Yesterday we met up with Ryan Tack, one of my friends from high school, and my younger brother Jason, and all four of us piled into Aftan’s beast of a Mustang to drive east on Washington’s State Route 14 and hike up Beacon Rock.

It was a great hike. To get to the top of Beacon Rock, you have to take a trail that seems to switch back forever and ever, and cross a few bridges as well. You pass the occasional out-of-state tourist on your way up, and the trail narrows so you have to wait for them to pass on one of the switchback turns. Keep walking and ascending higher, higher, higher and higher…and suddenly you get a view of the windswept Columbia River Gorge to the east, with Cape Horn, Interstate 84, and a few other state parks in sight. And keep hiking further and further up, and finally you reach the top…with a magnificent view of everything within a good 15-20 mile radius of the rock. We saw Bonneville Dam, the town of North Bonneville….it was awesome.

After that, we decided that Beacon Rock wasn’t enough so we drove a little further east on SR 14, then paid the required $1 to cross the Bridge of the Gods into Oregon. We took I-84 to the Historic Columbia River Highway, then stopped to hike up Multnomah Falls. Great view, but a defnitely more intense hike than Beacon Rock. It seemed to take forever. Our knees told us to stop after we got back down to the bottom and enjoyed some ice cream at the snack bar.

Finally, we stopped at Popeye’s in Troutdale (I think it’s one of only 3 Popeye’s on the West Coast) to get some chicken and biscuits. It was wonderful, and thanks Ryan for the idea! Jason didn’t partake, quirky little guy that he is. Instead, he made Aftan drive him into Washougal and stop at Jack in the Box so he could get two tacos and a chocolate shake. Then we dropped him off, and Ryan soon afterward.

Aftan and my day wasn’t complete, though…we went back to her place and watched Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one). She’s really excited about going to see the second one, but movies about ships and pirates and all that jazz don’t really interest me, so suffice it to say I barely paid attention to the first one….but I’ll still take her to see Pirates 2 anyway. Enjoying her company is better than any movie anyway.

Don’t know what’s on the docket for today, but whatever it is, I’ll write about it later.