Oh That Smell

A friend once said to me "if you want to kiss a girl where it smells, take her to Albany". (Sorry if that offended anyone)

But what I won't apologize for is growing up in the town that the majority of people simply know as "the place that smells"; the 54-year-old Albany Paper Mill, a place that had been a traveler's icon, a town's identity and a symbol for a relatively comfortable living.

At 8:07am on Sunday, July 22nd, a part of that icon came down in just a matter of seconds.  

For the past couple of years the paper mill has stood empty.  Just a daily reminder of the 270+ family wage jobs that are no longer.  The last of the employees had left the paper mill the week before Christmas 2009.  Some of those employees were third-generation mill workers.  For years, these were some of the highest-paid jobs around. 

To the average traveler, it was a mile-long stretch of I-5 that you held your breath when you drove by.  To those of us who grew up with it, it was the smell of money and jobs.  You will be hard-pressed to find anyone from Albany who would complain of this smell.

It's a sign of the times I guess. In the year's to come, the next generation will never know "that smell".  They won't know how much the paper mill shaped over 50 years of history in their hometown. 

Finally, if you want to watch the implosion in real time, click on the following link courtesy of the Albany Fire Department:  VIDEO: Another view of the implosion, provided by Albany Fire Department

40 x 40 - 13. Complete Project 366 (2nd Update)

Another 100 days has gone by and we are still on track to complete Project 366.  We have not missed one day so far!

I thought I would take a moment to catch you up on the days 101-200.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

Day 107 - Scott's first day as a Battalion Chief.  All his hard work paid off!

Day 118 - I often get behind this car at the coffee stand.  It cracks me up every time to see the basset hound placing his order.

Day 129 - I never would have guessed how attached Mack would get to this squeaky chicken.  He takes it everywhere, and the two can often be found napping on the front porch.

Day 132 - I was blessed to get to watch a couple of my nephew's spring baseball games.  Here #6, all the way to the left in his catcher gear, is getting ready to play the game that will get them into the playoffs.

Day 141 - Finally all the women in my book club made it to the same meeting.  These women have taught me a lot about the woman I hope to be someday.

Day 156 - Not all days brought great memories.  Here, Scott lowers the flag to half-staff in honor of our friend's only son who was killed in Afghanistan.

Day 174 - The late spring weather brought several days of rain.  I snapped this photo while getting gas at the local gas station.  I never mind the rain; it reminds me of where I come from and makes me a little homesick.

Day 176 - We cashed in our free Umpqua Valley wine-tasting tour and enjoyed a day of learning all about wine.  My beer-drinking husband was a great sport.

Day 193 - I thought it would be fun to teach my old dog a new trick.  Daisy picked up on drinking water out of the hose pretty quick.  Unfortunately, this has backfired and now she follows me around when I am watering the flowers, sticking her nose in the hose.

We are over halfway to completing this goal.  Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do with these photos to scrapbook them.

40 x 40 - 23. Take a Yoga Class & 30. Take a Class at the Community College

There always seems to be an excuse.  The classes don't fall during times I can go.  If I go before work, where will I get cleaned up.  If I go after work, I will be starving.  I finally bit the bullet and just registered.

(You might notice the Day 94 on the picture.  That's because this picture is also part of another 40 x 40 goal)

I registered for the Spring term Yoga and Yogalates at the local community college.  12 weeks, one night a week.  I fell in love after the first class.  I felt great and wished I could go back the next night.  I missed the third week of class because I had a work meeting.  I missed the sixth and seventh week because I had a work meeting.  I missed the ninth week because…….  Can you see where this is going?  Once I missed a class or two, it got easier to not go.

For now, I am back to the excuses.

40 x 40 - 27. Climb Hogback

I have lived in this town for almost eight years.  Almost every day I see Hogback Mountain in the background scenery of my life.  I can see it from pretty much any spot in town.  It stares me down on my way to work in the morning.  I have contemplated for years climbing this intimidating mountain. Adding it to my 40 x 40 list only made that goal more real.

During a moment of feeling like I could do anything, I agreed with Scott to climb Hogback.  

I absolutely hate uphill climbing.  I love to hike, as long as it's a flat trail, or better yet it goes downhill.  I am a complete whiner when it comes to uphill hiking. 

Scott is a great cheerleader.  He encouraged me the whole way.  Every time I stopped, he stopped.  I knew in my heart that I could make it to the top, but there were several times I contemplated turning back.  

I think that everyone has those moments in their life when they give up on something and then later realize that they actually had it in them to accomplish their goal.  These regrets follow us for the rest of our lives.  Every time I stopped, I thought of those moments in my life.  I did not want this to be one of them.  I knew I had it in me to check this off my list.

It was actually surprising how beautiful this hike was.  There were tons of different flowers, bushes, and trees.

There were lizards, bugs, and butterflies.

I didn't expect to cross paths with this one.  We had a bit of a standoff until she decided to move off the trail and into the shade of the nearby trees.

This was my view for most of the uphill portion of the hike. 

When I was starting to really believe that we would never actually reach the top, we turned a corner and the lookout tower came into view.  I had suddenly recovered from the last two miles and felt like I could have sprinted the rest of the way.

Proof that we made it to the top!

These goldfish crackers were the best tasting snack!  This smile on my face was genuine, not like the ones I had been faking for the past two hours.

This was the view for most of the way down.  I love downhill hiking!  

Since we took a round about way on the way up, we didn't pass the famous lone pine tree until our way down.

The view from the top was incredible.  We could see the entire town from one spot.  It's very hard to imagine that down below you 40,000 people are going about their day.

The night before we hiked there was a 40 acre fire out in Keno.  That explains the layer of "smog".

Hiking down, we took the trail that basically goes down the face of the mountain.  There is no way that I could have made it up this trail. 

I slid twice going down the trail and Scott slid once.  In hindsight, we would have taken the longer way down just because it wouldn't have been so steep.  

Driving home, looking back at Hogback, I was so proud that I accomplished this!  Every time she stares me down, I will make eye contact with her and let her know that she doesn't intimidate me anymore.  I know that I can make it to the top.  I'm just not sure that I care to again. 

40 x 40 - 22. Spend the Night in a Fire Lookout (CHANGE OF PLANS)

We were all set.  The reservations had been made.  All the gear had been sorted through and packed.  I had come to terms with going two days with no running water or electricity.

Six months ago, Scott made reservations to spend the weekend at the Little Mt. Hoffman Lookout.  I was all ready to cross this item off my 40 x 40 list.  Then three days before we were to leave, we got an email cancellation notice.  The snow was too deep and the weather hadn't warmed enough to clear the road leading up to the lookout.  Time to change our plans.

We had already taken the time off work so we decided to cash in our gift certificate for a dinner cruise on the Sternwheeler and headed north to towards the Columbia Gorge.  I was completely ok with giving up my weekend in the lookout for a weekend at a bed and breakfast!

On our way, we stopped off at the State Fire Marshal's office to congratulate Bruce Armstrong on his retirement.  Bruce is one of a kind and we will miss working with him.

It's always nice to catch up with the girls and get all the latest gossip.

The Columbia Gorge is a beautiful part of this country.  The weather has been very rainy lately, which just made everything more green and brillant. 

The clouds also made for an amazing sunset.  Thursday was the only day that it wasn't absolutly pouring rain at sunset.

We stayed in Bridal Veil, which is on the Historic Columbia River Highway.  The Columbia River Highway, later renamed the Historic Columbia River Highway, was a technical and civic achievement of its time, successfully marrying ambitious engineering with sensitive treatment of the surrounding magnificent landscape. The Historic Columbia River Highway has gained national significance because it represents one of the earlier applications of cliff-face road building utilizing modern highway construction technologies. It is also the oldest scenic highway in the United States. The area is very popular with movie and tv production companies.  The second day we were there they were filming a car commercial just down the road from where we stayed.

The Bridal Veil Bed and Breakfast is one of the original structures left along the highway.  Built in the 1930's, it now has two guest rooms in the house and two cottage rooms.  We took a cottage room.  You can barely see the roof of the cottage just over the bushes to the left of the walkway arch.

On Friday we decided to take advantage of being in the big city of Portland by going downtown.  We had no idea that it was Rose Festival week.  The Navy fleet had arrived earlier in the week and the annual Rose Festival Parade was scheduled for the next day.  We agreed that it would be easier to park and ride the MAX into downtown.

Our final destination was the Apple store at Pioneer Square.  If you purchase an Apple product, you can go into the store at any time and get technical assistance.  This was our chance to get our MacBook finally set up right, and maybe learn a thing or two.

This is Scot (with just one "t").  He and I spent about five hours together.  He was really great with helping us to understand the "thought" behind Mac products.  Once you get the basic concept, you can understand most of the products.  He was definitly a tech geek, but he never treated us like we were stupid.  With service like his, I am an Apple fan for life.  Scott (with two "t"'s might take a little more convincing though.)

We had planned on touring all of the waterfalls on Saturday and doing some hiking.  Again, it rained all day, which put a damper on seeing all the waterfalls.  We, of course, went to Multnomah Falls.  The one nice thing about the rain is that it kept a lot of people away.  People, it's Oregon, I don't care that it's June, it's gonna rain.  Buy a rain coat!

We enjoyed a great lunch at McMenamin's Historic Edgefield.  McMenamin's have a knack for taking random historic buildings and making great restaurants and breweries out of them.  Historic Edgefield, built in 1911 as the county poor farm, is a destination resort in the Pacific Northwest that blends Oregon's natural beauty with McMenamins' signature whimsy: original buildings carefully restored with cozy interiors, gardens grown using organic methods, great food and drink, live entertainment and more.  It encompasses a 74-acre parcel of farmland at the mouth of the spectacular Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area.

Saturday night brought our whole reason for this trip, a dinner cruise for two on the Columbia River Gorge Sternwheeler.  Again, you can see that it was cloudy, but we lucked out and it didn't rain at all during the cruise.

Scott made quick friends with the ship's Captain, and he was the first to drive the ship.  He even got an official certificate at the end to prove it.

I was sad that I was not able to cross another thing off my 40 x 40 list, but the weekend we spent in the Gorge was worth it.  There's alway next summer.