There were all these caves, some of which you could even stand up in... not this one though 

South Falls... They used to push cars over this falls to celebrate fourth of july... party on! 

Where have all the -insert appropriate plural noun here- gone?

Siblings, Friends, Globetrotters, Cheap plane tickets, Websites without popups....

All things that lately I have had a hard time keeping track of/or finding. As the world becomes smaller, the people in my life seem to move around in more. Like Electrons around a nucleus, leaving me with internet as a major form of communication. So, I figured that, like the rest of my siblings, I should go ahead and blog.

Today was Memorial Day. In memory of the soldiers who have died for my freedom, I was going to go surfing at the coast. But... I cannot transport a surfboard on my rackless car, and the girl with the car surfboards might have concievably fit in decided not to partake in our trip. Sorry my fallen patriots, no surf in your honor today. Instead, my friends Brian and Roy and I took it upon ourselves to go where it seems all foreign language speaking families in the Salem area go for memorial day.

We went to hike Silver Falls State Park. My guidebook says it is the most visited state park in Oregon. Today that certainly seemed to be the case. It was packed. Mostly with families. The waterfalls are beautiful, if not as huge as the ones in the Columbia River Gorge, and it's an easy hike. I mean, if a 5 year old can do it, I sure as heck am should be able to get through the hike.

Its funny on a hike like this where you stop a lot to take pictures and stare at tons of water falling over some rocks. You end up kind of leapfrog hiking with the other people who left around the same time you did. Because you pass them, and then you stop and they pass you, and then you pass them again. So there was this hispanic family with a bunch of little kids that we kept passing and being passed by. And the last time we passed them, we were coming up from below on some switchbacks, so I was looking up at them from about 10 feet below where they were, when the mother and the youngest daughter stopped because the daughter had gotten a bloody nose. The other kids and the father seemed to not even notice, because they just kept on walking (Maybe this happens all the time?) The girl was wiping her nose on gum wrappers and leaves (neither of which are very absorbent) because that was all they could find... So I took pity, I had along a handkerchief that I had gotten in my christmas stocking probably a decade ago. It has a bunch of games printed on it that you are supposed to do in pencil and then take the thing home and wash the lines out so you can do it again on your next camping trip. Well, I will do the games no more. I stopped and gave it to the little girl so that she could stop her bloody nose. The mother was really grateful (probably because she no longer had to chew all the gum so the girl could have the wrappers), and I walked away feeling like I had really accomplished something.

A good day.