Silver Falls State Park

Yesterday I took a day trip from my Insiders Guide to Portland, OR (thank you Elizabeth, Bill, and Caroline) to Silver Falls State Park. It is located about 70 miles south of Portland in the lower elevation of the Cascade Mountains. The book describes the Silver Falls State Park as "being located in a temperate rain forest. Canyon trail or Trail of 10 Falls is one of the most beautiful trails in Oregon. It descends to a forest floor covered with ferns, mosses, and wild flowers amid a forest of Firs, Hemlock and Cedar. The trail follows the rushing waters of Silver Creek."

I took the Trail of 10 Falls and started my hike at the South Falls. What a start to a hike. The first thing you see is a large waterfall of 177 Ft. It is beautiful, and the trail actually walks you behind the water if you choose. I of coarse went behind the water and got wet due to mist, but enjoyed every minute of it. My overall hike was approximately 5 miles and I saw 7 of the 10 falls. I decided to save the final three for when Adrienne gets out here. Here is a link to the park page if you are interested (http://www.oregonstateparks.org/park_211.php). I have also posted my pictures from my journey on Flickr for anybody to check out.

If the rest of the hiking in this area is even close to the hiking experience from Saturday, I am going to love hiking and riding my bike here. I have decided my next day trip (also a recommendation from the book) will be to Mount St. Helen's.

Office or better yet Cube

Well on day one of my new job, I spent most of the day in training and trying to get my computer and telephone working properly. It is interesting working for such a large firm, as they have a call center for computer assistance. It is like calling Verizon, except these people actually care and want to help. It is however still a phone conversation and sometimes can be frustrating. So my space is in a quad of cubes. Basically it is four cubes down a aisle. Me three other 'quad mates' are great. We are a pretty young crown down our aisle and I am grateful to have fun people to sit around all day. The first project I am going to be working on is a High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane addition to a really busy intersection in Tacoma, WA. My first task was to spend time reviewing the design manuals and try to get up to speed on the requirements. A challenging task seeing as how this is not real exciting reading. It should be a fun challenging project to work on since I will be exposed to many new techniques and requirements. The pictures show my space after a few days, and the board shows the messages left for my by my quad. On a side note, my first Friday was ended with a happy hour (hours) to a local pub. I think I could make that a Friday routine, as it was a nice way to wind down the first week.

Grandpa Thompson

With everything in my life a whirlwind, I recieved some bad news on Friday April 11th. I lost my grandfather to illness. This was a tough pill to swallow. It is tough to think I will never get to talk to my grandpa ever again. He was never much for words on the phone, but was always glad to hear from me. It was always an option to call him before now. I have lots of fond memories of my grandpa that I will never forget. The last time I made a trip to Texas was this fall to visit my family. You never know it is going to be the last time, but I had a wonderful visit with everbody, especially him. He made a brisket for the family at my request, and even shared with me the rub he uses, and tips for making a good brisket. Now I get to remeber him everytime I use my smoker which is quite often. One of my final memories of my grandpa was during that trip this fall. My grandpa was a avid Cowboys fan and the weeked I was in town was opening weekend for the NFL season. The cowboys played the sunday night game and he and I sat up and wathced the whole thing. It was so much fun. I don't ever remember him staying up that late before which made it that much more special to me. I am posting this here because I know if he were still alive he would have visited this blog and read all about my journeys. If he is reading this from above, I want him to know I love him and am I glad he was such a great grandpa!!!

The Portland Apartment

So I pulled into Portland on Tuesday without a place to call home. I had hotel reservations for my first two nights here, but needed to settle on a place sooner rater than later. I had tentatively lined up a place, but needed to see it so I could sign a lease. This apartment had a lot to offer i.e: walking distance to work, 6 month lease, garage for my car, and unknown to me at the time, a farmers market three blocks away every Saturday. I came to look at the apartment on Wednesday the 9th. The pictures i got from the manager, were accurate, and the the only con I found was the proximity to the interstate. The pros were to many to pass up, and I signed the lease and had a place to call home. My new home is 2073 SW Park Ave, #203, Portland, OR 97201.

The only thing left to do now was the move in, unload my car and then buy everything I needed to get settled prior to my first day of work on April 14th. After several trips to IKEA and Target, and Walmart, the apartment is now ready to be lived in. It is quite a bachelor pad as you can see from the pictures. Plenty of space for me, and I have decided I am really going to love it hear in Portland. My first weekend here the weather was gorgeous, and I finally got to see Mount Hood. By sunday I was completly settled and just needed internet to I had some better entertainment. All in all a great experience moving to portland and getting settled has been stressful, but really fun.

Here are some pictures of my apartment.

The drive to Portland

On March 21st, Adrienne and I decided that Portland Oregon would be the best fit for our future. The only catch to this was I would have to start my new job with CH2M Hill on April 14th, a full 5 months before Adrienne will start. So I put my two weeks in at HDC on March 24th and the planning for my move began. I am putting this blog together to chronicle my experiences in Portland.

So lets see I am moving to Portland to start a new job all by myself. The only things I will be able to bring are what I can fit into my car and drive with me. I won't sign a lease on an apartment sight unseen, so Ill have to find one after I get into town. This might be appealing to some, but based on my control freak kind of personality it was a stressful two final weeks of work.

I pulled out of Champaing on April 5th at around 12:00. I listened to my final reds game on 700WLW, as this will be the first location I have ever lived where I wont get this station. I held out as long as I could, 8 full innings, until it became unbearable with static. Now you have to realize unbearable static for the reds is extreme static. I can remember listening to reds games on the radio with my dad in Toledo growing up it was always a bit staticy. I think the static would drive most people crazy, but to me it has always been a part of the reds on the radio. On day one I drove for a good solid 9 hrs made it to Sioux Falls, SD a total of 637 Miles.

On the second day, I was heading to Badlands National Park. The park is located in western SD about 300 miles west of Sioux Falls. During this portion of the drive, snow and ice became an issue. I had to actually stop the drive and eat in a random diner in the town of Murdo, SD. The diner was called the GTO Cafe (http://www.gtodiner.com/) I was surprised to see they even had a website. So after an hour lunch I continued my drive. By the time I hit the Badlands, I had blue skys and lots of sun. A great day to drive through a gorgeous park. Lots of wildlife in the badlands, and not very many people. I saw only three other cars the entire time I was there. It was a really nice relaxing afternoon. After the badlands, it was off to Mount Rushmore. Not a bad thing to see in person, but to me it is like a monument. After you spend about 15min looking at it you have seen it with your own eyes, not much else to see. I had intended on walking the trail for different views, but snow prohibited this part of my journey. After mount Rushmore it was off to Deadwood, SD for the night. Deadwood is a great town of casinos. I don't think any building there didn't have a casino housed. I bet there were 50+ casinos in a town with really only one main street. I ate at the Gem Saloon, saw the location where wild bill hickock was shot, and gambled very little. (Not a lot of cards being played this time of year on a Sunday night).

Day three I had a stop planned for Devils Tower. Based on the weather forecast before I left Deadwood, I decided to forgo this stop to try and get north of a front coming through my drive route. Since I didn't make that stop, and the NCAA championship game was this day, I drove until this game was to start. My final destination was Deer Lodge, Montana. A quaint little town west of Butte. The view from anywhere in town was just awesome. I don't think I could get tired of looking at snowy mountains. It recently snowed and the scenery was great.

Day four I was awoken early (6:30) by someone who forgot about the time difference (Adrienne). So instead of rolling back over I just got on the road at 7:30. I thought I might stop in the Columbia River Gorge area east of Portland, but decided I needed to arrive at my destination and be done spending long days in the car. I did stop along the way and take pictures in Idaho at a rest area, and then again in the Gorge area. The drive from about 90miles east of Portland is just great. You are basically following the river the entire 90miles, and the scenery is breath taking. Several locations there are 100' waterfalls visible from the road.

I pulled into Portland on Tuesday April 8th around 5:00 PST I drove a total of 2,364 miles, averaging 22.2 MPG, using a total of 106 Gallons of gas over my four day journey. The drive was awesome, and the scenery was so pretty. By the end I was ready to be out of the car, but I would do it again in a heart beat.