When you've got a house full of teenagers on a hot summer day, down at the swimming hole is the place to be. The kids invited friends from out of town to stay for the week, and lucky for us, the McKenzie River has many tributaries with fantastic swimming holes. Some of my favorite memories of being a teen revolve around summer swimming excursions, so I was happy to pile everyone in the car and ...
Adventures
At the Mouth of the Mighty Columbia
On our recent trip with my brother's family, we made an excursion one morning out to the mouth of the Columbia River. As we climbed up the viewing platform and took in the view around us, I was struck not only by the vast expanse from where we stood to the Washington shoreline, but by how profoundly steeped in history this place is. I thought of all the accounts I had read of the Lewis and Clark ...
Stories of Sibling Shenanigans
Continuing on with a tradition that began when we were in diapers, my brother and I met up for our annual family camping last weekend. Having hiked, biked, camped, rafted, backpacked and explored together for over three decades, we certainly have some stories to tell, and it's a lot of fun now that we're parents getting our own kids in on some of these family shenanigans. We ...
Oregon Dune Sledding!
When you live in a place where winter is not white, you either travel to find the snow, or learn to think outside the box and take up more creative forms of winter recreation . Last year we discovered dune sledding at the coast, and it was a big hit. We can usually count on a few snow days every year when we can sled at home, and we can always travel up to the pass for a snowshoeing excursion, but ...
A New Year, a New Adventure
Ringing in the New Year with an outdoor adventure is a good way to start things off, so we ventured out to the coast to spend the first days of 2015 yurt camping, dune sledding and playing on the beach with friends. We began our New Year's adventure sharing a 30-foot deluxe yurt at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park with some old friends. We have been camping together with our kids for many years ...
A Fall Fire Lookout Adventure
Of all the great places around Oregon to have a weekend getaway in the outdoors, I have found fire lookout towers to be one of the finest. Over the last decade I have stayed in a number of them all over Oregon, in every configuration of company. Sometimes I have gone with my family, sometimes with friends, sometimes as a getaway with my adventure partner, and even once by myself, and every single ...
A Walk in the Woods
In the midst of our hectic fall schedule, we decided to slow things down a bit on Sunday and take a walk in the woods behind our house. I have found that there are few things as rejuvenating as a walk in the woods. We hadn't been up the trail to the top of our property in a while, and we wanted to see if the chanterelles were up, and check on our spring and check out some work the timber company ...
Soaking up the Last Days of Summer
With mornings getting colder, maple leaves beginning to turn golden, and school starting back up this week, we decided summer was fleeting and set out for an evening visit to a nearby swimming hole to soak it up. We followed Blue River up above the reservoir until we came to some very well-worn pullouts, and picked one that looked like it ought to have a swimming hole down below. Sure ...
From the Mountains to the Midwest
There is much to be learned from getting out there in the world and seeing places different from your home. There is also much to be learned about a person by seeing the place they come from. Having spent my life in the Pacific Northwest, and never having seen the Midwest, I was excited to to along with my Adventure Partner, Corey to visit his family and hometown in rural Illinois. Not only would ...
A Picnic on Castle Rock
Many of my favorite summer childhood memories revolve around evening picnic adventures with my family. My dad would come home from work at the end of the afternoon, bringing dinner with him from town (Kentucky Fried Chicken was a memorable favorite), and we would drive up the winding mountain road just behind our house, enjoying the views as we climbed looking out over the Olympic Mountain range ...