Category: Galleries

Photos from trips and time out with the camera.

Barcelona

View from La Pedrera.

Last month we took a break from the dreary, January weather in Portland and spent 9 days in Barcelona. While it was my second trip to the city, the first one was for work and I had a cold for much of the week. The weather turned out to be exactly what we’d hoped for: 50+ and mostly sunny.

One of the nice parts about visiting in mid-January is that it’s way off-season. A lot of places were empty and even crowded places were manageable. We had no problem just deciding day-of what we wanted to do most days.

One of the highlights was going hot air ballooning north of the city in Vic. It was a lot colder than we anticipated but the views and experience were fantastic. You can see the Pyrenees peaking out from just under the cloud line.

We also spent time in La Sagrada Família. The light was as amazing as I remember and we were fortunate that for much of the first hour there weren’t more than a few dozen people around.

Toward the end of the week we took the train out to the abbey at Montserrat. The abbey itself is interesting but what really makes the experience are the rock formations around. The path down to the hillside cave was deserted and we had the space to ourselves.

We took it at a pretty relaxed pace over the 9 days so we left ourselves with plenty to do on a return trip. Already looking forward to it!

Hawaii

In late-September Leah and I headed to the big island of Hawaii for a week. We stayed in another great VRBO rental with a back porch that went right down to the Kapoho tide pools.

The hiking in Volcanoes National Park was (unsurprisingly) wonderful. The Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden was amazing and has a pretty cool backstory.

See the rest of the photos…

Timberline Trail Hike

Leah and I took Tuesday off work to take advantage of the nice weather and get some hiking in. We kept it easy and just drove up to Timberline Lodge to hike out to Paradise Park and back. It was overcast all day which made for sub-par photos but ideal temperatures. View the full gallery →

Berlin

I was in Berlin last week with all of our WooCommerce teams for their meetup. Beyond having a very productive work week I wandered around the city a little bit. View the full gallery →

La Purisima Mission

A few photos from visiting La Purisima Mission in Lompoc, CA last weekend. Now if only there was some way to transport the California sunshine back up to Portland.

Manzanita, Oregon

Took a quick trip this weekend out to Manzanita, Oregon. It mostly rained, but we had some nice weather Friday afternoon. It’s relaxing to get a quick change of scenery like this. View the full gallery →

Cape Town

Last month I traveled to Cape Town for work. It was a pretty quick meetup, just 4 full days, but we were able to fit in a tour of the wine country outside the city. Really beautiful land paired with fantastic food. See the full gallery →

Kauai

A couple weeks back Leah and I took a week-long vacation to Kauai. We stayed in this great VRBO rental that really is as close to the ocean as the pictures make it appear.

We ate a lot of good food, went on some fun hikes (though no Kalalau trail this trip), and took a half-day boat tour up to the northern coast. The free first-class bump on the flight over didn’t hurt, either. See the rest of the photos…

9,990

At last week’s company meetup some of us set off at 6:00am on Sunday morning to hike 9,990 – the tallest of the peaks right behind Canyons Resort. While the hike started in the rain the weather did eventually clear and we got a wonderful 14+ miles in. The views made it well worth the effort.

About a mile short of the summit the ridge opens up to beautiful views over the valley.

About a mile short of the summit the ridge opens up to beautiful views over the valley.

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Stu walking carefully. Just behind him is the last section of ropes that guide you along a very uneven and narrow section of the ridge.

Stu walking carefully. Just behind him is the last section of ropes that guide you along a very uneven and narrow section of the ridge.

View from the summit.

View from the summit.

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Hiking the Kalalau Trail

I spent last week with the Store Division from Automattic at their meetup on Kauai. Toward the end of the meetup Ben, Peter, Joe, and I day-hiked the Kalalau Trail. The trail runs 11 miles along the north coast of Kauai across an area with extremely minimal development.

You start out hiking through lush terrain that follows a well-trafficked trail. Lots of people hike the first 2 miles in to a beach.

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That first beach at 2 miles in sits right below a flowing stream. You can take a 2-mile side trip up the valley to a waterfall. We were looking to do the entire trail, though, so we skipped the waterfall.

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From there you continue up and down along the cliffs parallel to the coastline. The contrasts are just beautiful as you have the dense green plants growing right out to the ocean.

Around the 6.5 mile mark you come out of the lush vegetation and hit a much drier section of switchbacks. It leads you down to the literal edge of the cliff.

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We were looking at the trail and almost confused about where it went as it curled out of sight. Turns out where it goes is just right on around the edge of the cliff. Fun stuff.

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Coming back the other direction you can get a sense of how the trail winds its way around.

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And when you’re hiking around that corner the trail doesn’t give you a lot to go on.

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At 9.5 miles in we paused for a bit. There was a nice elevated point you could walk out to and get a view up both directions of the coast and back in to the valley behind the trail.

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It was already 1:00pm by this point so Joe and I turned back for a more relaxed hike back. Peter and Ben ran, literally, the remaining 1.5 miles to the beach at the end of the trail. After Joe took a quick power nap…

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We headed back along the trail. I took a brief stop about 5 miles from the trailhead to wash my feet off and cool down a bit in a stream flowing through one of the side valleys.

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We got back to the van about 9.5 hours after we left that morning. The sun was just setting which meant Ben and Peter had about 30 minutes of hiking in the dark.

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We then drove all the way back to the south shore where we were staying and promptly plopped down in the hot tub for a good long while. Overall was one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. It was a fairly demanding 19 miles but so worth it.