This weekend I headed down to Portland, Oregon to hang out with my sister, Padma, and brother in law, Josh. Very relaxing.
I learned previous years and didn’t even try to head down after work on Friday evening. Last time I made this attempt, it took me almost 6 hours to make what should be a <3 hour trip. Instead, I slept in and headed down on Saturday in time for lunch.
After our dosa making competition, which I hopelessly lost to Josh, we lounged around and then headed over in the evening to visit family in Tigard, just a few miles outside of Portland. After an invigorating game of 500 (Which I won! This game is where you throw a football to a bunch of people while calling out a number. The person who catches the ball gets the points. The first to 500 wins. ) we had dinner (I stayed out of the kitchen this time) and all went to bed. The best night’s sleep I had in a long time.
Sunday I had the bright idea of visiting Mt. Hood. While it had been pretty warm the previous week (70’s), this day it barely crept above 55. Driving up to the Timberline Lodge, we saw a sign that said “39 degrees.” It didn’t look cold though 
.
Getting up to the parking lot, I opened the door to strong gusts of wind that practically took my breath away. Instead of a 2-3 hour hike, we instead made a dash to the lodge entrance, looked at the mountain from the comfort of indoors, and walked right back to the car! We opted to try a hike somewhere closer to sea-level!
On the way back to Portland, we stopped at Oxbow Park. We went for a “walk” (given that we could practically see a road the whole time, I can’t really call it a hike). This park was really awesome. It would be a great place for camping or a picnic. There are tons of old-growth trees and lots of dense and varied foliage. The trails pass by some little streams and very old trees. You can also walk down to the Sandy River and skip some rocks. As an added bonus, the Salmon Berries were out, which made for a nice snack as you walk along.
On the way back to Portland food was once again on my mind. We made a quick stop at Powell’s bookstore, and then visited Blossoming Lotus. This place has very high quality food, and a great raw-food menu, in addition to Vegan fare. I had a Thai Bowl (noodles, tofu, veggies in a peanut-ginger sauce, served cold) as did Sujatha. Padma opted for the Raw-Pizza. Josh had the Southwest bowl (rice, beans, avocado and other stuff). We all started off with a sampler plate with raw-crackers (made from some sort of seeds) and different spreads (hummus, tempeh, pumpkin seed spread).
On the way home, we stopped for Gelato (I had sorbet0) and grabbed a movie (Night at The Museum). It was actually quite entertaining.
Perhaps the best part of the weekend was that I didn’t bother to check e-mail at all. I had my laptop with me and intended to get some work done, but realized the stupidity of it. I could finish my work during normal work hours, why destroy my holiday?
Come to think of it…I am even thinking of deactivating the data-plan for my Windows Mobile smart-phone. Even though it doesn’t cost me that much (the cost is subsidized by the carriers for Microsoft employees), I think that removing the temptation to check e-mail outside of work could have other added benefits in terms of lower stress and some time savings.
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