The Matt Faus Blog

Last weekend I had the awesome opportunity to go wind surfing on Hood River. Driving down with Patrick and his wife Saturday morning, we traveled through Mt. St. Helens and witnessed all the damage that the volcanic eruption 1986 did to the land, and saw how long ecological systems actually take to replenish themselves. It’s pretty incredible how after even twenty years all the trees and vegetation are still lying in ruins struggling to make the land green again. I would have thought that after such a long time that the trees would have rotted away, but all of the trees that were knocked over from the blast of ash that came rushing from the mountain were still there. It was definitely a site worth seeing but far from the best I saw all weekend. I guess that’s the biggest difference between Texas and here - all the beautiful nature.

Anyway we got to the lodge and after a nice bike ride from the complimentary rentals we had dinner and began to rest up for the big day ahead of us. One interesting thing about the bike ride was that I started in Washington and rode all the way to Oregon, crossing over what is known as the Bridge of the gods. Apparently the native Americans called it this because it was a natural land bridge at the time that allowed them to trade with the opposite shores.

Now, to the point of this whole post - the wind surfing. Now, I would like to preface this by saying that I am an avid water skier who has not gotten to do much at all for the whole summer. Needless to say, I was pumped about getting on the water to do some surfing. This was the first wind powered sport I had ever tried, and it was an awesome new experience. After suiting up with some water shoes to get a better grip on the board, we headed out. When we got out there, the wind was nonexistent. It wasn’t too big of a deal because we had some dry land training to do first anyway. One lessons, two lessons, and still no wind. It was noon and I was quite bummed out. See, it’s opposite with skiing - wind is bad because it makes the water choppy, but with wind surfing it is, of course, the opposite. After a #2 at McDonald’s everything got much better. The wind picked up and with all the training I had been doing that morning, I was rockin’ and ready to go. It took me a little bit, but I had several really good runs. It was nothing like water skiing, which I think I’m pretty good at, but it was a lot of fun. It’s definitely not something you can learn in a weekend and it takes much more endurance than skiing. I’m sure if I lived around a place like that it would be something I could get into. I didn’t become an expert or anything but I think I got a pretty good handle on it through the few hours of wind that I got. Overall, it turned out to be a very successful excursion.

On the way to Portland for the night we stopped by several waterfalls and they were a grand site indeed. I haven’t seen a whole lot of waterfalls in my day, so I took plenty of pictures to commemorate the event. Portland fed us some incredible steaks and then we headed back to the beautiful city of Seattle.