Portland Weekend Away

A couple weeks ago, I realized that we had stayed in California for several weekends in a row and therefore needed to go somewhere cool. So happens we also had a coupon for a discounted flight with Virgin America, so we chose the coolest destination (ie "cheapest") and we went to Portland! Flew out Friday night and came back on Monday morning. We packed the weekend with walking around downtown, shopping at the weekend market, eating really good food and going on awesome hikes. And to finish out the weekend, we loaded up on voodoo donuts. It was awesome. Sorry I don't have a picture of the amazing donuts. They were so good we ate them before we realized we should have taken a picture. Enjoy the pictures I did take! 

Saturday hike around Mt Hood area - it was kinda rainy, but sheltered because of the trees

So pretty!

We had to cross over several waterfalls. Jer shows us how its done!

Water everywhere!

Sunday hike to Angels Rest, then Devils Rest. The view above (from Angels Rest) was much better. We are looking out along the Columbia River Gorge. 

Lots of water here, but it wasn't raining. All the leaves were shimmering because of the water droplets that didn't evaporate (it was a bit chilly)

View from Devil's rest looking the other direction along the gorge

Pretty impressive

Greeeeeeeeeen everywhere! It was so peaceful up here. 

Napali Coast hike

This day was one of my favorites on Kauai. We got up early and went for a hike along the Napali Coast. The trail is sometimes treacherous because it is slippery when wet. Thankfully, it hadn't rained in a couple days before we went there, so there wasn't too much water on the path.

We are excited to get started! 

 If you don't remember the pictures from the helicopter ride, the next two pictures are the arial view of the hike we did.

This is the beach we started at

This is the view of the whole thing. We started at the beach on the left and hiked along the coast through the jungle, then turned left and went up into the canyon to the waterfall (its kinda small in the picture, but if you look closely, there is a small white line half way up the ridge)

Now we begin the hike. Pretty view of the beach

Jungle! 

Starting to climb

So pretty!! 

Seriously felt like we were in some far away island where there are giant gorillas or something

Two miles in we stopped briefly at the beach

Now we turned inland and are headed to the waterfall. The path was not always really clear. 

We did LOTS  of traversing across the stream. 

You had to pick your way carefully. 

Jer did a great job :) 

Getting a glimpse! Almost there! 

So many waterfalls everywhere on this island! 

Made it! 

Pretty tall waterfall

Took some pictures of the HUGE bamboo on the way back

We really tried not to get super muddy, but on the way back, a lot more people had come along the path and had mucked it up. 

Washing off in the stream before going back along the coast

Pretty views!! 

We saw a bunch of whales - some spouting and others breaching. Way cool! 

The sun came out and it made the water look sooooo blue! 

So this is the end of the entries from Hawaii. Hopefully more adventures to come soon! 

Water adventures in Kauai

 Jer and I went on a diving trip while we were on Kauai and it was really pretty! Unfortunately, I don't have a diving camera, so this is the only picture of the dive excursion that I got.

But.... we do have a camera with a water case that can be submerged down to 10 ft. so we were able to take some cool pictures of the sea creatures of Hawaii. Enjoy the cute fish below :)

Raccoon Fish

Cool camouflage! 

Turtles! I was so glad to get a picture of one while snorkeling because we saw tons while diving and I wanted to have a picture of them! 

This is my attempt to get Jeremy and the turtle in the same picture... Turtle? check. Jeremy? no check. Part of the end of Jeremy's fin? CHECK! :) 

I love seeing fish from Finding Nemo. It makes the movie come to life for me. 

Lots of fish! They blend in and just look like floating sand, but those are definitely fish! 

Some other snorkelers had a can of cheese wiz that they were squirting into the water, so we totally crashed their party and snuck pictures of the masses of fish they were attracting. 

Perhaps a tiny scorpion fish?? Not sure cause it is so little and I was far away and it kept moving under the rocks. (the one on the left)

Needle fish! 

A different kind of raccoon fish. 

After snorkeling, we visited the place called spouting horn because there is a big blow hole there. I took loads of pictures, and this is the only one that kinda shows how high the water gets. Its quite tricky to get the timing right. 

In addition to our diving and snorkeling adventures, we also took a couple days and learned how to surf! Woohoo! Lots of fun! We had a lesson and our teacher was awesome! Enjoy the pictures below! 

That is me! Sure, it is a eensy weensy wave... and a MONSTROUS board, but its still surfing! 

Jer catching the wave

Catching the wave together! 

Some nice close ups!

The water was COLD!! 

Jer being funny ;) 

I looked like this a lot of the time. 

Chill beach we stayed at for our last day in paradise

Pretty sunset to end a great day! 

One more blog post to come that is our hike along the Napali Coast. Keep an eye out!