february wind.

Been another minute since i updated this thing. Things have been pretty busy, especially at school. Lots of little projects in each class have been converging and forcing me to stay on my toes. It's been pretty fun though. Since the new semester started and classes switched around i find myself having a foundation laid out and actually teaching rather than stressing what i'm going to do the next day.

So two weekends ago i headed up to the mountain on super bowl sunday. None of my friends in Portland were really down for heading up to the mountain... football... ehh. I'm usually not down with just cruising by myself, but i ended up having a blast. The weather was amazing, a little on the chilly side in the morning, but then the sun came out. There were absolutely no lift lines due to the game. I'm used to riding with my friends out here cruising around the mountain finding little natural jumps, hips, cliffs, trees, etc. to ride. No one's really down for hitting the park, but it's cool because i have a blast riding the other stuff. Back in ohio all we do is ride park/street. So because i was riding by myself i decided to lap the park all day. There were two jumps back to back, a low line, and high line (smaller jump/bigger jump) the low line was maybe 25 feet, and the high line was 35-40ish? After feeling out the speed situation, started spinning the high line jumps. It felt real good to get some jumps in, i miss riding with the dudes back in ohio, where all we do are these kinds of freestyle maneuvers. The jumps led into the halfpipe, so it was a ton of fun, and quite the workout. After a solid three hours, my legs were jelly, and i laughed as i had difficulty moving around when i got home. I took the hood river route back to the peninsula, and stopped in hood river to grab a bite to eat.

This past weekend started by heading up to the varsity basketball game on friday. Nick was going to be up this weekend with his family. This weekend was another clam tide, this time i was a lot more prepared than last. I actually had boots that fit, rather than trying to squeeze my size 12 foot into a size 9.5 boot... ouch. The weather was amazing and the tide was in the afternoon.
I met up with Nick's family and friends, and we were rolling pretty deep, like 20 of us or something crazy like that. It was so easy to spot the clams this time, Nick and i got our 15 limit in like 20 minutes. Afterwards, we helped everyone else get their 15 limit.
We got back to Nick's place and decided to collect some "steamers". Apparently you can grab these little mini clams out on the bay, and i didn't know till a few days ago that i can do this in my backyard. Usually Nick's family would take a boat to Long Island to collect the steamers. However, with Kim's bayfront property we drove to my house, put on the boots and headed out.
We walked out with little mini garden rakes. The clams like to hang out in gravel bars. So basically you take the rake, rake through the gravel, and they're hanging out right there... easy enough.

Nick and i walking out as the sun sets behind us.


Nick raking.


This is a photo i took from the other day, before i knew what these guys were all about.


Sunday i went back out during low tide to try and collect some more clams. I got two, then a rogue wave came and went over the tops of my boots. My feet were soaked and i was sad, so i said screw this and went home...

I have been doing out on the bay recently and taking a lot of pictures when the tide is out, now that i have some boots. Here are some of the photos from these adventures...

Real nice day on the bay.


Sun setting.


An old decaying log.



These next few i took last night at around 9pm. I took my tripod, a flatten cardboard box, and my camera of course and got some neat photos leaving the shutter open at various time intervals.
(be sure to click on the photos to see the detail, and stars in the background)












Lastly, Sans left me a comment saying they need pictures of kiki. Well if you read this thing sans here you go.

Kiki being an idiot and trying to squeeze into the smallest cardboard box...


Good job...

mlk day.

So last weekend i had intentions of heading up to hood for the weekend. However, the rain that was drenching the peninsula was also soaking mt hood. I decided to stay up on the peninsula for the weekend. Nick was up visiting with his family. Saturday we tried to go out to waikiki in hopes of catching some waves. No dice. Driftwood was out floating everywhere and it looked like crap. I ended up meeting back up with Nick and his family later on to learn how to collect razor clams.

So even before i moved out here i heard about this razor clam business when i was talking to my principal about the school program. So there are a bunch of rules/laws about collecting these special clams. A season only lasts three days per month. I'm not exactly sure what months warrant a season, but i do know that they are winter months... You're only allowed to collect 15 clams per day.

When the season does open up for the weekend, the peninsula swells in population something like 20,000+ people depending on the weather. It was raining real hard, and super windy so i didn't take too many photos. Here's a shot of a bunch of people. I guess it's like this allll the way up and down the peninsula.


Alright so first off you get super suited up, especially if it's raining. Full on rain gear, rubber boots, and most importantly your weapon of choice, a shovel or a "gun". The gun is made of PVC with a thumbsized hole near the handle.


You walk around and hit your gun or shovel on the ground. Basically if there's movement below the surface of the sand from a razor clam you'll see a little volcano/crater form. Next you take the gun and plunge it into the sand down as far as you can get it. Then you take your thumb and cover the hole so that no air will escape. This creates a suction effect so that when you pull the gun back out of the sand the water/sand stays in the gun. Once out of the sand, you let your thumb off the small hole, and the contents of the gun falls out. If you're lucky, you got one of these guys.


I think i only ended up getting six of the possible fifteen of the day. Because it was raining, the craters were super hard to spot. The fact that it was miserable with the wind and the rain aided us in retiring early. Back at Nick's families cabin i was treated to an epic dinner of various seafood. Afterwards i was shown how to clean the razorclams, and various suggestions on how to cook them.



So a student from school asked me to be his mentor for his senior project. He was determined to get the project cranked out during the week. So he, and a student in my construction class headed down to the shop afterschool to work on creating a trashcan hut for the city of Ilwaco to add an aesthetic look, as well as keep various wildlife out of the cans. We worked pretty late both monday and tuesday and finished the project up on thursday.





Wednesday i took the day off from the project because the weather up on the peninsula had been amazing. Mid 50s and sunshine combined with an amazing surf forecast... Darren and i headed out in the cold water to catch some waves. I soon realized i need to pick up some gloves because my hands were absolutely freezing. I realized how out of shape my upper body had gotten since the last time i went out... I manged to catch a real good ride, and fun times were had as the sun set.
Looking south toward North Head and Cape Disappointment.


Sunset just north of North Head.




Thursday night i stayed up late, bundled up and went outside to experiment with some settings on my camera and took photos of the moon over the bay. (be sure to click to see the detail of the stars and what not)







Friday i made my way down to portland to meet up with Nate. We got up early saturday morning and made our way up to the mountain with a fairly large crew. Nate and Sara Phillips from Holden went up in Sara's car with her dog Loki. Myself, Katie, Tim, Evan, and Sarah went up in the brovan.
So there was the crazy inversion up at the mountain. The clouds were lower than usual for this time of the year. This resulted in clear skies and unseasonable warm temperatures. It was in the mid 50s and spring riding was at its best. We had a blast taking runs all over the mountain finding little hips, bumps, chutes, tree jibs, polejams, etc.

The view of the mountain from Portland.


View of the mountain between gvt camp, and meadows.


View rolling up vista.


Above the treeline up at Meadows.


Loki.


Tim trying to eat old jerky.


Sunday most everyone was busy, so Katie and i headed back up to the mountain later in the day to catch the sun heated snow. More good times were had including frequent runs through the pipe.

Today, i enjoyed myself back home on the peninsula. I slept in and decided to do some spring cleaning. It was crazy how nice it was outside... Mid 60s and sunny. It was warm enough to be in a tshirt, so i opened the windows to get some fresh air in the cabin. Later on in the day i went down to the ocean to take some pictures self portrait style.