Showing posts with label abiqua falls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abiqua falls. Show all posts

Monday, January 12, 2015

Love her but keep her wild.

When I was young my father used to call Oregon the "land flowing with milk & honey". If you don't know the reference, it's a line from the bible and the book of Exodus. It was God's promise to Moses that his people would have a better home.

A rare photo of me in action. Photo credit to John Shufelt.

My parents moved here in 1986. They were newly married, packed their bags in to their Toyota Corolla and drove out west. It almost sounds like a great country song. Growing up my Dad always told me the story of his first drive down the Columbia River Gorge. He was a small town guy from Michigan. His childhood was the kind filled with diving in old irrigation ponds and racing down gravel roads along tomato fields. The light in his eyes when he described the Columbia River is in part why I've kept adventuring, kept seeing, kept exploring... because even if the adventure is short, every one fills you with a little more light, another story to tell later on down the line.