Have you ever seen a virgin forest?

A few weeks back a really sweet family invited me to go with them camping at Mt. Rainer. I was excited to be able to spend time with their family and get to know them better, but was also really excited to explore more of the Pacific Northwest. Clint and Grace are from Tuscaloosa and are out here with their four super cute kids for about three months.

  

Right behind out campsite was this awesome creek. The water was freezing, but the creek bed had a few fallen trees and a ton of rocks. Nature really is the best playground imaginable and it was so much fun to watch the kids play play with the kids.

 

I was constantly taking pictures of the trees, because they're huge. These are the trees around our campsite. This was before I saw the really big trees.

 I feel like everything is bigger out here. Maybe because I've been spending more time in nature. Maybe because I'm just not used to this kind of landscape. But I'm constantly amazed at how big everything is. This picture for example, is of the creek behind our campsite. Did you even notice Elda on the rock in the bottom left had corner?

 

 

The selfie stick made an appearance for this trip too!  

  

 

 

 

See what I mean when I say everything is bigger here? This is in the actual park. There was a virgin forest, which basically means, these trees are literally old as dirt.

I wish I could have somehow taken a picture to show you not long how big the trunk was around, but also how tall these bad boys were! Also, as a side note, I am now itching to go see the redwoods in CA.

  

This was on one of the trees. I know I'm saying the same thing over and over, but I mean, really! How cool is nature?!

This kind of gives you a good idea of how big the trees were. That is Clint and the kids walking across a tree that had fallen. Below is a picture of Clint and Grace on the same tree, but you can see how tall the trees are when they're still standing.

The leaves were starting to change color. Fall is currently in full swing. That's also been a new treat for me. I've never really experienced a true fall before!

 

  

  

Everything was so lush and green. There was also moss everywhere. At one spot, Elda found a fairy garden.

We capped off an awesome weekend with a really cool experience - riding a steam train!

 

I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour

The rain hasn't started in this neck of the woods. But some friends did come visit me! Mary Ellen, Jessica and Allie all came for a long weekend of fun and adventures. As Jessica always says, "When is doing stuff with you not an adventure, Hunter?" It was really good to see familiar faces again, but I was especially happy to see Mary Ellen again. The last time I was with her was when Jessica and I went to Africa.

This picture was taken on the same day that we went snorkeling off the coast of Africa, had a picnic on the beach and went swimming with whale sharks. I made memories on this day that I will no doubt tell my grandkids about in 50 years.

So, needless to say, it was so much fun to create new memories and have new adventures in my new city. We packed a whole lot into a three day stretch. We started out by going camping. Now, understand that while I have been here for a few months, I'm still no expert about what to do and where to go, so a lot of what we did was very much shooting from the hip. I had asked all three of them if they wanted to do anything in particular so that I could plan accordingly. Mary Ellen wanted to camp and see the coast, Jessica wanted to go to the Tillamook factory and watch the Bama game, Allie wanted to see trees and stars. So with all of that in mind, I asked around for good places to camp. I got a lot of feedback about national parks and places on the coast, but my landlord gave me the most off the wall recommendation. She said that there is an abandoned state park that is on the Columbia River about two hours from here. She dropped a pin on my phone and said that you could see the stars better there than just about anywhere in the world. I trusted her on it and told the girls that I had a plan - to pick me up from work and to bring the camping gear with them. I didn't spend much time thinking about it, but if I had, I would have realized that "two hours from here" and "on the Columbia" mixed with "seeing the stars" meant that we were going over the mountains and into the desert portion of the Oregon/Washington coast. So, imagine my surprise when we show up to this so called "camp ground" that is not green, has lots of rocks, and is just kind of ... not a camp ground. In my heart, I had a really bad attitude about it, but having my friends there made it better and it turned out to be really fun.

 Obviously, the self stick was taken out of retirement. It is truly one of the best $10 I've ever spent.

  

Allie really appreciated that she could take pictures easily from all different angles.

 Allie also really wanted to take a picture with the shrubbery. I just need everyone to take a few moments to look at each individuals face in this picture. I was dying because Jessica's hair was being eaten by the shrub. Mary Ellen jumped in like a boss without knowing that it was prickly. Allie is just being Allie. This picture perfectly sums up the ridiculousness that was our camping trip.

 

 

 Another fun part of our camping trip included us forgetting the little piece of metal that connected the fuel to the actual camping stove. That led to Allie and me going on a recon mission to find an alternative way to cook our dinner in a place that has a burn ban.... We found a place called the Mini Mart that had charcoal and lighter fluid and we ended up making a friend there and cooking our dinner on a grill. Our friend from the Mini Mart told us that she had coffee brewed at 7am every morning and invited us back the next day. So when we all woke up from a not great night of sleep (remember I said there were rocks everywhere ....) we packed up camp and went to get some breakfast. Come to find out, the people at the Mini Mart know how to make some mean hashbrowns and eggs. It was such a good gift to be able to share a really good meal in the middle of nowhere at the Mini Mart

After breakfast, we started our drive back with the intention of going to Multnomah Falls. It's a pretty well known waterfall that was on our way, so we figured it would be worth the time to go and check it out. Because it was a three day holiday weekend, so did fifty million other people.

 

 

Because it was so crowded, we didn't stay long. Instead we decided to go to another place that was pretty close by called Oneonta Gorge. It also had a good bit of people there, but unlike Multnomah Falls, it was worth sharing the space. It was a really cool hike that required you to walk on logs and decide if you were going to just walk through ice cold (literally, because it was snow run off) water or try and scale a wall. Then, at the back of the Gorge was this beautiful waterfall. I'll let the pictures below do most of the talking, but needless to say, it was worth the time and effort required to hike it.

 

 

 

For some reason, when we got to the end, Allie and I decided that we needed to jump all the way in.

 

It was a half mistake half best idea ever.

 

After we hiked the Gorge, we went home, showered, and went up north to watch the football game with some friends the Mancil's. They are a family that is up here for three months while Clint learns about the timber industry out here. They are renting this awesome house that is on a creek that currently has salmon running in it. I sadly didn't think to take any pictures while we were there, but it was awesome nonetheless.

 

On Sunday we went to church and really just had a laid back day where we caught up on life and relaxed.

 

Monday was our coast day. We woke up an went and got coffee at a really cool place in North Portland. We took our time drinking coffee and eating breakfast before heading to Canon Beach.

 

 

After breakfast we made a pitstop at the Tillamook Cheese factory.

 

 

 

It was such a great weekend full of fun and adventure. We made so many new memories and got to talk about and relive some old ones. I'm so incredibly blessed to have friends that are willing to fly across the country and take a bus from Canada to come spend time with me!