I’m happy to report that two-year anniversaries are just as nice as one-year anniversaries. Last year we spent June 18 at Mr. G’s parents’ beach house. It was kind of grey and drizzly for June, and the coast tends to sock in with fog, but that just made for more cozy indoor snuggling. This year we went upscale. We traipsed out the Columbia Gorge, and the weather turned beautiful. It’s hard to top the Gorge for scenic splendor:

Here’s the hubby’s two-years-of-wedlock portrait. He looks miserable, right?

…and mine…

(Pssst… that’s my newly sewn skirt. I heart Amy Butler fabrics. My attraction made all kinds of sense when I realized she works for Rowan.) We took the old Columbia Gorge Highway, a twisty little two-lane road built in the early 1900s that clings to the skirts of the cliff. The modern I-84 runs just below (all the way to Boston), and it’s about as pretty a trip as you can make on an interstate, but the historic road has more charm and spins you right past the feet of numerous waterfalls and grandpappy conifers.

Here’s where we were going:

Nothing like a little old-fashioned romance in a 1920s hotel above the river. There was strolling in the gardens, watching the cliff swallows wheel and dart over the waterfall, a vodka gimlet at the bar before supper (for me; abstemious Mr. Garter had iced tea), dressing for dinner (the wedding stole made an appearance), a slow dance on the lawn under the stars (we needed a little gentle exercise after the endless dinner courses), the bed turned down with a rose and tasty little cakes on the bedside tables… in short, the works. Next year we’ll probably go camp out in the wilderness for contrast, but it was fun to treat ourselves this once.

The next morning we took a little spin up out of the Gorge and into the surrounding farmland before we had to mosey back to the city. The views are just as marvelous when you’re not looking at the river, it turns out:

For those of you who haven’t been to Oregon yet, this is Mt. Hood. You can see her from lots of places in Portland, but not quite this close and personal. Hood is only 11,289 feet high — nothing to many of the Rockies; a footstool beside the Himalayas — but because of the way she rears up out of the hills alone, she’s absolutely majestic. This mountain always makes me think of the ancient Greeks and their gods on Olympus. If we have local gods, I suspect they call this peak home.

Back in Stumptown, I scampered off to meet my girl Katrin for an afternoon of window shopping and manicures, partly to make up for the way we botched her birthday over the weekend and partly just because it was a Tuesday and it happened that neither of us had to work. I believe this was our first outing that didn’t involve knitting — we realized too late that we could have been wielding the needles whilst we soaked our feet in the pedicure spa, alas. I have got a little knitting to show you, but this post runneth over and needeth no more pictures. I’ll save it for tomorrow or Sunday. Happy Summer, everybody. The Farmer’s Almanac would like to offer you this advice for your weekend: Grate potatoes and apply to sunburned skin. The starch will cool and soothe the burn. They’d also like you to know that tomorrow is the best day to cut hair to encourage growth.