Mt. Hood and Trillium Lake

Yesterday Joy and I worked hard and finished around 3pm, so we took a little trip up to Mt. Hood and went hiking around Trillium Lake. The trail provided some amazing views of the mountain and it was a perfect day to be outside! This one was taken right around sunset. There were even otters swimming along in the lake. No motorized boats made for a very quiet and enjoyable walk and no ripples in the water--it was clear as glass! It seems, at least for the next week or so, that yesterday was the last "good" day of weather. It's been sprinkling and raining most of the day today, and the experts are saying this will continue through the weekend. I knew this nice weather was too good to be true! The rain has finally returned to Portland--people are chopping firewood and storing up food in preparation for the 4 month hibernation that's just around the corner. Good thing we're going to spend the winter in sunny SoCal! And just in time too, I don't think I could weather another Portland winter. It's not so much the rain that gets to me, it's not seeing the sun for months at a time. After a while your hair starts to fall out, and your nails get brittle, and you get pretty grouchy! I used to go flying sometimes just to get above the clouds and have the sun warm my chubby little cheeks!

In other news, our big meeting that we were supposed to have on Tuesday got cancelled. Turns out that pretty much everyone was sick and couldn't make it! So, we re-scheduled for a couple weeks. Nevertheless, our week is still pretty full. I'm going to be a bachelor for the weekend; Joy is going to the women's retreat at our church so I'm going camping in the mud and rain and cold...all by my lonesome. I can't wait! I'm also taking another trip up to Mt. Hood with some guys from church; we're going to shoot stuff...with our cameras (pretty alpine wildflowers and other stuff). Then on Sunday, I'm going to be giving a 5 or 10 minute presentation to the church about MAF, and then that evening we have a full presentation scheduled. We're moving along, and soon we'll be in Ohio doing the same thing there!