The Year of Living Dangersoulsy

Allyson and I are closing in on our first year in the Northwest. It is now starting to feel more like home as we make new friends and find the familiar all around us. The trees now looked like they did almost a year ago when we first arrived here. The first familiar holiday was Halloween. Now Christmas is just around the corner and I suspect as it draws near the enormity of the last year will make itself known to us. The Lord has kept us safe despite our clumsiness and we are forever grateful.

I'm killing an hour here before I go to leave to pick Allyson up from the airport. She visited Vero Beach for a week with her family. It was fun to watch the cold rain out my window in Hillsboro while I talked to her on the phone about 80 degree afternoons and adventures with dolphins at Sea World.

My Nikita bus project hums along. I should have the engine out of her by the end of the week. I've posted some pictures to show the current state of affairs with her. I can't wait to be cruising down the road with Allyson and Daisy in tow, heading to the mountain or beach.

I have learned so much from this year, and so much from all of you, my friends and family. I've learned that faith is often rewarded, although the cliche is true: the reward is not always in ways you expect. I've learned what a blessing that a good friend or family member can be during times of trial, whether they are with you for every step of it, or thousands of miles away. I've learned that you never stop growing, maturing, and facing your fears. God bless you all! Enjoy the holiday season.

Enter: Nikita (and other infamous characters)

Hello and thanks for sticking with me for another edition of, "the news hour with Heath and Ally." I know I haven't been quite as faithful with updating our blog these last few months, but I like to think it's because we've been too busy rather than I have nothing to say. I'll start as far back as I can remember in this summer. So, I left things off at the beginning of the summer, where in a fit of inspiration I waxed poetic about this season in the sun. I've lived with the seasons before, but found them estranging in the past. Now, I feel like I'm in it with everyone else.

So, we were not immune from the spring fever and ended up buying a house! I mentioned this was a possibility, but its now a reality. It was a pretty easy transaction and we've been living in our new neighborhood for about 6 months now. We live in a part of Hillsboro, OR called Orenco Station. We know a lot of our neighbors. There is a grocery store, wine store, dog park, church, and our doctor all within a five minute walk. The townhouse/condo is just our style and we can't believe that we've been blessed with it.

Allyson and I hiked in the early part of the summer to a place called Jefferson Park. Despite being attacked by a swarm of mosquitos we enjoyed a couple days in this plateau at the base of Mount Jefferson. We took Daisy with us as well and she did all right, although she may have hurt her hip on the way up. Allyson found her stride out there and we both talked about getting out more to do stuff like this. She needs to get more Saturday's off from work though. That is slightly cramping our style at this point.

Not long after our Mount Jefferson adventure our friend Lindsey visited us from Virginia. We rocked it pretty hard for a whole week. The shenanigans included: a midnight tattoo parlor run, bar hopping in Portland, a parade of thousands of nude bike riders, hiking along the coast, snails the size of my hand, mountains, breakfast at a place called Voodoo donuts, and a run-in with Jimmy Hendrix. Also, Lindsey kept up this tempo while vacillating between dealing with severe back pain and the effects of severe back pain killers. We loved seeing her and we were sad to see her go, but I don't think we could've survived another week together.

I made two other life-changing purchases. I bought a new longboard and a 1973 VW Camper bus. Both are classic. The board is from a smaller shaper in Santa Cruz and is providing me hours of enjoyment. Our lovely bus broke and won't even take me around the corner for now. I think I figured out why and a new part is coming in that should fix her up (famous last words).

We took the bus to the beach before she quit working and we camped out in it. The rain came down pretty hard that weekend so the coast wasn't crowded. I woke up early one morning and drove us from our campsite to a parking spot right on the coastline in Seaside. I opened the back door and Allyson awoke to the sounds of waves lapping up on the stones right beneath us. As she was still half asleep we looked out and saw about 5 grey whales blowing their spouts. I looked to her and said, "I always promised you a beach-front view, didn't I?"

I started to work frantically to get the bus running because I really wanted to have it fixed by the time my Dad visited us in September. Sadly that didn't happen. It's really a shame because the couple we bought it from seemed to have such luck with it.

I think they just had the magic touch. I wish I had met them earlier because the four of us seemed to get along. They owned the bus for a long time and had a lot of adventures in it in northern California and all over Oregon. I could tell that they loved the old bus. They were getting ready to sail down to Cabo with a friend for a few months and were streamlining things. I really fell in love with the bus, and these two hard chargers, at first site.

Our first test drive took place on the Cathedral Ridge on the shadow of Mount Hood. I read a lot about how to shop for these, so I was going through the motions, putting her through her paces, but Allyson knew that I had already decided to pull the trigger. What really sealed it was that when I opened the sliding door of the bus, directly across from me was a prayer that really spoke to me, written in scrawled sharpie pen on the Baltic Birch wall. I was sold.

We named the bus Nikita. Allyson found the bus on Craigslist, and she was blue, so we were thinking she was a female anyway. I went to the beach and found a sticker that said nikita in neat bubble letters and in a blue complementing the bus. Allyson had been watching all the episodes of, "La Femme Nikita, " a television show from the 90s and when I saw that it all clicked. I bought the sticker, but let Allyson put it on for the ceremonial christening.

I drove Nikita home two hours down the Columbia river from Hood River, I drove it to work once, and I drove it to the beach that once with Allyson. I was so excited to start refurbishing it and fixing it up! There were so many ways though that I messed that car up as I tried fixing it. Word to the wise, try to watch someone else tune-up your car first before you attempt it. A book just doesn't cut it sometimes. Also, if you are going to do a big tune-up day, start your car after every step so you can tell at what point you hosed things. It has now been a couple months, and I've learned so much, and met so many people as I've tried to get her running again, but still no joy. Like I said though, I have high hopes for the part coming in this week.

So, even after scrambling and spending money on parts and spending hours of time on research, I didn't get Nikita running by the time my Dad showed up. We did spend some quality time together going to the parts store and brainstorming with the guys there and talking about it. We shrugged it off after a few hours and got our week going.

We took off early on a Tuesday and headed into central Oregon. We drove almost four hours from the wet coast to the central desert near Bend. There are a series of mountains there named after three sisters, and Dad and I planned to climb one of them, named Charity. This would be our first mountain summit, and our first hike over 10k feet.

We spaced out our trip over a couple days to acclimate. Every step of the way surprised us by some aspect of wilderness beauty. The first night Dad made a sizable fire which is always entertaining some how. We saw the clearest night of stars either one of us had ever seen. We counted a couple dozen satellites whizzing through the sky. The sky was so luminous with these pin points of light that constellations were hard to pick out.

We woke early that morning, broke camp, and headed up the mountain for a short but strenuous couple of hours through an old growth forest. The hike took us from around 5k to 6k. At the end, we cleared the trees and found a camp with amazing views overlooking a lake. We burned the whole day reading, taking a swim, taking pictures, and generally talking about our preparations for the next day.

The next morning we felt like real mountain climbers because we were up way before dawn and we were a little nervous about the trial ahead. After leaving our camp in the dust on time, we both settled down a bit. We crossed a large plain that looked like the Saint Andrews golf course, but after that we started a series of scrambles. The first leg was a rock scramble, maybe class 3? in sections and very rocky. The third leg was along a long ridge along a glacier, very exposed and with excellent views. The ground turned from grey to red here. The final stage was a soft slog up a very vertical red cinder cone. It was starting to get hot and uncomfortable at this point, and we really had no idea how far the summit was. I called it the Mordor trek part of our day. Day found that only slightly funny. But the weather was perfect and we were kept motivating each other to take the next step.

After slogging it out up Mordor for about 30-40 minutes we made it to the peak. Our first glaciated summit! The views delivered. You could see the Cascade range to the North, a huge expanse of woods to the South, and the deserts to the East. It was a bright and crisp morning and we were the first on it. We scurried down in a few hours, looking back and pointing every couple hours. We grinned from ear to ear at the thought that we had done it. On the way out of town we promptly hit the first Burger King we could find in Bend. You'd think we were out for a couple weeks the way we scarfed our food down.

One final adventure was my attempt to climb another mountain called Three Fingered Jack with friends from church. The rock was a little loose and we weren't moving fast enough to summit, but we had an amazing experience out there as well. My host that day was a native Oregonian and a really experienced climber. He inspired me and I'm ready to start attempting the other Cascade mountains around here.

And in addition to all of this, I even managed to get a ton of work done! Work is going great and it's exciting to have such chemistry with my team. Now our year-end goals are in our sites and we are working to finish strong.

That's the news from our end. I wish it wasn't so newzy. The bottom line of all this is that as the seasons change, and as we meet more people and find more to do, we feel more and more at home. Coming into another winter really causes us to reflect upon the year and everything God has brought us. We have a lot to be thankful about, including all of you! So, be sure to drop us a line or comment. Take care!

This Place is Crackin

There's a crackalacky in the air. There's mischief afoot. There's a tiger unsprung. There're deeds to be done. The sun's been turned on. Don't hit that switch! 

This weekend a friend and I went to suck up some mountain air. Shirts off in the high sun, sneakers wet from ploughing through snow, we don't care! I laid down on a bed of pine boughs under a blue sapphire sky, drifted to sleep as stars started to drip down from on high.

We're in the garden, we're in the vineyard, we're working hard for the weekend. I'm walking more, driving less, praying my new situation is just beginin.

It's the spring in Oregon and you haven't seen none like it. We'd love to have ya, stay a spell, go get your ticket!

Wow, where has the time gone?

No, we have not fallen off the face of the earth. No, we have not been clubbed to death by a band of woodland dwellers. No, the e-woks have not deified us and locked us off from society. I know you were at the edge of your seats with what has become of us out here, but simmer down now, and know, we seem to be in good hands.

There is a lot of news and I can't cover it all. Here are some highlights. I made it past 30 days on my job and I love it! We joined a gym that has an awesome rock-climbing wall and showers with great water pressure (which is more than I can say for our apartment). I completed an 8-week art criticism course and the writing talent out here blew my mind. I surfed 9 foot waves at a left hand point with off shore winds and feel like I'm learning to surf all over again. We are drinking a lot of good wine. Between the two of us we've cracked our windshields 5 times since we've been here, and replaced both of them.

That's the short version. I can give you the long version in an email if you're interested. There is one other thing: We put in an offer on a townhouse and it was accepted! It was a pretty screaming deal and we didn't want to pass it up, despite not having the most concrete working situations. 

So we have an appointment today to sign some more paperwork. Then tomorrow, it may be off to the beach for us to de-compress. We've got a lot to plan in the next three weeks, but we're excited. Keep us in your prayers. We need a heap-full of wisdom and the right doors to open for us.

Take care!  

Amen

It is February 10, at 12:59 PM. I can tell that for sure because I’m looking at my newly repaired Seiko watch that Allyson gave me as an anniversary present three years ago. It hasn’t worked in months because I didn’t have the time or money to take it into a shop. It’s a testament to our new page in life that I was able to walk into Watch Works and have the battery replaced. But first for a bit of real news: I am once again a happy uncle. Jeff and Holly had their second baby, Giada, if I have that right, and we are so happy for them as they continue to walk bravely on the road of parenthood. Jeff tells me it’s a little easier the second time because you know more about what to expect. I’ll take his word for it for now. Scott and Erin, our dear friends, also had a baby girl in the last week, Evangeline. We are inspired by both of them, and they are in our prayers. Congrats!

Allyson and I also have news, although the above is hard to follow. I have accepted an offer to work for Providence Health & Services, a regional hospital here that has a mission for providing for the poor and vulnerable. I’m really excited about the position and my future colleagues are great people. I start next Monday, February 16th.

I don’t have to tell most of you what the last few months have been like for us, but for the uninitiated this news provides an exclamation point to God's story in our life. If an exclamation point could also be a comma, then that is more appropriate, because we’re sure that the story is far from over. Allyson and I are in amazement mode, as we look back on leaving careers in DC, with no real prospects here, and making our way across the country, and finding an apartment, and just stewing in hope and prayer as we began an excruciating job hunt. This honestly was the most challenging job hunt ever for me, but the Lord provided. My heart goes out to all the folks here still looking for work.

To celebrate we have kept our days very busy. This was my schedule last week. Wednesday morning I surfed a perfect 9-foot left off a point break and scared myself to death. Wednesday night I attended my art criticism class and heard my writing read aloud, which scared me to death. I forget Thursday. Friday I woke up at 0530 and Ryan and I drove to Smith Rocks to go rock climbing, which scared me to death. Saturday we climbed more, then drove back to Portland, where I met up with Allyson. Saturday evening Allyson took her first flight lesson in a small Cessna aircraft while I sat in the back, which scared me to DEATH. You’ll be happy to hear I am not dead after all of that fright. I guess we didn’t know how to handle our current sense of stability so we invented these risks. I don’t know.

Anyway, we are now ready for visitors! We welcome all comers to our little abode downtown, where a good book can be had at Powell’s Bookstore, a good walk can be had in Washington Park behind our house, and the good beer flows like the Columbia River. Cheers!

Here's looking at you

For those who are interested, I'm starting to post some of my old and new write-ups on stuff I'm reading. Check it out at: Looking Out.

Thanks!

Perfect Storm

It's the day after Christmas and I can see the pavement on the roads for the first time in two weeks. The snow and ice is beginning to thaw and Portlanders are taking to the streets for post-holiday sales. Portland welcomed us two weeks ago by sending in a snow storm. We started to worry that we got ourselves into a lifetime of brutal winters, but friends assured us this was not typical, but rather, unprecedented. At first, they claimed they hadn't experienced snow like this in Portland for 5 years, but the snow kept falling and quickly busted that record. After a couple more inches of accumulation they said it had been 10 years since there was this much snow. The snow melted a bit, then froze solid, locking our cars into their spaces on a steep hill behind our apartment.  We just received our parking permits at the beginning of the storm, worried that they would ticket the Solara and the Matrix, but the parking police gave up issuing tickets given the conditions. By the end of the first week of the storm The Oregonian (local newspaper) declared we were enduring a 20-year storm. By the middle of the second week the weathermen were staying that it was 1968 when we last had this much snow. Finally, we got word that a weather reading at the airport confirmed that by midnight on December 23rd, after two more inches of snowfall, there would be more snow in Portland due to these storms then at any time in the city's recorded history.

The weather's timing couldn't be better; it added to the trials of our Western adventure. Ice from the storm caused over 40,000 Portlanders to lose power. Highway I-5 leading out of the city was shut down, as were access roads to the mountains and the ocean. Frigid temps and high snow banks devastated the already fragile shopping season. The storms stopped us from going, well anywhere beyond a four-block radius. At least two of Allyson's job interviews had to be rescheduled. I tell myself that the weather is yet another reason why I have not yet had a single call back on my applications, but I guess this thaw I see now outside will shed light on that theory.

I used the forced down-time as an opportunity to explore my immediate surroundings. On the fourth day of heavy snow I walked four hours into the hilly woods behind our apartment--my camera and umbrella in hand.  I'm sure I was quite a spectacle, with my 30-year-old film camera, bright orange snow pants, and the only one with an umbrella in those woods, called Washington Park. Washington park  is a massive park to the West of town situated on a series of hills. It is full of attractions that I'm sure see heavy traffic in the summer.  There is the Portland Zoo, the oldest West of the Mississippi. There is also the Japanese Gardens, the famous Rose Gardens, the Abortoreum, two war memorials, and hundreds of miles of trails. This time of year, and in this weather, it is mostly deserted, except for skiers, snowshoers, and walkers like myself. I stayed out there for four hours, until I started to get a little woozy, frantically taking pictures and soaking it all in. I can hardly believe this is my back yard. I head home as the sun sets, at around 4pm this time of year. As I do the parks lamppost turn on and light my way downhill and across the white carpet with an orangish glow. On the way down, I hear a lot of activity. There is a group of snowboarders who were creating a ramp park in what was once a set of stone bleachers, taking advantage of the incline and icy railings. I turn a final corner in the trail and enter the final stretch that leads to my apartment complex. It's framed by tall evergreens, their outlines black against the purple sky in the shadows behind the lamp-posts. It starts to snow heavy and I unfurl my umbrella.  It's an essential item on any hike. It promptly inspires a few snickers from high-school snowborders heading up the hill. The snickers could have been inspired by my newly-purchased orange, female snow pants ( a deal for $7 from the local Goodwill).

I immersed my thoughts in the snow, the crisp twilight air, and the shrieks of laughter from sledders who took control over roads that cars could no longer navigate. At my apartment building I see movement out of the corner of my eye from under an evergreen tree across from me.  There is another man, also under an umbrella, sitting in the snow, but he obviously has no apartment to return to. He is shivering but trying to make himself comfortable for the night. Despite the cold, vagrants are loyal to Portland in all four seasons. We looked at each other for just a second, both recognizing something shared as the only two umbrella users that night, but he was in desperation and I was going home. I turned and a shiver went down my spine as I let the anxiety of my own unemployment overtake me for a second.

The storm forced me to take stock of what I'm doing out here. Before I had a chance to dive into a job hunt in the way I normally would, I had to sit with my thoughts. I hatched a couple schemes for self-employment. I solidified my educational goals. In my excitement I took dozens of pictures of my new neck of the woods, the best way for me to handle all the creative energy that goes along with being in a new place. Allyson and I could have gone to a friends house for the holidays in southern Oregon, but we felt compelled to stay bedded down in our apartment. We wanted to ride out the storm with the rest of the Portlanders. This was a historic storm, and we wanted to be a part of it, a part of the stories to come.

As we ate our Christmas dinner last night, we felt we turned a corner in our nesting process. We felt one step closer to being enveloped in the comfort of home. Now as the snow thaws and commerce returns to normal we chalk this storm up to another mark on our record of experience as true residents. That is the news from us, here in our new digs. I hope all of you are having a very merry Christmas, and we wish you a happy new year!