Festivus for the Rest of Us

As I've mentioned before folks in the Pac. NW go a little nuts in the summertime.  The weather is typically glorious and you can pretty puch live outside (yes, we have one of the highest population of homeless in the nation.  It's a non-so-little known secret that a good % of them are actually there by choice).  Give us any excuse to eat great food, listen to great music, drink great booze, people/dog watch and buy/sell handmade arts & crafts under a canvas roof and we're there.

To that end there are a near infinite variety of civic-sponsored festivities every weekend from June - October.  And most weeks something going on weekdays as well.   Every berg with a population over 1000 has at least one "official" town fest (some version of "Pioneer Days..."  with requisite royal court, parade, carnival and softball tournament &/rodeo ) and any number of  farmer's markets, Saturday markets, street fairs, art fairs, fun runs, charity races, tournaments, music festivals, film festivals, beer festivals, seafood festivals and ethnic heritage festivals.  The largest and most famous of which is Portland's Rose Festival.   These are all in addition to the county and state fairs.

Then as the days get shorter and a lot colder they move inside for Oktoberfests, Harvest Fests, Halloween Fests, Holiday Fests, Winter Fests.... soon to move back outside in the spring with the Flower Fests.  One big,  year-round party, that's us.

Which is to say - that's what we've been up to.  I'd post pics but I've temporarily misplaced my nifty camera card reader doohicky. 

Tomorow Mr. Stang and I are doing a kayaking tour of Ross Island. He got a great deal via Groupon.  We thought it was last week but discovered otherwise when we showed up at the deserted dock underneath the Sellwood Bridge. 

They happened to be doing some filming for the TNT series "Leverage" ontop of the bridge later that day and were shutting it down. Since I'd already taken the day off I was all for sticking around and watching (maybe I'd see Timothy Hutton! or a stunt dude jumping on to a train!)  but Mr. Stang nixed that idea.   He was anxious to go pick up the Monkey who had been staying alone (for the first time) at Gramma's for a few days.  He made it two days out of the four originally planned.

We were meeting in Albany to do the hand off.  On the way down they'd met at the Enchanted Forest just south of Salem.  Gramma took him around and did the log ride and whatnot.  I had to work and was jealous not having been there since I was a kid.  Apparently they've added a ton of rides/attractions in the last few decades.   As a result I am both hopeful and terrified that we'll never be able to drive south without having to stop there, again.  I wonder if they still have the Crooked House?  I'm just happy they're still in business so I (and the grandparents) can share something I loved so much as a kid with my son.

With a forecast tomorow in the low 80's it should be a beautiful day on the river. I'm looking forward to seeing the "before" (or rather... current...) version of Ross Island up close and personal.  There's been so much interest in rebuilding/reclaiming Ross Island lately with any luck it will be unrecognizeable (for the better) by the time the Monkey grows up and shares it with his own children!