The Where's Tommy

9:00A.M. PST
Tom hit the road this morning after a few days spent visiting friends and family. He started his 2,765-mile journey back to Hood River, OR from Fleetwood, PA this morning at 6:00A.M. I spoke to him about an hour ago, and he was rolling through Ohio.


Any guesses on how long it will take him to do the 40-hour drive? My guess is that he'll be home in Hood River on Monday night–a four-day trek.

Stay tuned...
:)

TOMTRACKER UPDATE 001, (Friday, 4/27):
That little bugger is HAULIN' ASS! He's in Indiana!


TOMTRACKER UPDATE 002, (Friday, 4/27):
Tom's almost halfway across the country already, 200 miles east of Des Moines, Iowa and still has a head of steam. He said his goal is to make it to Utah tonight–I say NO WAY! If he keeps up at this pace, I'll have to retract my Monday-night estimate to Saturday night!


I leave tonight for Mount Saint Helens. Me, Carley, Gerry and Aaron are going to summit tomorrow–we start at 5AM with headlamps! I'll post the Where's Tommy scoop tomorrow evening.


TOMTRACKER UPDATE 003, (Monday, 4/30):
Sorry about the tracking stand-still for the past few days! I didn't have internet access on top of Mount Saint Helens! Here's (L to R) Carley, me and Gerry! More about this later.


Tom arrived home yesterday, Sunday, April 29 at 2:00P.M. after 49 hours on the road–pretty phenomenal if you ask me. He spent his last night in a motel near Boise, Idaho, about 6 hours from Hood River. Carley and I were little busy bees getting the house ready for all of Tom's buddies who are visiting this week. We expected him around 8:00 last night, but he surprised us when he rolled in early-afternoon style.

I ran outside this morning in my jammies and beddies to take a quick shot of Tom's truck smilin' in the morning sun.


We're glad to have our Tommy back. :)

Hood River Panorama

A photographer that we're working with for a project at Summit took a great panoramic shot of Hood River yesterday. View the pic. (Click to enlarge).

On the left, you see the Hood River bridge, which spans the Columbia River, connecting Washington and Oregon. It's a 75-cent toll in both directions.

My new hometown is nestled in lots of trees, with a semi-clouded Mount Hood watching over us. If you look closely, you can see the Mount Hood Railroad train. The train tracks run right along both sides of the river. When Melis, Nicole, Sierra and Damian come to visit, Thomas the Train will be in town, so we're going to go for a Thomas ride for Damian's birthday. He'll be 5 the day after they arrive! :)

The spit of land you see that looks like lots of sediment is the little island where the kiteboarders take off from. People come from all over the world to kite in Hood River. In the summer, this is a common site on a windy day.

Our house is on the far right of the panoramic photo, past Mount Hood and before that island in the middle of the water. I heart Hood River and you will too!

Bend-er

Fly in a box.

The last weekend in March, we joined a group of crazies for a weekend of fun in Sunriver, which is located about 15 miles south of Bend, Oregon, on the dry side of the Cascade Mountains.

We left Hood River on a sunny, Friday morning and drove three hours to the Crooked River for an afternoon of fly fishing and tailgating.

Carley and Nicole got the cooler rolling promptly. Knowing your priorities is half the battle. The Crooked River is smilin' in the background while the wavy reeds sway in the breeze.


It was a warm, sunny spring day.


We borrowed some fly fishing gear to try our hand at the sport. We mostly just lost flies in the water and even in the trees behind us (Tom). It was a great day to play around riverside.


I read online that there are 3,000 trout per mile on the Crooked River, which is sad if it's true. We didn't get one bite.



Abe ties one on in the foreground (note the PBR). Tom and Chad upriver.

Everybody chillin' out.


Scissor sisters. You say picnic table, we say double-wide lounge chair. rrraaAAARRRrrrrr. We had two kegs in tow and polish horseshoes, so we tailgated in the day-use parking lot for a few hours before driving to Sunriver. The house was big and fun. We had a silly crew.


After a night of depravity, we got our shit together and headed up to Mount Bachelor for some snowplay.



Carley and I were shooshin' around and stopped to have a dude take our picture. To our surprise, a smilin' face slid into the shot–Tommy!


More parking lot tailgating. These bright colors are hurtin' my eyezzza. It was a fun weekend. We headed home on Sunday morning–detox. We'll be back for Bend-er 2008.