Madison

Here are some pictures of Madison.  She has been really sweet lately and I'm sure she'll be real happy when Roxanne and I get back home.

A new resting spot.

Looking lazy

Laying next to me on the bed

More laziness

A new sleeping spot for her.  She frequently sleeps up here during the day.

Sometimes when I go out on the balcony, she likes to go out there with me.

The Garden at Work

The plants in the garden at work are doing really well.  The pepper plants are finally starting to grow peppers.  The tomato plants have a lot of small green tomatoes growing.  The cabbage has been delicious.  The marigolds are looking pretty.  And the hops are doing surprisingly well.

The orange marigolds

Court-jester marigolds

A head of cabbage.

A mess of tomato plants.  Right now there are seven tomato plants in the bed.  Surprisingly, most of that mess is from a single plant.

The hops plants

Party in the Park Car Show

On July 30th I went to a car show in the park next to our apartment complex.  You may remember that last year I went to a similar show.  This year there were some repeats and some new (well, new for the show) cars.

A cool-looking hot rod.

Corvette Stingray.  One day I will have one of these, but maybe not in this color.

Some sort of military vehicle.  The base price of the vehicle is about $600k.  With all the equipment installed it goes up to about $1.5M.

Probably the fastest car at the show this year.  It was loud!  It also had one of those little parachutes on the back to help it slow down during a drag race.

Oregon Zoo

On July 24th, we went to the Oregon Zoo.  We had a good time and saw some interesting animals.

Polar Bears.

Warthogs

A young Asian elephant.  Fortunately it didn't get stuck like that.

Giraffes

A bigger version of Madison.

Lauren, totally ignoring the black bear behind her.

How much lazier could you get??

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI)

On July 23rd Lauren and I went to OMSI with Christy, Seann, and Megan.  OMSI has an decommissioned submarine (the USS Blueback) as one of its exhibits, of which we went on a tour.  The Blueback is the last diesel-electric submarine produced by the navy, and the first sub to use the tear-drop shaped hull.  Also, the Blueback was apparently used for some of the scenes of the movie "The Hunt for Red October".

A view of the sub from above water.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but that's a Tektronix oscilloscope in the bridge of the sub.

Torpedo tubes.

The submarine has three diesel engines.  Each can produce up to 1500 horsepower. 

Old Train Bridge

One day a while back our group at work went to lunch at a place over in Helvetia (west of here).  One the way back we stopped to check out an awesome train bridge that was built a long time ago.  It is no longer in use.

Here is where it crosses the road.  It's very tall, and has some thick logs supporting it at the base.  In this picture are two of the people I work with, Andy and Terry.

This is one side of the bridge, looking west from the road.  There's another part that looks just like this on the east side.  It's quite a long, tall, and impressive bridge for something built so long ago.

Balcony Gardening

Here are a few pictures of plants that we have on our balcony.  In total we have hops, basil, cilantro, thyme, rosemary, cat grass (for Madison), mums flowers, and a few small tomato plants on our balcony right now.

Our rosemary plant.  We started it in our garden in Corvallis.  We dug it up and potted in when we left the Corvallis apartment.  This plant provided the rosemary that we used in our competition-winning homebrew.  Our thyme plant can be seen in the lower left corner.

The hop plant we have on our balcony.  It's mostly there for decoration at this point.

Madison checking on the plants.

Wulai

On Saturday I visited Wulai a small town known for hot springs and aboriginal culture.

View of the river

A very small train that we rode to the waterfall.

Aboriginal dancers

Wulai waterfall

River Sampling

Earlier this week I went on a two day river sampling trip to the Jhuoshuei River in western Taiwan and the Gaoping River in southern Taiwan.

A temple overlooking the Jhuoshuei (muddy water) River.

The temple surrounded by betel nut trees.

The Jhuoshuei River.

Sun Moon Lake

Fulong and Maokong

On Saturday, some friends and I took the train to Fulong Beach east of Taipei for a nice swim in the Pacific Ocean. On Sunday, we all took the gondola from Taipei up into the mountains to the Maokong tea plantations and teahouses.

-Roxanne

Fulong Beach

A temple near the beach

Riding up the Gondola

Making our tea

View from the teahouse

Jonathan, Tali, me and Marcella outside the teahouse where we had some tea that was grown nearby.

Hualien and Taroko Gorge

A group of American and Canadian graduate students and I visited Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan on July 23 and 24. During our stay we went to the Taroko Gorge National Park. Our group stayed in the Colorful Taiwan Hostel in Hualien. The staff of the Hostel and some of our new Taiwanese friends did a great job making plans for our activities in the area. We all went river trekking and hiking on Saturday and river rafting on Sunday. Enjoy the pictures!

-Roxanne

Our group and the Hostel staff at Colorful Taiwan Hostel.

Our group in our river trekking gear: wet suit, helmet, gloves, life vest and boots.

Me, Katie and Christina showing off our gloves. We swam/walked up the river through the waterfalls and pools.

Me on a bridge over Taroko Gorge. There are 100 lions on the bridge. They all look different and are made of marble from the gorge.

The Liwu River flows through Taroko Gorge.

Marble walls

Giant spiders kept me on the trail. Some of them looked like they were as big as my hand (legs included).

The trail along the gorge.

Boulders

More boulders.

There I am.

A really narrow and steep part of the gorge.

There are some other visitors for scale.

The marble walls are very pretty.

Our group again after a hike.

We stopped at this suspension bridge. It had an 8 person limit.

That is me standing on the bridge. It was very wobbly whenever anyone moved.

Views from the bridge.

Katie and me on our river rafting trip.