Joshua Tree

We had a great long weekend in the desert exploring Joshua Tree National Park. Click here for photos. We hiked to FortyNine Palms Oasis (pictured below), Arch, Heart and Skull Rocks, Hidden Valley, Barker Dam and Wall Street Mill. 

We also drove up to Key View lookout (pictured below), which offered a view of the San Andreas Fault (the dark horizontal line running across the middle of the frame) and to the southern end of the park where the Mojave Desert transitions to the Colorado and the landscape shifts dramatically from Joshua Trees to the equally unusual Cholla Cactus. 

In addition to Joshua Tree NP, we checked out a few local attractions, including Pioneer Town, the World Famous Crochet Museum and a beautiful desert sculpture by Daniel Popper called, Transmission (pictured below). 

Oh... and that dust storm was pretty crazy! Thankfully the 30+ mph winds settled down after the first day of our trip. 

Cape Disappointment

We celebrated Pat's birthday weekend with a trip to the coast... Cape Disappointment State Park, on the Washington State side of the infamous Columbia Bar. Click here for photos. And click here for a mix of other recent photos - sailing, biking, hiking, fishing and just generally enjoying Spring. 

Signs of Spring and a Roadtrip

The cherry blossoms are blooming in Portland, and Jake is off to new adventures. The picture above was taken near Bozeman, Montana, about halfway into a road trip from Portland to Minneapolis, where Jake will be starting a new job. Drew kindly accompanied him on the first part of his journey, which earned him a souvenir t-shirt. 

Jake has officially become the first person in our family to have visited the state of North Dakota, where he got (safely) up close with some buffalo. Click here for more photos from the boys' trip and a few other recent activities, including a farewell dinner we had ahead of Jake's departure. 

We posted this album in a previous blog entry but added to it as winter transitioned into spring, so sharing it again. The weather has been typically all over the place, as it always is in March in Portland... wet, warm, wet. 

A final note of congratulations to Drew, who celebrated a birthday in March, and to Drew and Grace for being accepted into the Accelerated Nursing Program at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) - an opportunity that will take them to Ashland, Oregon for 14-months starting in September.