A very fun day at Oneonta Gorge yesterday. We drove up to the Columbia River Gorge, which is a beautiful area, went to the lookout at Crown Point, had a picnic, and then hiked up Oneonta Gorge, where you can't not get wet. It was a beautiful day with perfect weather, and we all had a blast. I took a bunch of pictures, which you can see here. We took the streetcar downtown and walked to the Riverfront to watch the fireworks last night, shot from a barge on the Willamette. I could have done without the cigarette smoke and the crowds, but it was a good show. The funniest part was when all of the lawn sprinklers started going off -- everybody had their blankets and chairs and things out on the grass, and these monster streams of water started shooting all over them. It was hilarious. A rather large oversight on the part of the Parks department, I think, not to turn off the automatic sprinklers when they knew there would be hundreds of people out on the grass. :P

Today was a pretty mellow day. Hugo and I were invited to a dinner party that was a "first-annual fourth of July weekend June/July birthday party." It was hosted by the very nice couple whose wedding we danced at on May Day, Jonathan and Suzanne. Suzanne just happens to work as the cook for the lovely bed and breakfast down the street from their house, The Lion and The Rose. So of course the food was absolutely scrumptious. And the company was excellent as well, a good mix of folks we knew, folks we had met once or twice before, and folks we had never met before. All in all, it was a lovely evening.

Tomorrow is a sleeping in day. (I love holidays -- it's sooooo nice to have an extra day!) Hugo and I are planning on cycling up to Sauvie Island to do some berry-picking in the afternoon. Mmmmm, fresh berries. But now it's time for bed.