Mile 1715 - Ape Caves, WA

We had planned to take the scenic route through Washington to get to Seattle.  This was all changed when we came across a sign that said "Ape Caves, 20 miles".  We had been told by a friend in passing that we should go to the ape caves, but conversation turned and we never actually talked about what they are and why we should go there and the topic was forgotten...until we saw the sign, which bring us to our afternoon activity.  

What does your mind think of when you hear "Ape Caves"?  Sarah first pictured an opening into a dark, rocky cavern, which would lead to the home of an ape.  But then she realized that that was silly as they were currently in Washington, not Uganda.  She realized she was influenced by the bat cave that she hiked to in Queen Elizabeth National Park, which housed millions of bats and one happy python who lived in deep crevice and had a million tasty snacks flying around him that he could snag whenever the hunger urge struck. 

Well, it wasn't exactly like that...

Aaron was just excited. Caves are awesome, Apes are awesome; this was bound to be worth the 20 mile diversion.

In reality, it was a 2+ mile long lava tube, carved during a volcanic explosion many moons ago, which did not contain a single ape...or does it!?!  We found it didn't contain much of anything: no sunlight, no wildlife, no plants...just rocks, darkness and crazy people who decided to walk from one end to the other.  Of course we chose to do the more difficult upper cave, we will not take the easy way out!  You must bring a light source, and a mandatory back-up for when that one goes out.  It's about 40 degrees as it's totally underground so you must dress warm.  And of course, we brought our cameras.

Just as we descended underground, Sarah realized that this actually may cause her to feel claustrophobic and made a light comment about it preparing Aaron.  What resulted was a comedy of errors in which Sarah needed to keep moving and Aaron "needed" to stop and get just the right picture. In addition to claustrophobia, Sarah started suffering from frustration and needed to hurry Aaron otherwise the walls were going to cave in or lava would start flowing through the tube and wash them away. Aaron also became frustrated that Sarah didn't share the desire to take 2 minute long pictures in this ideal environment for long shutter speeds.  Hmmmm....After a few hours, they made it to the exit up top and breathed a sigh of relief.  Sarah had TONS of amazing space around her and Aaron formulated an appropriate apology. The hike back down was a very pleasant experience for all.

So why is it called the Ape Caves?  The world may never know.

The Descent into the Cave

Prepared for Darkness

Aaron doing his thing

This picture took 4 minutes. Seriously?

Sarah is not so thrilled at this moment.

The light at the end of the tunnel

See? It's pretty cramped space.

State Count #1 - Oregon

Nickname		Beaver State
Capital		Salem
Did we go there?		No
Sales tax		None!
Famous for		Oregon Trail, forests, rain, beer, not being able to pump your own gas
State beverage		Milk
The truck smells like		Fresh air
Favorite meal		Pine State Biscuits
Oops moment		Sarah getting a blister on her third toe, then putting moleskin and Band-Aid on it for the next hike, then getting a blister on the forth toe from all the rubbing of the Band-Aid
Highlights		Swimming in Crater Lake, the hymenoptera research with the Bailey’s, catching up with friends, making homemade blackberry ice cream, realizing that sleeping in the back of the truck was more comfortable then sleeping in the tent, coasting for miles on a bike
Best drive		Along the Gorge from Portland to Hood River
Conversations		Health insurance, blogs, childhood vacations, medicine and consults
Adjectives		Full, Green, Hearty, Refreshing
Friend Count		8

Mile 1555 - Portland Art Museum: Part 2, OR

While I was in the Museum I took some notes on my observations of a few paintings that grabbed my attention. These notes are mostly about methods that the artist used to achieve depth; there is no details included about the history of the painting or the artist. Here's a few observations on three paintings I spent some time with:

Boats Returning Home, William Ritschel, 1864-1949
A California Impressionist

The paint texture gives a sense of depth; large unarticulated daubs of paint dominate the foreground and gradually the strokes are smaller and more defined while the distant horizon is smoothed out.

Vibrancy of the color is also used to achieve depth: the water in the  foreground has a complex range of colors of contrasting yellow and violet mixed in with touches of vibrant red.  The foremost ship has a faint touch of red which a connects with a muted red in the sea in the focal point.

Focal point of the painting is the fifth ship from the foreground, this ship has the sharpest contrast  lines, features the most distinct warm/cool contrast, and includes touches of every color found on the painting.

Background is very low-contrast and low-vibrancy. Flat grey strokes imply ships so far that they eye can barely see them.

Various colored unarticulated daubs in the foreground give the impression of the depth of the water as well as the difficulty to focus on your bottom field of vision. 

Gabriel Revel 1686

Depth is achieved through masterful use of perspective lines in the architecture of the building as well as in the background.

Focal point is achieved by use of vibrant colors; main foreground characters wear primary red, blue, and yellow, while side characters wear muted secondary violet, green, and orange.

Main casts down on woman and blue with a little extending to man in red sash.

One of the characters faces is partially translucent; very peculiar. Is this a sign of it being added later to balance the focus more towards the man in the painting? Without this figure he would be cut off from the main party and the painting as a whole would be unbalanced. However, depending on the paint, it could have just been difficult to paint that figure over that column without giving him too much of a focus. Interesting to think about.

What's especially interesting is that if you simply look at the architecture of the building, the artist was trying to place these figures in a very large space, but he has a number of factors that flatten out the painting. The figures that you can see through the column are so small that you can see he was really trying to convey an immense depth.
        The light in the foreground also gives a nice sense of depth in the foreground, but the background has it's own lighting that is equivalent in tone and even saturation, which makes the mountains feel feet away.
        The foreground characters are pretty much all there is to look at in this painting except for maybe a quick glance to the random guy on the far right, so even though there's perspective lines, your eye just gets stuck on the figures in the foreground.
        Lastly, there really isn't much foreground. The people are right there at the bottom of your field of vision

Water Lilies, Claude Monet, 1914
A French Impressionist

Foreground is painted with circular strokes and reflection is painted with vertical strokes

There is a definite sense of depth though there is no horizon line.

Depth is achieved by complex range of colors, background at the top of the painting is all cool colors and family of color gets progressively more complex towards the foreground at the bottom of the painting.

Swirls of green and blue give an impression of lily pond leaves stacked on eachother and partially covered with water reflecting the branches of the tree above.

What I think is remarkable about this painting is that the blue lilies are the focal point of the painting. Almost the entire painting is saturated with cool colors except for the five bright pink lilies at the bottom. You would think they would stand out more and yet the uncontrasting blue lilies hold your focus. It should be noted that the blue lilies are slightly bigger in size. It's as if he wanted the focus of the painting to be the blue lilies, but he knew that if the lilies were just blue, they wouldn't become a focus. Adding the pink lilies places a focus on all of the lilies and since the blue ones are a little larger and span the entire painting, they become the focus. 

Mile 1555 - Portland Art Museum: Part 1, OR

With Sarah having ice cream girl time with Sharon, I snuck in a few solo hours at the Portland Art Museum. There was alot to see and only four hours to see it, so you have to be intentional about how you go through the museum. So what do you do when you go through an art gallery? Take an audio tour through every room? Find the most famous names and check them off your list? Art Museums can be daunting.

My strategy for the day is to go into a section of the gallery, briefly walk around the whole room, and then spend at least ten minutes with a single painting. What ended up happening is I spent 10 minutes in a room deciding which painting I want to look at, and then I spent twenty minutes staring at one and jotting down notes. 

How do I choose you ask? 

I once read something profound about the impact that an artwork can have on a person. Art is created because language cannot describe everything that can be found in the human soul. Our feelings and thoughts are not limited to the words that have been made to define them. We are not shallow beings and words are only one way of expressing our experience of being, which is why so many people have chosen alternative ways to express themselves.

Joy can be made with a guitar, grief can be told with a color, need can be carved, revolution can be written into symphony, feelings can live in a ring; and when someone finds a way to bring to life a piece of themselves, it brings to life an experience shared by someone else that they never thought about before. 

How many of us fully understand our grief, our anger, or so many emotions that we live with everyday? We all have more to learn about who we are.

So in a way, I let the paintings choose me. I walk around and trust that in all of history, there were a few artists who have felt what I have felt or who have put on a canvas something that reaches something deep in my soul.

This has happened enough times to know it's worth looking, but no, there's no guarantee. Sometimes you quickly understand, but often you have to spend time with a painting that strikes you. I think it can be because you're trying to understand the artist's motivation, maybe the historic significance; but sometimes being vulnerable about your own life experience reveals what's behind the artist's intentions, or it could reveal something else.

There's one painting of my sister's that I have stared at for a significant amount of minutes. There's nothing about it that immediately jumps out at you, but it has always struck me. I don't know why she painted it, and if she told me, I think it would lessen it's impact. I can't tell you what it means, but looking into it, new thoughts have awoken about the complexity of life. I don't really want to say much more, because these thoughts are very personal to me, but I love those thoughts, and I hope for you that art could slow you down and awake the mysteries in you.

So you didn't really get a tour of the Portland Art Museum, but it was really great, so next up I'm going to post some notes I wrote on a few of the pieces I spent some time with next.

Mile 1537 - Portland Friends, OR

Sarah likes to plan ahead.  So when she started medical school, she purposely became close friends with the 3 girls that would eventually end up doing residency and then live in Portland so that visiting them in the future would be an easy task…OK, well maybe she’s not that good at planning ahead, but the above did end up coming true! 

Amanda, Kelsie and Sharon are 3 of the most amazing and fun friends that a person could ask for.  These girls got Sarah through medical school and will forever be part of one of the best chapters in her life.  They are a big reason why a trip to Portland can’t be a quick one.  Mix reminiscing about the good old days with all the Portland restaurants, and you have yourself a deliciously refreshing and fun week!  Thank you my friends!  Until next time…

P.S. And they all have amazing 3-lettered husbands that we love to hang out with. Thanks Joe, Ben and Jon! We had a blast!

Mile 1501 - Battle Ground, WA

So while they don’t actually live in Portland, or Oregon for that matter, a trip to P-town usually involves a visit to Battle Ground, Washington to see the Tedders.  They are related to Sarah as second-cousins-once-removed, or some other non-personal sounding title, but she just calls them her cousins.  

They brought us to the best Thai food that Battle Ground has to offer at Keo Thai and tried thier different dishes in the spice range from 3 to 5.  Props to Cindy even for surviving the number 5! And Danny, if you've forgotten, you really loved the Pad-Kee-Mau.

To cool off, we enjoyed a nice backyard evening over a delicious, homemade blackberry cobbler and icecream with fresh-picked blackberries from their yard!  What a treat! Did you know that the thorns of a blackberry bush are actually called "prickles"? The Tedder's get their berries from a Prickle-less bush, and they're delicious. Thanks for the wonderful evening!  But we missed you, Andrew, Amy and David, Luke and Emily!

Mile 1446 - Portland Food, OR

You can’t be in Portland long without wanting to swear yourself in to the life of a foodie.  No matter what section of Portland you’re in, there’s some overwhelmingly good food within 5 blocks.  At least it seemed that way to us. 

Here are our recommendations for a day full of dining.

Let’s start with Breakfast: You’ll want to start at the Byways Café, because everybody loves starting their day with a food coma.  This place is like a breakfast joint you’d find on some forgotten highway, transported into downtown Portland.  The walls are covered with vintage road trip collectables, as if the owner had a monopoly on estate sales over the last 10 years. 

Then there's the portions!  Aaron just had to try the Amaretto French Toast after he read the enticing description "Four slices of amaretto-infused brioche served lightly dusted with powdered sugar, honey pecan butter and maple syrup." It was the equivalent of half a loaf of bread but seriously, who could pass that up?  Well, Sarah had an omelet...it was good too. We recommend coming here with three or four people and ordering two of their specialties. You won't go away hungry.

Lunch:  You might as well have breakfast again because not only is it the most important meal of the day, it’s just that good.  Head over to Pine Street Biscuits and prepare to be amazed at how many delicious calories they can pack into one little bite.  Yep, that’s a homemade biscuit, egg, sausage and a TON of gravy.  It tastes as good as it sounds.  It could have been worse, we could have ordered the Reggie.  Aaron also got a front row seat and learned a thing or two about how to cook an egg.  We both are anxiously awaiting a time to try it out ourselves!

Now it’s time for dinner:  Why not make it 3 for 3 and have breakfast again at the Waffle Window?  Here you can experience the sweet or the savory depending on your mood, piled high on a delicious waffle.  Or if you share, you can experience them all!  One really isn't going to fill you up, so we recommend ordering at least three!  We were so excited and hungry that we ate it all before remembering to take pictures.  So you’ll just have to take our word for it.

Though we do love to eat, you may have guessed that we didn’t really go to all of these places in one day…we’re not THAT crazy.  But now it is time for dessert and we may have been crazy enough to go to BOTH locations of Salt and Straw in one night.  But how can you resist the newest, hippest ice cream joint in town, where they take artisan flavors to a whole new level.  Our palates experienced ice cream that was 2 parts amazing and 1 part confusing.  Chevre with jalapeño jelly. Creamed corn. Honey balsamic strawberry with cracked pepper.  Sea salt ice cream with caramel ribbon.  Coffee and bourbon.  Sound unreal; disgusting perhaps?  You’ll just have to check it out yourself!