Category: Outdoors

After we visited the Big Obsidian Flow Barb and I drove a few miles north to see the Lava River Cave. It is a lava tube nearly one mile long. There are no natural light sources and the only light sources are those you bring in with you. Pictures were difficult to take and those which were attempted were nearly pointless in attempting to convey the size and awesomeness of this tube.

Barb had never been in a cave before and found the experience less than enjoyable. It wasn’t claustrophobia because we didn’t get to anything particularly small and she has been in small confined spaces before without issue.

Yesterday Barb and visited the Big Obsidian Flow in central Oregon. As is the case with many volcanic fields it is somewhat other worldly. It’s a flow composed of about 25% obsidian mixed with pumice. It is an easy hike and very worthwhile.

There are huge chunks of the black natural glass all around you:

You need to be careful when stepping on it because it is very slick. You are told not to bring your dog with you on the trails because, well, broken “glass” is everywhere.

The native Americans who lived nearby used the obsidian for tools and traded it with other tribes.

Because the chemical makeup of the flow is distinguishable from other sources scientists were able to trace tools found hundreds of miles away to this flow.

Barb and I hiked on Mount Hood today. The weather was great. The air was clear enough that we could easily see Mount Jefferson over 45 miles away and Three Sisters and Broken Top (to the left of Mount Jefferson) nearly 90 miles away:

Here is the same view of the mountains with a 125 mm lens instead of a 43 mm lens:

We talked to another couple who were hiking down as we were going up. They told us that yesterday there were 60 MPH winds. We were very lucky with our date selection!

We hiked up to the the ski lift junction at just under 7000 feet elevation. I wanted to make it above 7000 feet so I went on up the hill a short distance to what my phone GPS said was 7054 feet above sea level.

My view from there:

Yes, it was July 3^rd and there were lots of skiers. Here are some more:

And here is a cropped version from the lower center of the picture above:

Today, at 11:00 AM, while on top of the peak “The Watchman” overlooking Crater Lake Barb said, “I want to talk.”

This was the view from our vantage point over the lake:

Okay. This is a little odd. She can talk as much as she wants whenever she wants. Why is she announcing this now?

“I want to talk about our relationship.”, she continued.

I was seriously confused now. I thought things were fine. And why at this semi-public location does she want to have what appears to be a very serious conversation about our relationship? Is she breaking up with me? What did I do?!!!

I didn’t have to wait long. She explained, “Since my food intolerance went away I have decided I want to be married now.”

Oh! OH!!!!

I started crying.

Wow!

She then got down on one knee and said, “Would you do me the honor of being my husband?”

The tears made my face wet and my nose runny but I gave her a hug and said, “Yes, of course.”

This picture was taken a few minutes later from the same place:

The picture below was taken from across the lake a few hours later. There are two peaks above and to the left of Wizard Island. The second peak to the left is the one we were on when she proposed. Excellent choice!

Today Barb, daughter Jaime, her fiancé Sherry, grandson Bryce, and I went on a hike to a small waterfall near Coal Creek Parkway. Bryce led the pack with Barb and I trying to keep up. Jaime and Sherry enjoyed the stroll to the rear except when we stopped to examine things.

Barb was acting like a wonderful grandmother:

Bryce decided no one should get ahead of him on the trail:

The fence on the Northeast side was only just completed when She looked upon the gate near the Southwest corner and She was displeased. And She thereby looked upon me with pleading eyes and a pleasant voice and asked, “Could you help me build a new gate?” And so it was that yesterday we began to build a gate:

And when the gate was complete She looked upon it and was well pleased for it was a thing of beauty:

But the day was not yet done for there was much clean up to be done. There were many old pieces of fence and large concrete blobs to haul to the Bellevue Transit center. There it was found there was 450 pounds of old fence stuff to leave with them for proper disposal.

And then She looked upon my car and saw that it had small pieces of wood and dirt on the inside from the fence clean up. And so, She then vacuumed it and made it clean once more.

After a few days of basking in the glow of the awesomeness of Her fence on the Northwest corner Barb came to see that the Northeast corner was lacking and was within Her ability to reconstruct in Her own image of perfection. As so it was done (with a little bit of help from me) last week.

First the old fence was disassembled, and the boards, posts and concrete blobs removed:

Then we carefully measured the depths of the holes to make sure the new posts would be the proper height:

We added a bit of concrete at the bottom to get the posts exactly the right height:

After that set for a bit we added posts, braces, concrete mix, and water. Then, She looked upon Her work and saw that it was good:

The next day She built the fence on either side of the gate. And on the day after that we put up the gate:

And She was extremely pleased:

Barb was almost rapturous with the fence but, as is usual, within a couple days began to see improvements were possible. She went back to Home Depot and bought some more boards and changed this:

Into this:

She is getting quite good with hammer and nails.