August! Stop Running Away.

How on earth is it already August 24th? I'm seriously going to have to put my foot down and insist this month stop moving so quickly. That means that we're only 9 days away from stepping on that plane to Brussels! I'm so excited that I don't even know how I'm going to sleep at night as the week nears its end. Jesse has an intense work schedule the day before we leave (Wednesday, Sept. 2nd), so we've set a strict deadline for packing. Everything must be ready and in the suitcase by Sunday, Aug. 30th -- as in six days, oh crap!

As if we didn't have enough to do, a couple of months ago we signed on to take a rafting trip down the Deschutes river with a few of our kickball friends. I have to admit, I was a little leery of camping and rafting all weekend, however, I had to remind myself of how much fun I had tubing down the Shenandoah with our friends in D.C. I'm glad I got over my initial reservations, because I had a blast. We drove down on Friday night to a campground in Mt. Hood National Forrest, pitched our (borrowed) tent and unrolled our new self-inflating camping mats. When my parents were visiting they gave us an early anniversary gift, which in turn funded two wonderful nights of sleeping outdoors. The last time we went camping, we bought cheap foam mats from Target and after the first night of restless sleep (and aching hips) I was ready to go home. While the mats only inflate to about a 1/2 inch in height, they are pretty darn awesome. I slept like a log.

Saturday morning we got up, had a little breakfast, and shivered into our bathing suits (it was barely 60 degrees at the campsite). The drop-off point was about a 30 minute drive and not long after breaking through the canopy of the forest, the landscape turned into burnt hillsides dotted with a few trees and houses. It reminded us a lot more of California than the lush Oregon that we've gotten used to in Portland. Thankfully, the sun was out and the sky was crystal clear -- we wouldn't freeze to death on the river.

As for the river, it was absolutely beautiful. I didn't bring my camera, because I didn't want it to get wet, so these two images are borrowed from Google Maps. The Deschutes is a lovely blue-green color and rolls along (in the section where we were rafting) with a few small rapids. We got on the river about 1pm and floated along with oars in hand to direct the raft to the best rapid spots. Of course, with Jesse on the boat, he ensured that we got the best turbulence possible by bouncing the raft over rocky spots. Luckily, we never turned over. We reached our end destination around 4pm and had already decided that it was so much fun that we definitely need to do it again. The sun was extremely hot, but I'm pretty sure none of us got a sunburn (thanks to the liberal application of sunblock). We all had plans for a rockin' party back at the campground, but reality hit when we were starving and dead tired by 6pm. In an attempt to rally, a fire was built and we played games, but there was no rescuing the evening.

Next time? Party first, then raft. And yes, there will be a next time.