Ha! Yes, I realize the 4th of July was like three weeks ago, but sometimes that’s how long it takes to get around to writing about something;)
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(What’s a good 4th of July adventure without crossing state lines?)
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Let’s call this photo essay more than any actual writing. But come the 4th of July, since both James and I had the day totally off (a rarity in life these days, that we overlap so completely!), we went for an adventure we’d been talking about forever: to explore the western, undeveloped side of Hayden Island, that weird sort-of-island between Portland and Vancouver.
First, we took a detour up to Vancouver, to see the new waterfront together. I’ve been watching it come together for a while since my work is maybe a 20-minute walk away, but it was fun to totally just tourist it up with James.
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(I don’t know what to call this, but it’s a pretty cool feature)
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(and the most scenic bike parking in all of Vancouver!)
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We also totally hilariously went up to my office (nothing like visiting your office on your day off! Though actually it was pretty great;) before heading back to Hayden Island. And despite a lot of effort and a lot of biking through places maybe we shouldn’t have been, on Hayden Island we mostly found lots of private property, weird industrial wasteland, and gates keeping us out of things.
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(a particularly robust keep-out gate. Sadly, this was exactly where I wanted to go — next time, we go by boat!)
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(another version of the stay-out motif — in this case, a path that went to nowhere anyway)
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(and another place I wanted to go — if it hadn’t been the 4th of July with its attendant heightened surveillance, we might have gone for this one)
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We DID find a sweet little park, Lotus Isle Park, where we spent a good while reading, lounging, and watching a bunny hop around. And since it was an exploratory adventure anyway, it didn’t seem so super sad that we couldn’t get to where I wanted to be, though I definitely want to go back by other means to see what it’s all about.
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(we managed to sneak in some good bird-watching, too:)
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By the time it was evening and we got home, it seemed appropriate simply to make dinner, hang out, and go to bed — to heck with any sort of fireworks.
Quite possibly the best 4th of July I can remember spending in Portland:)
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Sounds delightful!!