The Oregon Trail
This year, we celebrated the 4th of July up in the Northwest, and our Sunday Bucket came along with us! Well, truth be told, we picked an extra slip before we left home. This week’s pick: visit a waterfall.
When we threw this slip in our bucket, we were pretty sure we’d be visiting the Havasupai Waterfalls in Arizona. So, we knew we’d have to do a little research when we got up to Oregon. It turns out, Oregon is home to the second largest year-round waterfall in the US, Multnomah Falls, which is about 35 minutes outside of Portland.
The waterfall was right off of Highway 84. We expected a bit of a hike, but with over two million annual visitors, the park had everything except an escalator to the top. So, with time to spare, we spent the afternoon exploring the Columbia River Valley. We found other waterfalls along Historic Highway 30, saw beautiful vineyards, and found some amazing views of the gorgeous gorge (hah).
It’s been a nice escape from the Arizona heat! Heading back this weekend, to another Sunday pick.
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For Your Bucket:
Website: http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/crgnsa/home/?cid=STELPRDB5139466
Location: Bridal Veil, OR
Cost: Free to park, free to visit!
The Vase and the Dust Storm
Other AZ residents know all about the Monsoon and common summer dust storms, but to us Bostonians, they still feel part National Catastrophe and part Discovery Channel Storm Chasers. Yesterday afternoon, as another dust storm was rolling through the valley, we sought refuge with a bunch of nine year olds at Make Meaning, a DIY arts & crafts wonderland at Scottsdale Quarter.
This week, our chosen bucket slip was “Make Something”. Kind of vague, but intentionally so, as we wanted to give ourselves the flexibility to tackle whatever project was on our minds at the time of choosing. With nothing pressing to do, we headed to Make Meaning for inspiration. Make Meaning lets kids and grown-up kids alike play with paint, pottery, glass, wax, beads, and sugar to build or decorate everything from soap to glassware to desserts. Our pick: a simple vase. Maybe it was that we tend to keep flowers in the plastic containers from whole foods prepared meals section, or maybe Lianne was subliminally asking for more surprise bouquets.
The girl in the store said our project should take us about 45 minutes, but we must have had a lot of pent up creativity. 2 hours later, we turned in a slightly pathetic, sparsely painted vase. Here’s a tip: Painting intricate detail with fat brushes is impossible. Stick to stripes, or abstract art (lesson learned).
Arizona doesn’t get many rainy days, but while the monsoon swept past, this made for a great rainy-day outing!
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For your Bucket
Website: http://www.makemeaning.com/
Locations: Scottsdale, two in NYC and one outside of Boston in Dedham’s Legacy Place.
Cost: $12 entry fee per person, plus the cost of materials
S.u.p Watersports!?
This week’s pick was paddleboarding, or stand-up paddling, which is something that we’ve always wanted to do! Humans have been paddling around since roughly 6,200 BC, but apparently it wasn’t until recent years that anyone attempted to stand up.
We finally took a stand and headed to Tempe Town Lake. Though our friends from home refuse to believe it, Arizona actually has a nice assortment of lakes and rivers to pick from when we want to get out on the water. Someday we even hope to do this.
For $40, we got 2 paddle boards for one hour of wobbling around the lake trying not to hit anyone. The rental shop sized us up with the right paddles, and off we went! It was actually a lot calmer than anticipated. Some rental places offer lessons, which made us think that there was some art to this activity. Sure, Chris may not be graceful, and may have taken to kneeling and then laying on his board, but it was pretty easy to pick up.
That’s our paddleboarding adventure! This seems to be a lot more popular on the ocean – if you’ve done it, we’d love to hear your stories and see your pictures!
And finally, a man who was likely checking something off his own bucket list earlier this week:
