My race season is over, perhaps this was the last one too. Not sure on that and not totally ready to commit to “retirement” from racing. There are other things I want to do, many of them bike related. Anyways I’ll save that for another post down the road.

Not long after High Cascades wrapped up our good friends Andy and Steph came out for a week to visit. They’re not totally unfamiliar with the PNW. They met at College in Tacoma, Andy’s dad lives in Washington and they had some college date weekend in Newport, OR back in the day.

Andy and Steph had not been out this way in quite some time and we had talked about having them come out for the past few years. I think what sold it was when we told them that we have 40+ wineries within a 20 mile radius of the new house. 🙂 David Hill being the closest at less than 3 miles from our place.

I was always the designated driver when all four of us lived in NH, it’s one of my special skills. So as we hit up David Hill, Stoller and Furioso I got to do a lot of people watching and eat some fabulous charcuterie. However the whole wine/alcohol thing is lost on me. The smaller vineyards were more fun for sure with a more personal feel and one on one wine tasting. Stoller was fun for the people watching.

We took them out to The Gorge and did the waterfalls thing. Horsetail, Multnomah and Latourell. We took the more scenic historic highway 30 back to Troutdale and finally got to hit up Sugar Pine Drive In. I caught wind of this place last year and while the menu isn’t huge the food was pretty darn spectacular and they have a ton of ice cream options too.

There was also the mandatory trip to Cannon Beach. Mia and I use this as our go to beach location. The town is nice, it is close to Forest Grove and it has miles of beach to walk on. Pretty much my only complain is that I have yet to find a way to bike there in a safe manner.

As we get deeper into August a lot of my friends are all #crossiscoming but Mia and I are more #hikingishere. I spent the first 7 months of the year being bike, bike, bike. Now it’s time to do some more casual riding and a lot more walking in the woods.

We hiked Burnt Lake back in late 2015. The weather was cool, damp and overcast. August in Oregon should have been warm (maybe hot), sunny and dry. However we ran into almost the exact same weather this time. So we still haven’t seen the killer views from ZigZag.

We also did Falls Creek Falls again. This was our third time up there and it never disappoints. I still need to get out there and bike the mountain bike option!

As we move into fall and there are more hikes and hopefully (fingers crossed) a weekend of mountain biking at Waldo lake. That will for sure be weather dependent.

That’s pretty much it for now. Thanks for reading.

Pete