Landslide brought you down?

An update upon request...

Lately not too much excitement has taken place, Ash and I have been rather ill for a couple of weeks with some upper respiratory junk and we've been keeping a pretty low profile. Here is a breakdown of what we HAVE been up to:

-Netflix is our friend! We have been catching up with all our favourite shows including but not limited to Mythbusters, Top Gear, Weeds, Rough Science, and of course watching boatloads of interesting documentaries and movies.

-I found a great site on which to watch this season of American idol: Project free TV," leading the free tv revolt!". We had a catch up marathon last night and will finish up tonight.

-We went to see the Adam Sandler flick "Just go with it" at a theater in Vancouver called Cinetopia. The film was good, funnier than expected. the theater was similar to the Cinebistro concept with a few differences. The pillow pit in the "living room" theater was interesting, in lieu of the "orchestra row" of seats in the  front by the screen they have this pit that's padded and full of pillows so you and your friends can go lay around to watch the movie. All the seats are big and made from "ultra leather", and they have ottomans in every row to put your feet up on which was a nice touch. The food was mediocre at best especially for the hefty price. This was my first and so far only disappointing food experience in the pacific northwest so far. If I had to choose, I'd rather go to the Cinebistro back in FL.

- We have found a rather fantastic place to eat sushi in Vancouver. It is one of the many sushi-go-round restaurants out here, AKA "fast food sushi". You sit at a bar and watch as delicious Japanese food rolls past you on different colored plates on a conveyor belt that winds through the restaurant (much like a small scale luggage claim at the airport). Each plate color represents a price ranging from $1.00 to the uber fancy $4.00 plates. Each plate has smaller portions of 2 or 4 pieces of sushi as opposed to the whole 6 piece roll. they also have other things like Age tofu, chicken, edamame soy beans, and desserts like apple egg rolls and sesame balls. Its a cheap way to try all different kinds of foods without having to commit to eating or wasting a whole portion.

-We got our first emergency response call from the Rowena Wildlife clinic. A jogger called in a report of a large heron with a broken wing out in North Bonneville which is right up the road from Stevenson. We were in Portland at the time but checked it out on our way home. Unfortunately there was no sign of the bird when we arrived, either it moved on or was taken by a predator (we heard tell that there are many coyotes in this area). Better luck next time.

-Gotta love tax return time! Got a nice sized one that has let us have a bit of fun.. there's a HUGE outdoor store in portland that also sells used equipment. We got an excellent deal on 2 rigid frame hiking packs, some Merrel hiking boots, a pair of ear warmers, and two pairs of gators (leg wraps that keep your pants dry). We are almost completely geared now for longer duration hikes.. from few days to a week or two.  We are in the market for a couple of kayaks now and I'm also keeping my eye out for a mountain bike.

-The weather has been variable. Today its 50 degrees, but it's gotten down in the 30s too. Some days it rains, and other days like today its beautiful outside. We still haven't gotten any more snow on the ground but last week it was sleeting/hailing when we were driving to the market. There is still some snow on the mountain tops around us.

-A couple weeks ago we had two great thrift store finds. The first was an amazing sight, a near replica of a metal tin that I'd gotten from my grandma. The original one I had rusted through and I had to dispose of it... this one looks identical with the only difference being the handle on the lid. I was SO HAPPY to find this, I never thought I'd be able to replace it.

The next one is an excellent solution to the dark dining room cove we have, this groovy retro swag light! It goes so well with our decor....

Earlier in the month I'd been looking around some of portland's cool retro furniture shops and seen a few examples of almost this exact lamp costing anywhere from $70-$90. Guess how much this one was?.. $9.99!
Thrift stores for the win!


- Last but not least, the reason for the title of this blog. We went and revisited a place we checked out shortly after moving here, the site of a local landslide that took out half of a road. This one happened a year ago and while it wasn't a very large one, it still had visual impact to us. It was interesting for a few reasons, one is getting to see what a cross section of a road looks like. Another was seeing trees growing sideways. Also, making us ponder what were people thinking building a road on the side of such a steep cliff and not bolstering it better? It was solid visual evidence of how powerful mother nature can be. Even though this happened a year ago, we haven't seen anything that would elude to the county attempting to repair the road... Who knows, maybe you can't build again on land where a slide has happened. The clay under the asphalt was very fine, moist and spongy, and could possibly be used for making pottery. No wonder it slid after the rainy season.

Click here to see the Land Slide