In which we feature our heroes’ triumphant return from the Columbia Gorge.

On Saturday morning, Annie and I got up at 8:30am to discover the spectacular view out our windows at the Columbia Gorge Hotel. It had been too dark when we arrived the night before to see anything. But now we could open our curtains to see the entire gorge below us. We headed downstairs for the five-course breakfast, which was very impressive. They start you out with a plate containing a wide variety of fruit, and quickly move on to the second course of a home-made apple fritter and a baked apple (which appeared to be a cored apple, filled with raisins and brown sugar, and coated in syrup). The third course was a small bowl of Snowqualmie Falls oatmeal, and the fourth course was a decision. Annie had the salmon on a bagle, and I had the “pork medley”, which was a pork chop, a thick slice of bacon, and a sausage. Both came with eggs and hash browns, and a very good biscuit with “Honey From The Sky”, meaning the waitress drizzled honey onto our plate from over her head while talking about how it represented the waterfall. By the time we finished (most) of that, we had no room left for the fifth course, pancakes. Our server looked genuinely disappointed when we told her we wouldn’t be able to eat the pancakes, but assured us that it was quite common, and that most people just weren’t used to a big breakfast.

We threw our stuff in the car, and walked around the grounds, which were amazing. The front half was all neatly manicured lawns with trimmed bushes and little stone bridges crossing the creek that ran through the property, which ran along the side of the building and turned into a huge waterfall emptying into the gorge, which you could see from the huge balcony-style porches on the back of the building.

By this point, we were running a bit late to get back on the road to Portland, where we were scheduled to open presents in my parent’s backyard at 12:30, so we took off. We got back to our house to find Dave and Rose and Kat and Urn still there after spending the night, and they told us that there was a pretty good party at our house the night before, and then proved it by showing us the photos Daniel had left on my computer. Between getting caught up looking at photos, saying goodbye to Kat and Urn, and talking to Annie’s relatives, who kept arriving to drop stuff off on the way out of town, we were quite late by the time we got to my parents. Aside from us and our parents, there was also my Uncle Bruce and Aunt Michelle, their nephew Michael, Ryan, Molli and Leilani, Dave and Rose, Sean, Miles, my Aunt Beth and my cousins Melanie and Melissa and Aaron. We all sat in the backyard on folding chairs and opened our presents and ate leftover wedding food.

Before too long, though, we had to leave to go pack for the honeymoon, so we said goodbye to everyone, and hugged Ryan and Molli and Leilani, who were returning to New York the next day. Before we left, Daniel showed up with his present, and we all made plans to go see the second Charlie’s Angels movie at the Laurelhurst that night.

After picking up some travelling supplies from Freddy’s and then spending the next couple hours doing last minute cleaning and packing, we walked over to the movie theater, where we startled all of our friends, who thought we were on our honeymoon already (and had apparently planned a follow-up party at our house for that night). The movie was great fun, and we took everyone back to our house to play 1000 Blank Cards. By the end of the night, most people had gone home, and it was down to just Dave, Miles, Sean, Rose and I playing Dead or Alive. I tried to go to bed a couple times around midnight, but Rose pointed out that we were still having fun, and I could always sleep in the car, so I stayed up with everyone until Dave forced Rose to go to bed around 3am, because she had to be at work at noon the next day.

* NOTE! I’ve added more photos to the post about the wedding.