A Weekend of River Floating, Wine Tasting and Friendship

This weekend I went to Hood River in an attempt to make it down there as many times as possible both before summer is over and just in general. Friday night Beth and I had crab legs and filet mignon at her parents’ before meeting friends for sunset drinks at the Columbia Gorge Hotel and then a night of high-stakes jenga, mingling and dancing. We ended things with a post-2am-hot tub sesh and it was all just really great.

Saturday morning Beth, Greg and I ate bagels and drank coffee downtown and then met a group of our friends, piled into the back of a van (I got to sit in a camping chair in the van, very safe, obviously but also very awesome) and drove to the Klickitat River which we then proceeded to float down on inner tubes and air mattresses. I had never floated a river before and inevitably flipped over navigating some rapids, immediately after which my friends were there to pull me, the non-swimmer with the life vest, out of the water, back into my tube and then hold on to me through the rest of the rapids. It was a really great time and I’m so thankful to have such wonderful people looking out for me.  

When we got to the end of the river we loaded back into our vans and headed to a few wineries to do some wine tasting. At the first winery Beth and I broke a chair we were sitting in together and then I made Dave laugh so hard he fell on the ground after hitting myself in the face with a wine bottle. At the second I ate cherry tomatoes and basil out of the garden and saw some goats. After wine tasting we all went to dinner at Henni’s and then had a low key, early-to-bed night.

Today Beth and I visited with Marissa, ate breakfast, shopped for bras and undies, napped and walked Pop Tart the dog. Then I proceeded to have a minor emotional breakdown when it was time to head back to Seattle. Work has just been so stressful and busy lately and a few other pieces of the puzzle have been less than amazing too. Not to say everything is awful, because it’s not, it was just a hard transition back to reality. There are just so many good people and good things in Hood River and I wish I could move there. It kills me that I can’t, yet.

 The view from Syncline Winery  Dave LOLing at my clumsiness The grounds at COR Winery I missed the memo, or maybe they did?   One of us was more excited than the other to be taking a picture together :) It was so good to spend some quality time with this kid for the first time in too long – don’t let the face fool you, he’s stoked.

First Friday

Note: I wrote this Saturday morning but then got distracted right before I was going to post it. I guess that's what happens when you think that you can get work done while sitting in Ground!

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Last night I got dressed up and had some fun with two of my fav ladies (Beth & Marissa) and a new friend (Hannah - who is Marissa's friend visiting from Norway).

We went to Everybody's Brewing in White Salmon. Well, first Beth and I went and we got some dinz. I had pork nachos and Beth had Mac & Cheese with ham and bacon, and my gosh it was tasty! We also had some beers. Then Beth and Hannah joined us and we all danced to the band.

Me, Beth, Hannah and Marissa

After we got in some dancing to the band at Everybody's we headed to Hood River for some more fun with more friends (like Beth said, we got dressed up so naturally we wanted people to see us - are any other girls like that? I'm totally guilty).

We went to "the Pub" and found all of our guy friends and some other girl friends too. Then after about an hour we decided to go to Jack's (classy Chinese restaurant turned dance club on Fri/Sat night - you only go there after you've had a few drinks - it's that kind of classy haha). We danced it up until they turned on the lights and we headed back to the Pub to sit outside and chat before all heading our separate ways.

It was a good night. The 4th of July weekend in Hood River is one of my very, absolute favorite times of the year. Also I loveee my girl friends! They are the bomb.com (yes, I just said it).