with a car load of gear, we headed out friday afternoon to the gorge in central washington for some boating & camping & concert-going over labor day weekend.  wei-jean and jason were up from san fran and we gathered a group of 15+ for the weekend of sunshine!  a bunch of jason’s air force buddies have been making the labor day weekend trip for years to vantage, just across the columbia river from the gorge.

 
   

friday night was spent in the high winds around the campfire, laughing at jason and cooking up hotdogs & cream cheese (the favorite treat among drunk seattleites).  russ and i were the only two in our group who made the trip without having bought dave matthews tickets beforehand.  for the past 4 months, cecilia would continue to remind me to get tickets, and of course they sold out…  but saturday morning before even getting out of bed, russ had run into someone in the campsite who was selling 2 tickets for face value! 

we spent most of saturday afternoon waterskiing and kneeboarding on the boat.  it had been years since i’ve put on water skiis, but i had a blast.  i also figured out the kneeboard on my second attempt – i prefer wakeboarding over the kneeboard…  strapping my knees down on the board scares the hell out of me and i like the idea of standing on the water (so it’s not rushing past my head).  brad & jason put on a doubles show behind the boat [youtube video].  (which reminds me i need to buy a new camera because all my pics have been turning pink and the quality is awful!)  the entire beach at getty’s cove had the feeling of spring break with hundreds of people swimming, drinking, diving off the 60′ cliff, and dressing up with masks (see horse & bear above).  sat night we played a few round of bags (cornhole) and after dinner headed over to the dave matthews concert.  with a full day of drinking and lounging in the sun i was ready for a nap half way through the concert… :)  i think i missed the last 45 minutes, but what else was i supposed to do once the beer sales terminated for the night.

 

it was great to get out of the city for a weekend of sunshine!