One of my favorite people has come all the way from Louisiana to visit us! Becca is in town for a week, so we’ll be touring Oregon, hitting up all of our favorite spots (and some new ones) over the next several days. Becca and I met 5 years ago while working as counselors at a camp outside of Seattle. There, we bonded over our love of everything marionberry, our dislike of freezing cold lake water, and the fact that we are basically the same person. Since then, we’ve seen each other about once a year, each of us traveling to Louisiana or Kentucky for weddings and fun visits. And now we have an entire week together, so we’re trying to fit in as much awesome stuff as possible!
We started day 1 with a walk down the street to breakfast at Humble Bagel. We dined on whole wheat cinnamon raisin honey bagels (my favorite) with marionberry cream cheese. It’s my goal to get Becca at least one marionberry food per day. So far, so good.
Next, we went for a hike at Spencer Butte, which is the oddly shaped mountain (does it count as a mountain?) you can see from almost anywhere in Eugene. We started at the Willamette Trail Head and hiked a little over 6 miles, round trip. We stopped to marvel over every enormous tree (proof that I’m not the only one shocked at the height and width of these massive things), and took a nice little snack break at the summit to enjoy views of Eugene and the surrounding mountains. We also fought off a brave squirrel who really wanted our cheese sticks. I say “we” fought him off, but I may have been yelping and climbing higher and higher to get away from him, while Becca actually hit him with her water bottle. The little guy wasn’t even phased. And by “little guy,” I mean “fattest squirrel I’ve ever seen.”
Our next stop of the tour of Eugene was Market of Choice, which is our local grocery store. It sounds weird to take someone to see a grocery store, but it’s super nice, and we got free cheese samples. Win.
Next, we went to Hendricks Park, which was full of blooming rhododendrons on our last visit. Unfortunately, no flowers were in bloom at this point, but it was still lovely. We even discovered a pair of swings amongst the very tall trees (and quickly discovered that swinging makes us both nauseous).
Eric met up with us for dinner at Pizza Research Institute (which recently moved from it’s previous really cool, hipster Eugene building to a smaller, less exciting building down the street). The pizza still rocked our socks off, despite the fact that we were sweating while we ate it (is it possible that restaurants here also don’t have AC?). We left completely stuffed with plenty of leftovers. The best way to be.
Day 1 of the Oregon experience complete.
-Ally
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