I fell in.

I can’t believe it’s Monday morning already and I’m back at my desk in my windowless office, staring at my computer screen.

OH GOD I’m such a whiner. I apologize. At least I HAVE a job. Two actually. And I really like working at the UO. I’m just Monday-whiny, after a pleasant weekend, most of which was spent procrastinating work on my final project. Non-project related activities included planting peas and lavender in buckets, watching a freak thunder-hailstorm destroy all that work and then replanting, among other things.

Sunday afternoon, SIL (my sister-in-law who is our current basement-dwelling house guest) took Kid out to her grandpa’s, giving Ebon and I a chance to -gasp- do whatever we wanted for a few hours. And of course, with Ebon that means some sort of adventuring. We drove up the Gorge to a spot just west of the Bonneville damn, where a dirt road leads down under I-84 and a cold, rushing river tumbles down over moss-covered rocks between steep canyon walls. You could tell that just up a ways, the canyon curves sharply and there had to be a waterfall lurking back there. So Ebon was determined to find it.

We made our way through as much of the woods as we could, but it was rocky, steep and covered in blackberry bramble, so the creek ended up being the better route. This involved jumping from slick rock to slick rock until we got pretty far up to a place where we couldn’t keep going without wading out pretty deep in the fast-moving water. We debated about pushing forward for a while, until I managed to talk him out of getting our shoes wet and potentially getting swept downriver, so we headed back. The final river crossing before we got back to our car looked a lot different on the way back than it had in the beginning. The options were walking across a skinny, slick fallen tree quite a ways up above the water, or jumping about four feet across to a slippery rock. Ebon chose the tree route, while I stood there balking at the thought of either option. That’s when Ebon had the brilliant idea of laying a smaller tree branch across the two rocks for me to walk across, which I attempted. The branch broke under my weight and I fell in.

Which lead to other good things, including riding in the car pantless to Hood River, where I bought a $7 pair of shorts so we could go down to the beach and watch the kite boarders and windsurfers for a while. On the way back we took the toll bridge across to White Salmon, which I’d never done before, and drove along the Gorge on the Washington side. It was absolutely amazing from this side- I didn’t know the mountains on the Oregon side rose up so high that the peaks were still covered snow, among other things. We crossed back over the Bridge of the Gods, which cost $1.00 but was well worth it.

Then we came home to a sick kid with a 102 degree fever (no, she doesn’t have swine flu, it’s just a cold-type thing) and Monday morning and all of that. And now I have a meeting.