Dear Portland: STOP RAINING: Thanks!

My dearest Portland,

One year ago today, a Southern California transplant living in Phoenix left her 360-days a year sunshine to come to one of the rainiest places in the U.S. That’s right, I left the balmy Southern California sunshine and the heat of the Phoenix desert for you, and your lush, green forests that are the stuff of fairytales. I left everything I knew behind, 1000 miles down south for something new and bold in the great northwest. I left my past, for my exciting new future with you.

Beginning my decent into PDX, I remember looking out the cabin windows, to one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. To the left triumphantly stood Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, and a few other volcanoes jutting out of the green backdrop lined against the bluest of blue skies. And, determined not be outdone by the sites to the left; to the right stood Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier, majestically towering over the state of Washington. I couldn’t believe the beauty of the town I could now call home.

The next few days here, I toured your downtown, welcomed by fireworks kicking off the 2009 Rose Festival. You were so beautiful Portland. Eclectic tall buildings flanked by smaller, fun shops characterized the downtown with a certain fun, flare that most cities could only aspire to have. In between the buildings, live music could be heard emanating from every direction. Jazz, blues, alternative, country, trance, Bollywood… every type of music assaulted my ears as I walked your streets, and you know what – it rocked!

Oh man – and the people, oh the people in your city are great! So nice, so warm, so welcoming – and talk about flare! Wow! Mohawks, tattoos, costumes walk side-by-side with Chanel, Prada and chic professional people. A businessman waiting to catch the tram (the max), reading the latest issue of the Financial Times never even gave the heard of people dressed as sheep a second look as they too waited for the same tram, “bahhing” and possibly even grazing on some grass ;)

Oh Portland, and there is NEVER a shortage of things to do downtown. From just plain people watching, to the Rose garden, Japanese Garden, Chinese Garden, Waterfront Park, Forest Park and many, many cool, funky eateries, bars, clubs and shops to keep your often incredulous tourists and residents entertained for days! I mean seriously Portland, for a small city, you have a lot to do. I won’t get into the west or east side rivalry, as I know it’s a sore subject for you, but I will say that the east side with its funky yet charming places never fail to entertain me, while the west side is much more Portland-chic catering to the finer tastes of your fans.

Venturing away from your downtown heart, we drove just 45 minutes east and were greeted by the magnificent Columbia River Gorge! Sweeping views of this spectacular place can astound even the most skeptic tourists. Waterfalls line the roads every few minutes, and climbable peaks offer even the most avid hikers a challenge! My god I love that about you, Portland. You offer the adventurous spirits something to indulge their bold souls. There is no shortage of hikes in and around your city. Everything from coastal hikes with breathtaking views of the rugged Pacific coastline, to actual mountaineering, to less intense, but equally beautiful hikes along the Columbia River Gorge.

Your sunshine and beauty during the summer rivals even that of more-popular destination cities. But that’s OK… you are a well kept secret, shielded from the outside influence of other places in an effort to maintain your charm and funk that make you unique. Oh Portland, what you lack in size, you make up for in character! You are truly unique with some shades of weird thrown in to add some vibrancy!

However, my dearest Portland, don’t you think it’s time to trade in your gray, dreary, dull skies and constant drizzle for something a little more uplifting, blue and oh, I don’t know, bright?!! It’s time to let the sun shine down and illuminate the beauty of the city for all to see. I mean, it is almost June for god’s sake! Why are you clenching on to the bowels of winter weather for so long? Don’t you think we’ve had enough water for the year? Don’t you think it’s time to let your residents give their fleece jackets and raincoats a break? I know you don’t like your residents to carry an umbrella, a custom that I must admit, I don’t understand – but I know that my Northface jackets are ready for a break, what’s say? And, I know you don’t like to be a follower, but rather a trailblazer (no pun intended), but with the rest of the US approaching summer, don’t you think you should follow suit, just this once?

I’ve loved you from the moment I called this place home. You see, I am also an adventurous spirit, and your exciting outdoor life is of great interest to me. But this rain is dampening my spirit, it’s downright depressing. I must admit, during this impossibly long winter, I have caught back up on a lot of reading, movies and shopping, but enough is ENOUGH!! I am ready to be back outside amidst your incredible lands. In closing, my city, my Portland – please, for the love of god, STOP RAINING!!!!!!!! You are making even your most doting fans question their love for you. Seriously.

Yours (maybe),

Lauren

Dog Mountain: What'a B*tch

Dog Mountain - yep, she's a bitch! Well, not quite, but the first clue the trail is going to be a little tougher than your average hike is the trailer marker which offers hikers the choice of going left or right at the first fork labeling it "more difficult" or "less difficult" !! Haha. AWESOME. Bring it on!!!

Dog is on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge, and is definitely a leg and lung buster. The trail is about 7.2 miles round trip, and climbs to about 3,000 feet. The first half mile you gain over 700 feet in elevation, so the trail doesn't waste any time in getting hikers' heart rates also climbing ;)

The "harder" trail option takes hikers through the forest directly up the mountain - quite literally a straight shot. But, the "less" difficult trail option winds around the side with a few switch backs the offer hikers sweeping views of the Columbia River Gorge! Absolutely gorgeous. Although we hiked in the trail in July - in May, there are beautiful wildflowers in full bloom that line the sides of the trail, which is sight to behold, or so I'm told!

Anyway, the top of the trail you can see Mt. Defiance - which is the tallest peak in the gorge at 5,000 feet, and touted as Oregon's toughest hike - due to it's rocky and step terrain. Also, you can see the tip of Mt. Hood on a clear day :) Also, apparently you can see Mt. St. Helens from the summit, but due to the cloudy conditions we were unable to see her. Oh well, we saw St. Helens up close and personal just a few months after this hike :) The winds were so strong, and it looked like a storm was brewing, so we didn't spend much time at the top - just enough for a quick breather and photo opp!

All-in-all, Dog Mountain was a great conditioning hike, and offers trail goers some amazingly beautiful views of the gorge. Parking can be a bit tricky, so if you hike this trail during a popular time, be sure to arrive early. Also, there are warnings of poison oak and rattlesnakes along the trail! Yikes! Luckily we didn't come across either of them! Although we did see a wild turkey!!

Another absolutely gorgeous hike in the gorge!

26.2 Baby!!!

So, I am backtracking here, listing my adventures from last year - and next up, the Portland Marathon!

This was sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision to sign up, as I had not properly trained for the race nor did I have significant time to train from the moment I registered to the day of the race. But, with two months to go, I built up from running 3-4 miles, to running 16! Still a far cry from the 26.2 miles I had to run on race day, but good enough. I normally don't advise running a marathon without proper training beforehand, but this was my second full marathon, and after all the hikes, trail runs, and intense gym sessions, I figured I had the endurance and most importantly the heart to take me those extra 10.2 miles to the finish line :)

So, the saturday before raceday, I picked up my bib number and was pumped and ready to race!! Since I had not really trained, I thought my goal for this race should be just to finish!! My last marathon I posted a time of 4:35 minutes... knowing full well there was no way I could come close to that time this go'around, I just aimed to cross the finish line strong! Maybe my third marathon I'll shoot for a sub-four hour time, but that will take a hell of a lot more training!! But I know I can do that, my last half marathon times were well below the 2-hour marks, and if I've got one thing on my side, it's endurance! I've never been fast or a sprinter, but I've always been strong and consistent! Negative splits and finishing strong when everyone else is slowing has always been my specialty!

Anyway, back to race day! The Portland marathon is truly an amazing course! There were bands of all different types practically every 1/2mile, mile or so! From Korean drums, to reggae covers bands, to marching bands to cheerleaders and AWESOME support from spectators, there was no shortage of motivation to keep a smile on your face while running 26.2 miles. The course was fabulous too! Winding all over downtown, I think I've seen about enough! haha. J/k of course - but I would like to say what a fabulous job race organizers did for executing such a well-done logistical feet (no pun intended). The volunteers at the water stations, to the course itself was very well planned!! Nicely done!!!

Around mile 18... this happened!!! Yikes!!!! But, i figured, the longer I was out on the course, the longer it would hurt!! So, I carried on, pushing through the pain!!

And then... the finish line!!!!! It's an emotional moment completing such a grueling race. I know a lot of folks don't quite understand why you'd put yourself through such a thing, but seeing the finish line after running for 26 miles is one of the most amazing feelings EVER!!!!! I almost broke down! A few tears of happiness streamed down my face, and I held it together enough to sprint those last 0.2 miles to the end!!!!!! Finishing over 5hours, is not the best time... but not too shabby for not really training either :)

After crossing the finish line, I was awarded my finishers medal, Portland marathon jersey, and a rose!! I walked through "finishers row" where I was treated to massages and good food!!! Yum!!!!! And then, it was time to walk back to the car! Well, my car was just 5 blocks up from the finish line, but since race organizers had the streets blocked off, I couldn't cut through! The gate-guards wouldn't let me pass! Tired and sore, I asked one "rent-a-cop" if I could just cut through a gap in the fence since my car was just up the road. He rather curtly said NO! And said I had to walk down 8 more blocks... Well, 8 down, and 8 back is 16!!!!! Not so bad normally, but after just having run for over 5 hours, this did not sound appealing! So I pleaded with him to let me through, and he was like "well, you just ran a marathon, I would venture to guess you could walk an extra couple miles." THAT BASTARD! Tears streaming down my face, I walked down another block, and luckily, that cop let me cut through the gates!!! Bless him!!!! I limped back up to my car where the prospect of sitting down for my drive home sounded oh-so-pleasant!!!

That night, I nursed my blisters, stretched my legs, and got a workout plan for the next week from my step mom who is a physical therapist to speed up my recovery, since just 6 days later, I was to climb the 8,400 volcano - Mt. St. Helens!! Nothing like a one-two punch of a marathon and a mountain climb!!!!! Anyway, bottom line - Portland marathon was a great experience!!! The volunteers made the race!! I would absolutely run this race again, and would recommend this to any runner interested in a marathon! Just watch out for the nice "hill" leading up to the Broadway bridge around mile 16! Damn that burned! But felt oh-so-good ;)

The Volcano - Mt. St. Helens!!!

When I moved to Portland last summer, I was still riding high from my absolutely magnificent experience the summer previous. I mean honestly, reading through my previous blog entries, one would have thought I was secretly working for the Portland tourism board trying to get people come see this beautiful city of roses. My intent was to blog about the hiking adventures so everyone could see the beauty of this place! Every week took me somewhere new, seemingly even more beautiful than the next place. However, I just got so busy with life that I neglected my blog… and before I realized it, the sunny, blue-skies Portland that I knew and loved turned into a rainy, gloomy, gray mess! So now, in an effort to gear up for this summer’s hiking season, and get through these last few weeks of rain, I am going to update my blog with my hiking adventures from last year…

In October I was wrapping up my hiking season. What better way to end of the season with a real challenge... and that challenge was Mt. St. Helens! At just under 8,400 feet, Mt. St. Helens is an active volcano located in the state of Washington. So, having secured our climbing permit a month prior, my friends and I took a big gamble that the weather would be clear for us! So, at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, my friends and I set off from Portland and drove to Cougar, Washington where we could see the volcano looming in the background! It was a blustery 30 degrees at the base of the mountain that morning, and we geared up, and set off!

The first part of the hike through the trees and forest was pretty easy. Not much of an elevation gain, but with sweet views of the sunrise over the Oregon and Washington valleys below.

And then, the fun part was over, and the climb began. Just above the timberline, lies a long, arduous and steep boulder field. The rocks are sharp and jagged, some small, some HUGE. If you don’t like to scramble, then this part of the hike is NOT fun. We were following the “monitor ridge” trail which is named for the GPS monitoring station halfway up through the boulders. Every step required concentration, as you didn’t want to lose your footing, twist your ankle, or cause a rockslide down the mountain! The wind was kicking up quit a bit during this portion of our hike, but we pressed on. There is no trail to follow… instead there are wooden markers just close enough where the next one is in your line-of-sight, in order to stay on track.

Finally, the end of the boulder field was near, and the last part of the climb remained!

This part, arguably the most difficult was the shortest in length, just a quick climb and you are at the summit! However, adding a an element of difficulty, we had just scrambled over seemingly endless boulder field, and now, what lay in front of us, was a steep climb up ash!!!!! It was like climbing a sand dune… take a step forward, slide back half a step. Here’s where your gators come in very handy! To keep all the crap out of your hiking boots, especially going back down! So, with legs and lungs burning, I pressed on. Every step hurt more than the previous. I was thinking of one thing, and one thing only… the summit.

And then, it was there. The summit. It was majestic. Mere words simply cannot describe the beauty of the mountain. It was so quiet on top as well. You could almost hear the mountain breathe. It was alive, and we were so lucky that she let us summit that day, because the views from the top were spectacular!!!!!!!!!! Panoramic views of Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier and Spirit Lake! And, not to mention the crater itself! Looking down into an active volcano’s crater that was now visible due to the May 1980 eruption thirty years ago was totally surreal! Steam and smoke seeping through gaping cracks and holes, snow and ice mixed with the vibrant color reds and browns of the mountain itself. Simply breathtaking.

After a few pictures at the top, it was time to begin the difficult trek back down the mountain… which for me, is definitely the worst part! My friend Alex and I, in our haste to get back down, actually got off track at one point and had to climb across a rock field on the side of the mountain to get back on track. That was an interesting experience! Let’s just say I will NEVER do that again, even my adventurous spirit has its limits! After the long and difficult decent down the boulders, we finally hit timberline, where we had just a short 2 miles to hike back to the car through the forest. Now, having run the Portland marathon just 6 days prior, my legs were pretty much mush at this point!!!! Thank god for my trekking poles that carried me through those last couple miles! As I was able to take some pressure off my legs and use my arm strength to help out ;)

We finally reached my car, 9 hours later! What an intense experience! I glanced back over my shoulder, and could see the tip of what we had just climbed! We seemed so small and insignificant… and just as we got down, darkness begin to close in, winds begin to kick up again, and I realized that the mountain truly is in charge. She makes her own weather, and she decided who can climb, and who cannot. On the mountain, there is no room for arrogance, for nature will truly be the victor. I also realized it’s probably not the best idea to run 26.2 miles (Portland Marathon) 6 days before climbing an active volcano!! CRAZY! Yes, I know. Even though my legs were so sore, and I could barely walk for the next few days, I will never forget it - climbing Mt. St. Helens was a truly rewarding experience.

Change!

It's official, call the blogger protective services - I have neglected this blog! I originally started the blog as a way for my friends and family to keep track of me during the course of my studies at Thunderbird. But then it evolved into so much more... something more like an intimate rambling of my experiences both on- and off-campus. A detailed account of my comical, yet always amazing adventures around the world. But now, that chapter has come to a close, and a new one opened. One where I had to leave behind the often care-free student world to embrace one with financial and REAL responsibilities. I will never forget my time at Thunderbird, the memories will always be a part of who I am, and who I will be. The campus, the life, the people I met, the experiences I had - they shaped me. I think differently than most of my colleagues and non-Tbird friends. I guess the inner Thunderbird in me will never fade. It’s like a flame that still burns bright and lights new experiences in a way that most people don’t see. This flame also burns bright a desire to travel, learn and understand new cultures and places that other folks wouldn’t care to fathom. It's amazing to look back at my life three years ago when I sat in an empty apartment, having donated every single piece of furniture I owned, quit my job, and was so eager to embark upon this grad school adventure that so many alumni and professors told me would change my life. And you know what... it did.

Change is a funny thing. Now, three years later, I am "settled." Well, as much settled as a true Thunderbird spirit can be. I am definitely yearning for the next adventure, but I'm just not sure what that will be yet. I have a great job to which I am very grateful for, an apartment, and living in the beautiful northwest. Well, beautiful for three months out of the year that is. You see I come from a place where the sun shines 360 days out the year, I am a sun-worshipper. These 9-month winters of constant rain sure do wear on a southern California girl! But that’s a topic for a different entry! haha. So, back on track, so much has changed since I graduated. People have come and gone out of my life - but some friendships have, and always will withstand the test of time. Some, sadly, will not. Adventures around the globe have come to a screeching halt - in favor of business trips, limited vacation time and family visits. Instead of going to class and learning the latest theories, dissecting international case studies and engaging in spirited debates, I go to work, to the office - ready to make my mark in a large global corporation. Instead of planning the next study abroad, I am planning business trips back east. Instead of running the streets of Glendale for a stress-reliever, tanning-session, workout trifecta, I am planning the next mountain to climb in the great northwest ;)

And yet again, I digressed. Back to change. Sometimes it is welcomed, sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is understood, sometimes it is not. It is often feared by some, and embraced by others. But one thing is for certain... change is essential. Vital to the process of moving on and experiencing new things. You always learn something in the process, and armed with that knowledge and experience you forge ahead into the next adventure - whatever that may be. Where I am today is a result of decisions, small or large I made yesterday. And where I’ll be tomorrow will result in the change I espouse today. So, I'll end this, my first blog post in almost a year, with a fabulous quote. Im not even sure who said it, but here it is: "Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become."