Toronto

Spent a great long weekend in Toronto with Jake and Elise, a first visit for all of us. We explored the Toronto Islands, the Distillery District, Kensington Market neighborhood and visited the Art Gallery of Ontario.  We also took a day trip to Niagara Falls.  

Click here for photos, which include some I took from the top of the CN Tower as part of a conference I was attending. 

Cannon Beach Valentine

We spent Valentine's/President's Day weekend in Cannon Beach, enjoying unseasonal, but really  nice weather. Click here for photos.  

The previous weekend, temperatures were also unseasonably mild for the annual Portland Winter Lights Festival.  Click here from photos from that outing. 

The forecast for this coming week calls for a chance of snow... we'll believe it when we see it!

Episode 41

Our week on the Big Island really ended with a bang! We were at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park when Episode 41 of the ongoing Kīlauea summit eruption began.  It turned out to be an 8+ hour event with fountains from both the north and south vents peaking at 1,500 feet, a new record since the current eruption cycle began back in December of 2024. 

Tephra from the eruption was reported as far as 16 miles away. We viewed the eruption from about 2 miles away (at Volcano House inside the National Park) where it fell from the sky like light hail. We also found Pele's Hair all over our rental car, which we had to wash away with a make-shift bucket in the form of a traffic cone. Watching the eruption was amazing and well worth dealing with a little rain in the form of rock fragments... the tephra was surprising delicate, but also messy with some sharp edges.  

We watched the show until just after sunset, when the views got even better thanks to the glow of lava. More than 14 million cubic yards of lava were erupted over the course of the day, covering 85% of the crater floor. 

Speaking of sunsets, there were many lovely ones over the course of the week. Click here for photos.  We also saw whales playing just off shore nearly every day - lots of tail slaps and a few full  breaches, which proved hard to catch on film, but the big splash pictured below came just after a breach. 

We'll be adding some of Pat's underwater photos soon.  

Holiday Festivities and Flu

It was all going so well... everyone together, the matching PJs, the family gift exchange, long walks, good food and games,  Then the day at the coast... then three down with the flu and our holiday festivities were curtailed. But happy holidays anyway! Click here for photos from our Escape Room adventure, craft classes, river and beach walks, Hanukkah with the Salsburg-Romeros (our 15th anniversary), and more.  

Coastal Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Drew, Grace and Fig in Bandon, on Oregon's south coast. Click here for photos. The first day of our visit was blustery, but the rest of the weekend was unusually mild and dry for late November. 

Meanwhile in Portland, Emily and Coleman were busy getting ready for Christmas, and Jake and Elise were dodging snowstorms in Iowa and Minnesota.

Fall Fun

 

Sharing some highlights from September and October... including my trip to Minneapolis to visit Jake; Jake's trip to Denver where he got to spend some time with Arthur, Sarah and Nathan; Emily's time in Bend for a counseling workshop; and the start of nursing school for Drew and Grace in Ashland. Click here for more photos. 

 

Long Walks and Long Necks

This weekend we finished walking the 30+ mile Wildwood Trail through Portland's Forest Park and enjoyed a lovely harvest dinner/squash party at Emily's house. Click here for hiking photos. Day 1, we walked 18 miles from Newberry Road to Fire Lane 3, then returned to Fire Lane 3 on Day 2, walking the final 14 miles to the Washington Park Veteran's Memorial/Zoo. Thankfully, the days were not consecutive, but two weeks apart. 

Here are photos from the harvest dinner Emily and Coleman hosted, which featured squash lovingly grown by Emily and served many ways, all delicious. 

For our off weekend in between hiking the Wildwood Trail, we visited Ashland, Oregon, to see Drew and Grace in their new home. Photos from Ashland. We hiked around Lithia Park and Mount Ashland, saw the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and got to see the campus of Southern Oregon University where Drew and Grace will soon start their accelerated nursing program.

Meanwhile up north, Jake got to do some volunteer beekeeping to cap off the summer, enjoyed some time with Elise's family and hosted Emily for a visit. Click here for photos.