20 AUG - Rafting on the Deschutes

Tim, Valerie, Rob, Anne-Marie and I all went white-water rafting on the Deschutes River. It was a great time!

These are just a few shots of the river when we started. The river was rather cool. I checked a fishing site and it says that it's about 50F at mid-day.

Doesn't Anne-Marie have such pretty painted toes?

Here I am before all the excitement begins.

Tim was on my side of the boat. He was rearin' to go!

Rob was his usual calm, cool and collected self. He was behind Valerie on the other side of the boat.

Valerie was beside me on the front of the boat. I think that we were the power rowers. Anne-Marie was in the front of the boat riding cowboy. She has carpal tunnel issues in her hand and she couldn't row.

It was an absolutely beautiful day and there were a LOT of people on the river.

This is all of us. We are a motley crew. This is just after our first few rapids.

I did get a little wet!

We all had a great time!

I'm not sure how Rob didn't get wet.

This is at the end of the trip. It was only an hour long trip and we only went 2 miles but the rapids were great!

Here is a pic of Anne-Marie and me in front of the rafting lodge after we got dry and changed clothes.

07 AUG 2011 - Keith Urban Concert

Anne-Marie scalped some AWESOME tickets to the Keith Urban concert "Get Closer" on Thursday, 07 AUG. We were in the second section back from the stage on the left hand side. The reason that it was called Get Closer was because he spent a lot of time performing in the middle of the crowd. I was very impressed with him as a musician. He may be under the country genre but I would swear that he is more Rock 'n Roll. He would do 2 or 3 minutes of rock guitar improv at the end of each song. Until Anne-Marie mentioned it, I didn't know that he was from Australia. The Jake Owen Band opened. Their hit song is playing on the radio right now, "Blue Jean Barefoot Night".

This is the beginning of the concert.

There were smaller stages on stage left and stage right. There was also one in center stage left. This is the one in center stage left.

This is Anne-Marie as he was playing on the smaller stage in center left.

This just shows how great our tickets were.

Great seats!

I didn't know many of the songs but we BOTH enjoyed the musicianship.

He had a lot of lighting hanging from the rafters. There were 8 spots run by guys in the rafters.

At one point he got even CLOSER! There was a small, round table on which was chair with a special microphone. We were only about 5 people away from him.

The little round stange elevated. It was pretty cool. Apparently, part of his show is to go into the audience, play some of a song and then give someone the guitar after he had signed it. He also pulled 3 people on stage to sing "I Want to Kiss a Girl" as well. That was pretty funny since all of them were tone-deaf. Luckily, they all knew the words and were hams.

18 AUG - Climbing Black Butte in Sisters, OR

Tim and Valerie West invited us to stay with them at a beautiful lodge in Black Butte Ranch. We arrived yesterday afternoon. We had a nice evening with them and, of course, we went to bed early because of the time zone difference.

Today, we awoke at 6:30 AM so we decided to head-out on another adventure! Anne-Marie and I climbed Black Butte which is just outside of Sisters, OR. Per the park information, the peak is 4900 ft. It took us 1.5 hrs of steady climbing to reach the top. We were there for about 1/2 hour and then it took us 45 minutes to make it back to the car. We definitely go a work-out today!

This is about 1/2 way up. You can see Black Butte Ranch in the valley. In the background are 2 of the Sisters mountains, Faith and Charity. Hope is the 3rd sister and is hidden behind Faith.

Landscape shots are OK but I like for people to be able to see that Anne-Marie or I were really there!

Here is Anne-Marie reaching the top. The 2 sign posts were like goal posts.

Like I said, we really did make the top. We were a little cranky, hot and sweaty on the way-up but we got the job done. This is the sign at the top.

Here I am next to a couple markers at the top of the trail. They were kind of like goal posts for our journey. This is my first hiking expedition ever!

Here is me with Mt. Hood in the background.

I guess that I'm a ham.

Here is Anne-Marie with Mt. Hood on the background.

This is a new cabin that was built for the fire watchers in 1979. Mt. Hood and Three Finger Jack are in the background.

Here are Faith, Charity and Broken Top Mountains. This my first time to ever see mountains in the US. I have seen the mountains in southern Germany but I've never been to a part of the US where there are snow-capped mountains.

We have a picture of Anne-Marie peaking into someone's yard in Phoenix through a hole in their fence. We thought that we would recapture that pic here. There was nothing in the old look-out tower. It was just being used for storage.

This is a little chipmunk that greeted us. It had NO fear of us. It came within about 3 ft of us.

It was so serene at the top. It is a very nice place to reflect on the beauty of nature.

Here is a picture of Black Butte Ranch and Faith Mountain.

Faith and Hope Mountains with the long-range lens.

This is a close-up of Three Fingered Jack.

I think that these are the Cascade Mountains. Many of the snow-capped peaks are named after Presidents. There was Washington, Jefferson and Adams that we saw.

These are some beautiful flowers that we saw all over the mountain.

Here is Anne-Marie starting the trek down the mountain.

Apparently, there was a fire recently.

On the way up, I didn't realize how steep the hill-side was. I only noticed on the way down.

Here I am at the bottom of the trail. Woo hoo!