Despite the deer and coyotes interrupting our sleep, on Day Three we really felt our bodies had finally adjusted to the higher altitudes and the muscle aches of Day One were behind us. This was really good, as in many ways, Day Three promised to be one of the tougher days, hiking up to Donahue Pass, an elevation gain of one thousand feed, peaking at eleven thousand feet at the pass itself, before a long hike down into the Lyell Valley. The landscape was getting increasingly rocky as we passed the tree line, but it still remained really pretty with…

Morning came, and its amazing what a good night sleep can do for tired muscles, and a relief that my sleeping pad/bag and tent we’re all able to provide a good night sleep. We were both still a little sore from the previous days hike, so we decided it would be prudent to hike a shorter amount today, closer to 10 miles than the original 12 miles planned, and with a few steep but short sections to hike, we’d still have our work cut out for ourselves. But what we realized, more and more throughout the trail, is that whenever…

Before I start on the trail, I should explain how we got here…. Basically back in January myself and Ken Muench, an old work colleague/friend – who now lives outside of LA, we’re catching up, comparing how we both loved to go on big long hikes, despite this being a little more than most reasonable people prefer, and that even our very fit/active spouses were willing to put up with. We realized we should give them a break, and just go on a hike together. We settled on going to Yosemite National Park, one of the most famous hiking thru-trails…

In early August, we all had a lot of fun looking at our wedding photos – can’t believe it was 30 years ago! Here are a few for fun and nice memories! Long summer days means you can really fit a lot into a day. This year on Friday Aug 5, we worked all day, I went with Liam to buy a car, then we went out to dinner at our local favorite Enoteca. We’ve recently learned that Enoteca is said more like “EN–OhTecha”. We had been saying “en-ah-tech-uh.” Readers may also know this place as the restaurant side of…

We had a lovely drive back to Portland and with some time before our airbnb was available, had a quick stop at Muji, our favorite Japanese retailer for stationary with stores in Dublin, Portland and New York! They have a coffee shop in there run by a robot! Miles came over to our place, in the lovely neighborhood of Sellwood, where the streets are lined with some really large and healthy trees. Later, we went to a movie “Belle Maman” at a theater we really like there, and then to dinner at Canard, a Portland favorite of ours from previous…

We also did some really great hiking on the Washington side. In fact, I think my favorite hike of the trip was at ‎⁨Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area in White Salmon, Washington, right across the river from Hood River, Oregon. Highlights included a really spectacular view the entire time as we criss crossed our way up the mountain, varied landscape, from a rocky lower part up through wildflower fields, and to a forest at the top, and then a slightly different route down that was steeper and closer to the dropoff to the river, for some more dramatic perspectives!…

Massive blog oversight discovered – we never posted about our trip to see Miles in May! Not sure what happened, as cndkmen both thought it had been posted. Better late than never, hope you enjoy these photos of us celebrating early summer in the Pacific Northwest with Miles! We flew from Chicago to Portland then drove the hour or so east along the Columbia River, to Hood River. It really earns the title of National Scenic Area. Wow. The drive there on the Oregon / south side of the river was really amazing, with mountains rising right up with just…

We spent a day and night in the Dunes with Mike and Andrea and their dog Monty. Monty is normally my swim buddy but the lake was really choppy and Monty wasn’t feeling well, so no beach photos this time. I’ve been swimming with Jeanne, Geoff and Sarah at Tobey Prinz. We watched the Harvest Moon rise over the lake after a lovely swim in July. Sarah brought delicious goat cheese tomato tarts from an Ottolenghi recipe, really could not have been a more perfect moonrise! The moon looked much larger in real life than in this photo (as always!)…

In May we went to the Nick Cave exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Really amazing show, highly recommend it!

My flight back to Chicago had a delay on the ground at Nice that made me miss the connection at Heathrow that was to take me to O’Hare (will fast forward past the almost 2 hours in a rebook line at Heathrow with some very poor communication and some very grumpy passengers). In the end I got what I’d been openly pining for – a British Airways-funded overnight in London. Once all this was confirmed, I got the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, checked into a hotel there, then headed off on the tube to the Tower of London area,…