawalker/TobiBJReturnToPortland

My good friends Tobi and BJ, with whom I used to market and engineer beverage distribution software (and his girlfriend Rebecca), came to town the other week for my old (their current) company’s annual user conference. This would be the first time Tobi would be in town for an Oregon weekend, and it was expected to be a scorcher. They left the comfort of their four-star hotel on Friday to camp out in my non-air-conditioned home in 90+ degree heat. Ok, truth be told, we didn’t even notice the heat the first day because we were busy raging in the basement of the Goodfoot, a classic haunt of mine on Friday nights. I can’t pass up the funk and soul dropped there, and I’d told Tobi about it enough times that we had no choice but to descend, drink, and dance. We were there when the lights came up (a feat I’d not yet accomplished) and closed the night by witnessing Tobi attempt to consume the largest plate of hash browns I’d ever seen.

The next day... ah, the next day. The next day we got up feeling better than expected and headed out for the most epic shotgun tour of the Columbia River Gorge possible after grabbing lamb burritos at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. I had carefully engineered a plan with just enough driving, just enough hiking, just enough time and energy to see as many waterfalls, and as many diverse sites as possible in one day. For the play by play, check out the photo album, it’s captions, and the photo locations (I'd love feedback on the location feature). Rebecca described it as a “top 10 day” about halfway through, and by the end we all agreed.

The most memorable part of the day was standing at the base of Elowah Falls. It had rained for most of the previous week, and all the falls were in full force. I had seen many of these torrents half a dozen times before, and it was truly like seeing them fresh. So, back to Elowah: the intense flow made it so that the crash of the 200 foot plummet filled the entire lagoon with a thick mist. As we got closer, we noticed that the mist became so thick it couldn’t be called mist, but was shooting out of the lagoon like airborne ocean waves, soaking us all with 40 degree glacial water. It sucked the breath out of you and soaked you to the bone almost instantly. As you turned to leave, it soaked you from behind, slamming like a wave. Epic. It was such a transforming experience that, after Tobi’s suggestion, before leaving we turned back and wave-bathed one last time.