---

Dudes I am writing from Glacier National Park in beautiful northern Montana!!!!  I will dedicate like a 1,000 posts to this leg of my trip a little later ;D  First up…wonderful Oregon!

I was so totally stoked to visit one of my super best friends Shannon residing in The Dalles, OR!  Shannon and I have been friends for nearly 20 years and even though we go through spouts of not seeing each other we always pick up right where we left off!

Shannon moved to Oregon to take a great job and be with her boyfriend Matthew about 3 years ago and it has taken me this long to visit!  (I will not say that she never ONCE came to visit me in California!)  Oh wait… I just did…. >(

Anyways… What didn’t we do while I was in visiting?!  First off let me tell you that Shannon and Matt have a sick view from their backyard!

 

I got to hangout, chat, workout and chill with my friend Shannon 😀  Also her friend Dave was in town for a wedding so it was a Cleveland reunion!  #216love

Here is what I didn’t know about Oregon… the eastern part of the state is dry, dry and dry!  As an Ohio gal, I thought ALL of Oregon was covered in giant towering pines and lush forest ground!  Yeah, no.  As I drove across the country I was able to see how the landscaped changed over the course of beautiful endless miles.  It’s not that I expected each state to be a certain way, I just didn’t realize that drastic of a contrast to what I had in my mind about eastern Washington and Oregon.

With that said The Dalles is beautiful!  Hood River is beautiful!  All in all it is a great chunk of land that offers endless outdoor activities to take part in.  For instance: horseback riding (we didn’t this time but Shannon has horses so it’s on the list for next time), paddleboarding, sailing, hiking Mt. Hood, jogging along the river path and SO MUCH MORE!!!

I went sailing for the first time and whoa dude….crazy cool and crazy scary at times!  Especially when your BFF almost literally slips right into the water and you think, “yep this ship (boat) is totally going to capsize!!!!

That’s the boat.  Some fun facts that maybe one should know before the going sailing for the first time…MATTHEW!!!!….lol!

1. Boat’s really do not sink without human error.
2. You can cut the power of the sail (by dropping it) if crap hits the fan.
3. There is a 6 foot 1500lb KEEL that is preventing that effing boat from tipping so far over that is goes UNDER water!!!!
4. Sit facing HIGH side so you’re not turned around looking LOW side and thinking, “Oh POOOOOOOOOP  we’re going to Titanic the S%#T out of this boat!
5. You can trust some dude named Matthew….because even though he’s only been sailing for a year…he know’s his stuff.
6. 5-6 knots feels like 100mph!

After I survived sailing…lol, the next day we kept things low key and went for a jog along the Columbia River.  Just beautiful!  Then the next next day we drove to Portland tocheck out that very cool city, hiked Mt. Hood and paddled boarded ALLLLLLLL the way to Washington!  (the Columbia River averages a mile in width so it wasn’t that far.)

Did we do some drinking…yes but it was all because we prefaced it with a great workout!

I had a fabulous time in Oregon but sadly it was time for me to wander on 😀  I said my goodbyes (why does’t that look like goodbye is spelled right? LOL) and moseyed my way to Montana!

Thank you Shannon for being such and amazing, wonderful, adventurous and crazy friend!  I miss ya already!

~Lori

“Give what you have.  To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow