Oregon III - Terwilliger Hot Springs

I recently returned from my third trip to Portland since October. My wonderful girlfriend Mattie lives out there so I visit as often as I can. Each time I'm out there we plan at least one out of town adventure. So far we have hiked Mt. Hood back in October and road tripped to Astoria in February. This time we traveled to the Willamette National Forest East of Eugene to check out the Terwilliger Hot Springs. We spent the afternoon relaxing deep in the woods, soaking in the hot, rocky pools. It was hard to get a full photo of the springs without accidentally taking the picture of a dozen naked strangers, but the photos I took hopefully do the beauty of the springs justice. It was one of the most peaceful afternoons I've had in a long time. Unfortunately that night Mattie got sick with the flu and spent the next few days resting. In a lot of ways it was exactly what we needed since we never get to have couch time together, dating long distance and all. Looking forward to the summer when we finally close the distance for good.

Oregon II - Astoria & The Coast

Visiting Portland for the second time I was able to stay several days longer than my first visit. On the days that Mattie had to work I would borrow her car and check out new parts of the city. One of the places I stopped by first was the flagship store of one of my favorite brands Poler. I met a couple of super friendly girls working there and struck up a conversation. I told them that I was visit and hoping to plan a trip somewhere with my girlfriend. They highly recommended a trip to Astoria in the remote, northwestern corner of Oregon (where they filmed the Goonies). They also suggested we stay at the Sou'Wester - a cool vintage travel trailer park across the Columbia River in Seaside, Washington. We took their suggestions and ended up having such a unique, fun experience. That night we played games of poker, had a two person power hour, and listened to records all night. You can watch me do the truffle shuffle in front of The Goonies house here.

Oregon I - Mt. Hood

I visited my girl Mattie over Halloween at her place in Portland. We dressed up like Mr. and Mrs. Fox from the Wes Anderson movie and partied Halloween night. The next day we took off to Mt. Hood Forest and hike the Mirror Lake Trail Head. We had a mix of rainy and snowy conditions for most of the 7 mile hike. When we made it to Mirror Lake we capped of our trip with a PBR and headed back down. Afterwards we drove five miles further into the mountain to a small town called Government Camp, while there we stopped off at a wonderful ski bar called Charlie's were we drank Fireball and Deschutes. Oregon's mountain town's are spectacular and worth the drive out of the city.

Saxon Harbor, Wisconsin

One of my true friends Cameron, whom I met in college invited me up to his land in August. He inherited 80 acres on Lake Superior in Saxon Harbor, Wisconsin from his grandfather who passed away several years ago. According to Cam he was pretty eccentric. He had purchased the land that came with a cabin on it and spent parts of nearly twenty years walking though his woods carrying a .357 Magnum pistol and yelling at trespassers. After he died no one had visited the land in nearly fifteen years until April of 2013 when Cam went to check it out.

I drove the four hours up to Saxon after work on a Friday to meet up with Cam and three of his friends. We spent the next two days drinking whiskey, making tremendous fires, shooting guns, hanging out on the Lake Superior beach in Saxon, and adventuring across his land. It was the highlight of my summer; a weekend I will never forget.