Visit to Portland, Apples called Cortland

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Last Wednesday at the ungodly hour of 6:30am (unsure how god relates to a time of day), I flew out to Portland, Oregon as part of the UofM student chapter of the Society of American Foresters! It sounds pretty professional, and indeed, it was a conference held at the Oregon Convention Center. Our group stayed at the illustrious INN at the Convention Center, which was conveniently practically at the convention center. I attended 11 seminars, most of which focused on ecology, and more specifically, fire. They were very interesting and educational except for one, which didn't seem to belong. I toured the city and found a park with a vista, which provided a beautiful shot of the city, and tall trees. We had a dinner with U alumni. We ate out and felt full, and then we felt hungry again and so we ate some more. We rented vans as a group, and drove to Mt St Helens up in Washington. We were supposed to go with the student group from Florida, but their time management and directional skills were lacking, and we decided to forget about them. It was nice to get to Mt St Helens again, and to see all of the well-developing trees planted, mostly by Weyerhauser, on the way up to the mountain. I got to frolic among noble fir.

I watched a few movies while I was there and stayed busy, and pretty soon, the visit was over. I spent all of Saturday getting home, but I made it. On Sunday, I got to do something much more special than visiting the West Coast. I got to go out for dim sum for the first time in a year or so! It was absolutely delicious, and was followed up by my third visit to the orchard this fall. We found a few cutesy pumpkins and walked past the apple trees and corn fields. I bought a new apple corer/slicer, and we found ourselves walking back to the car with a bag of Haralsons and a bag of Cortlands. Mmmm, pie!

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Photos

meat up close
this was at our dinner with alumni

blurry portland
convention center, foreground

abe moved out west
HONESTly.

joe enjoying his beauty
in front of a black walnut

zach thinks:
"palm trees don't belong here!"

Comments

[tom]

wow what a happy family!