Van-loser, No More

I always give my home town, Vancouver, a hard time for being lame. With the much cooler Portland, Oregon across the river, Da 'Couve just seems like it's red-headed step child. But on my last visit there, I had so much fun! I got to Ebi's house very late on Friday night. She has a very comfortable couch. Saturday morning, we took the "Quickie Childhood Nostalgia Tour." We took Highway 14 east. The scenery was so amazing. We stopped quickly at Beacon Rock. I almost hiked it when I was the makeshift Assistant Unit Leader for the backpacking unit. But not quite. We passed The Bridge of the Gods on the way to Skamania Lodge. Ebi had never been inside. I ate there once with my family. I remember my dad ordered the wild boar. We hung out in the lobby and drank the free hot beverages. It is so nice in there. There is a huge fire in the fireplace and wooden rocking chairs. On down the road, we stopped at Home Valley Park where we used to take day trips. The beach had shrunk and they were putting in ball fields. We went over the Senator Al Henry Bridge past the "Keep Skamania County Green" sign. We decided not to trespass into camp, so we stopped at the fork in the road to take pictures. Onward, we traveled to Dog Mountain. They have blazed a new trail there that is 7 miles and they make you pay $5 to park. We crossed the Hood River Bridge and had lunch at The Crazy Pepper. We tried to go to Mike's Ice Cream, but it was closed. On the way back, we took I-84 west. At Multnomah Falls, it really started to rain, but that wasn't going to stop us from getting a picture. I was wet and cold for the rest of the day.

It was Casper's B-Day that night so we got her a cake and a pizza. Yoohoo and Chiquita came over and we all went cosmic bowling. I was doing so well, but our time ran out. I think Chiquita won.

Sunday, we picked up my sister at her apartment and went downtown. We went to the Portland Saturday Market. Me and Katie ate Yakisoba and Elephant Ears. They don't have that in Texas. We all took the Max to find the Made in Oregon store. Then we took Kate home and met up with some other camp friends (Brier and Kristen) at Gustav's. German food is interesting. I don't know what I ate, but there was a big sausage on my plate. Before going home, we met up with Rouge at Starbucks.

Monday, we thought we would go to the beach. That is a lot further than we thought. So we went to Astoria, Oregon and to the Astoria Column. I had never been there before. It rained again, but that's okay. We took some more pictures and jetted home so I could meet some high school friends at Who Song and Larry's. I saw Lisa Gray, Michele Tran, Lucas Nielson, and Heather Smith. Everyone looked so good. We told stories of everyone we knew. The 10-year reunion was mentioned a lot, but I am still not convinced I will go.

A lot of stuff has changed there in the last 7 years since I lived there. They even redid my namesake, Sarah J. Anderson Elementary. My house isn't the same. The door changed color and there was an old dude in the yard. But, I had a lot of fun and I will be excited to visit again some day soon.