Reunion Holiday

I recently returned from a week "south of the border" catching up with friends.

Margo and Sarah had gone down a week earlier. Since they had the car, I took Amtrak down to Olympia to visit. I stayed overnight with Chris and Sayre and their son Jasper, and got to catch up with a few more friends as well. It's been ten years since I've lived in Olympia; back then we were all activists, sitting on nonprofit boards, editing newsletters, and volunteering many hours in the interests of sustainability and bicycle advocacy. Now we have kids and mortgages and talked about how we don't volunteer nearly as much and drive cars a lot more than we used to.

It was neat to walk around town and catch up on new buildings and shops. The waterfront is mostly the same though.


At dinner in a newer Italian restaurant near the waterfront, someone at a nearby table offered to take this picture of us.


The next day I took the train down further to Portland to meet Margo and Sarah. Our hosts Tom and Lena had invited more friends to a barbecue. One of the newer activities at their school was building bows; the arrows are sticks capped with corks for safety. A favourite activity is when Tom dons a protective bucket and allows the kids (like Sarah below) to fire arrows at his walking target.


But most of the evening was just hanging out with good food and drink.


Later in the week we took a hike on trails in the nearby Powell Butte, a large park within the city limits of Southeast Portland. Here we're looking at mountains pointed out by markers in the ground.


The trails we picked took us through forest, then back to prairie.



During my week I got to tick off some of the usual Portland boxes ...

• A bunch of used CDs from Everyday Music
• A visit to Powell's Technical bookstore
  
• Breakfast at Bipartisan Café and a half pound of Stumptown beans
• Many Portland pints at the Horse Brass and elsewhere
  
• A matinee at the Academy Theater with a slice of sausage and mushroom from Flying Pie (and a pint)
• Coffee and a muffin from the Pazzoria bakery
  
• Magazines from Rich's Cigars
• The Sunday Oregonian
• Breakfast at Elmer's on the way out of town
• Plus Margo helped me pick some new dress shirts, and we had a fine Italian lunch at Pazzo
  

But mostly, it was everything a holiday should be: lots of time to relax. We napped most every day, did a lot of reading, lounging, visiting, and eating and drinking well.