Free Starbucks Smoothies today and Saturday!

Starbucks is promoting their new Vivanno smoothies today and tomorrow (Saturday) by offering a free smoothie to customers who register their Starbucks gift card on their website. The e-mail they sent me said that each person can only get one smoothie, but hey--it's free!

History?

I discovered something about myself this month: I like history. Maybe it started when I moved out to Philadelphia...maybe it came with my first glimpse of National Treasure...maybe it came when I got to teach 5th graders about all of Americas wars...I'm not really sure. For whatever reason, I've found myself getting really interested in how our country was founded, what the debates were among the Founding Fathers, what cautions they were taking when they created our Constitution. I admit that I haven't answered many of these questions, but I've been exposed to more recently. And I like it.

The Kornelis family has the HBO John Adams series, which features seven episodes of the oft-overlooked member of our country's heritage. I devoured them this past week--especially the first two. After watching an episode, I found myself looking up articles on people and events to learn more about them. It's fascinating to consider how far our country has come--for the good and bad!

The end of the Oregon Trail

Amazingly, our time here in Oregon is quickly departing. We leave Friday evening via Greyhound bus for Seattle where we will meet up with the Gardner family! We're both excited to hang out with them for several days before returning to Philly on July 31st.

Earlier this week, I realized that we're living about 15 minutes away from the end of the Oregon Trail--Oregon City! Do you remember playing the video game? (you can still play the original version online for free here!) I have fond memories of trekking past Soda Springs, fording the Kansas River, and most certainly gunning down buffalo in cold blood. Anyway, I went to visit the official "End of the Oregon Trail" tourist center:




While I didn't fork over the $9 to tour the exhibits that closed in 45 minutes from when I got there, I took the free trolley around the small town of Oregon City and heard several stories about the history of western Oregon. For example, did you know that Portland used to be called Stumptown? According to our trolley guide, they did a lot of logging up in Portland and shipped the wood down the rivers to California. Since about a mile of forest on both sides of the rivers were chopped down, they were left with a lot of stumps! As it turns out, they decided on the name Portland by a coin toss! A man from Portland, ME and a man from Boston, MA each wanted to name the city after their hometown. Obviously, the man from Maine won the toss!

Portland--30 stories in the air

Sunday night, Sarah and I had dinner on the 30th floor of the Portland City Grill. It was beautiful! Dusk was falling, a piano player was taking requests, we found a window seat immediately, and everything seemed to go be going as well as it could! Unfortunately, we didn't have Sarah's driver's license. We mistakenly just figured that we wouldn't be able to order any alcoholic beverages, but it turns out that they wouldn't let us stay in the restaurant!

So, we did what any sensible couple looking for a hot date would do: drove 15 minutes home, got her ID, and returned to the restaurant. It was well worth our time. The food was between $2 and $5 a plate (each of us ordered three items--my favorites were the white cheddar and chive burger and kung pao chicken). Each dish was delicious! The evening was a wonderful way to end our last weekend in Portland.

Silver Falls Park

Saturday, Sarah and I took our Zipcar an hour south to visit Silver Falls Park. The park has a 6.9 mile trail with 12 waterfalls on it! The lush, green trail followed Silver Creek. Since we didn't arrive until right before dusk, Sarah and I only made it about halfway on the trail. Such a beautiful place! Check out our pictures, and feel free to use a few as desktop backgrounds. I swear, this is where photo companies must come to take pictures for their galleries. So beautiful!

This waterfall was 136' and had a neat trail behind it!

Ents exist in western Oregon. Just ask Tolkien!

Sarah spotted these fields of wildflowers nearby.

The view from behind the waterfall.

Our Zipcar experience

Saturday afternoon, Sarah and I took the Zipcar plunge! We wanted to go to Silver Falls Park, which is about an hour away from where we're staying in the suburbs of Portland, and we had some credit in Zipcar that we wanted to use. The Zipcar we reserved cost $36 for 24 hours, which include up to 180 miles of free driving--gas and insurance included! Here's what you need to do in order to get into the car:

That's right--just hold your Zipcard above that little sensor. It checks that your card has the car reserved for that time, and if it does, the door unlocks! The key, incredibly, is always clearly displayed next to the ignition:


I think it's fun to drive a new car, and our Subaru Impresa was no exception. We had a blast! The car was extremely clean when we got into it, too. We tried to leave it clean when we left it, but we forgot to remove Sarah's sandals from the back. Whoops. We need to reserve it for an hour to unlock the car and get them back.

Overall, we had a great experience. I even called and changed our reservation time without a penalty! We left our Zipcar looking for reasons to use it again.

This makes me sad

For me, the heart-wrenching part comes about 3:20 into the film--the part with the kids.

Wedding announcement in paper

It's official: according to the Holland Sentinel, Sarah and I got hitched!

Fruity Portland

Sarah and I seem to have arrived in Portland just in time for the fruit season. The last two weekends have been filled with fruit picking: our first weekend here, we picked about nine pounds of strawberries. Last weekend, we picked about eight pounds of raspberries! Sarah made a delicious strawberry pie after the first batch, and we have enjoyed several bowls of ice cream with raspberries a la mode. I even put some raspberries on my Rice Krispies this morning! As a self-described fruit-nivor, I'm loving this! The Kornelis family's Vitamix provides excellent smoothies without any hesitation about putting too much in at once (Anna and Mike would be jealous!).

I'm working on my Walden mid-term reflection papers today. I also took a glance at my program portfolio, which is due September 15. My goal is to be done with the bulk of it before school starts the day after Labor Day. If not, the first few weeks of school shouldn't be too rough on the system (hopefully!).

Dog Mountain

Today has kind of turned into a catch up blog day for some of the experiences we've had so far. Last week Tuesday, I took a hike with Josh and Becky Schicker and Becky's sister Kathy. We hiked up a place called Dog Mountain, which is known for its view and fields of wildflowers from the top. Unfortunately, we were a week or two late for the wildflowers to be in full bloom, but we did have a gorgeous view from the trail: Mount Adams, Mount Hood, and Mount St. Helens were all in view! Click here for the rest of the pictures from the trip.

This is the beautiful Columbia River Gorge (short for GORGEOUS!!!). Oregon is on our left, with Washington on the right. The Columbia outdoor company is named after this river, so you know it must be something special!

Mount Hood peeking over the others. On a clear day in Portland, you can hear the locals say "the mountain's out."

That is Mount St. Helens. You can tell which mountain it is because the top blew off 28 years ago!

Celebration was, indeed, in order.

Portland's famous Rose Garden

Friday afternoon, Sarah and I went exploring Portland. Since she had the afternoon off (OHSU was celebrating the 120,000 patients they had served this year!), we hopped on a bus and headed northeast for our first experience on the Max (public transit train). After visiting the Rose Garden Arena (home of the Blazers), we headed west to find the "real" rose garden. Our bus driver let us out in an inauspicious place--certainly not looking like a critically acclaimed "International Rose Test Garden." As it turns out, we just came in the back way. We followed a trail up some hills and came upon rows and rows of roses. There was a bridal party getting pictures taken, a harpist playing beautiful music, and lots of couples soaking in the aura. We found some grass and laid down on the ground, letting the harp music and rose smell fill our souls. (okay, maybe that was a little dramatic, but Sarah did drift off into a short nap and I threw tiny pine cones at a metal sign for sport). The whole place made me think of my mom and how much she would love it! Here are some pictures:

You might notice that Sarah and I sometimes experience flowers in different ways...

Note the name of the rose!!!

Jamming with Troast

Monday night, Sarah, Jill, Anne Marie, and I went to our friends Josh and Becky's apartment for a house concert featuring Jon Troast. Lisa and Nate met up with us for the show too! After some delicious food/drink, we settled in for a delightful acoustic performance. This was our second house concert, and Sarah and I both agreed that we enjoy them quite a bit. It's just so much more personal and intimate. We were talking back and forth with Jon, asking questions, giving requests, and cheering. Jon is touring the country playing in people's living rooms, which he says he does because he plays for people who listen. Plus, the overhead costs are low since he usually stays at the person's house he plays at. His stuff is real good, and we bought two of his CDs. Another new artist to follow!

Hiking Multnomah Falls

Yesterday, Sarah and I woke up at 6:30AM to begin our day's adventures. Our friend Todd (who works at OHSU and has a wife who goes to Liberti) picked us up and proceeded to show us new parts of Portland. First, we went to a Cafe for a delicious breakfast burrito. We attended Imago Dei church, home of Don Miller who wrote Blue Like Jazz. Amazingly, we saw three different friends who live in Portland! It was like the only people we know here (besides the Kornelis family that we're staying with) were there. We felt pretty cool walking in with Todd, then having Josh, then Nate come up and say hello to us. Talk about feeling welcomed!

But I digress from our adventures. After church, we drove out to the famed Multnomah Falls, where we hiked the 6 mile trail in about 2.5 hours. The second largest falls in the US are pretty "touristy", but the surrounding trails were much less people-filled. Along the trail, we happened upon several other gorgeous scenes:





See the rest of our pictures here.

After our hiking, we needed some serious chow. We had lunch at about 3:30 at an Italian place whose name escapes me. For dessert, we went to Papa Haydens. Unbelieveable selection of desserts! Since I'm in the Pacific Northwest, I thought it would be an appropriate time to try my first Baked Alaska. It was decent, but I'll go for the angle food cake, ice cream, and berries next time around.

Todd dropped us back at our house, and we thought we'd take a quick nap. Three 1/2 hours later, we woke up! Obviously, our bodies were trying to tell us something. I finished my work for Walden and Sarah planned out her new route to the hospital. She finished her outpatient rotation on Friday, and started her inpatient family medicine rotation today. What a day!

Free slurpees!

Today is July 11, which means it's 7-11, which means that 7-11 is giving away free slurpees all day today!!!

This is Portland.

Portland is the bus driver thanking you for riding his bus.
Portland is passing a 4oz bag of teriyaki beef jerky on sale for $7.99 at Whole Foods.
Portland is 20 people waiting outside for Powells Books to open.
Portland is the cashier telling you to "stay cool" when the day's high is 80. Fahrenheit.
Portland is the woman riding a streetcar commenting on another woman's book.
Portland is looking around the full bus and realizing there are only two minorities on it.
Portland is feeling like a social misfit for not carrying around a cup of coffee before 10AM.
Portland is seeing six long bicycle racks outside the health clinic. All of them stuffed with bikes.
Portland is purchasing a book for $14.95...and only paying $14.95 for it.--tax included.
Portland is the man saying that he thinks the sun is good for two things: growing a garden and warming the earth. And since he doesn't have a garden and is hot, he'd rather it rain every day.

This is Portland.


(note: all of these occurred in the last 16 hours)

How to fake political interest

For those of you out there who are just fed up with the political process, this video has the answer for you:


Today Now!: How To Pretend You Care About The Election

Live from the west coast

We're in Portland! Sarah and I arrived safely on Sunday in a day that lasted 27 hours for us. Our new friend Jill picked us up from the airport, and we enjoyed a pizza with our housemates, the Kornelis'--Ken, Jill, and Anne Marie. Visiting Philadelphians will certainly notice how many trees are here! Given, we're living in Lake Oswego, a suburb of the city, but still--there is way more green here than Philadelphia. Using the power of Google Maps, I typed in Portland and Philadelphia, zoomed in, and captured a screen shot of the two cities. Here are the results:


The first two things I noticed? 1=green color. 2=how crowded Philly is!

I have only been in the city to drive Sarah her first day at OHSU. Tomorrow I'm planning on riding the bus with her into work, then hanging out for the day there. I'll be able to have a better feel for the city after that.
So far, my days have been filled with hanging around the house, taking bike rides around the area, exploring trails (as pictured below), working on my Walden courses, visiting the Kornelis Grandma (who reminds me a great deal of Grandma De Boer!) and, of course, eating. Stress has tried to sneak up on me several times...sneaky stress. Fortunately, I've been able to ignore it quickly.

We have a few friends in Portland that we're looking forward to hanging out with. Sarah has the 4th off, so we're checking out our options for Independence Day celebrations. One day at a time!!