Airplane Superstitions, Lake Merwin & Dave Burgers

Trafton B.

August 15, 2010 - 4:05 PM

For anyone that has ever been superstitious about flying on Friday the 13th, let me put that debate to an end right now. You should never fly on Friday the 13th for any reason.

Avoid it at all costs.

If it's anything like my day of flying last Friday, it might take you six hours and two airplane carriers just to travel from Oakland to Portland, a ninety-minute flight on any other day. It wasn't all bad though. On my second flight, the gentleman next to me happened to have an extra "Free Beverage" coupon, so he and I cheers to our unlikely cocktail hour and my tensions slowly disappeared.

After a gratuitously long day of flying I met up with my roommate, Ross, at his summer apartment in Portland and we headed to our weekend getaway.....Lake Merwin.

We met our old roommate, Cam, at his family's cabin on Lake Merwin, which is located a few miles east of Woodland in Washington. For the past two summers I'd heard of this glorious haven from my roommates that were lucky enough to spend a few nights there, and without fail Merwin lived up to it's name this past weekend.

Merwin is a place where you can wake up to the sun beaming across the peaceful lake waters. And when I say wake up, I mean literally you can sleep out on the docks or plop yourself on a boat for the night so that the first thing you seen upon opening your eyes is the glass-like surface of water.

Merwin is a place where sitting down for dinner rarely happens before 9pm, because no one wants to head inside to start cooking until the sun goes down.

Merwin is a place where you would rather not be wearing a watch because there's no need for time. At Merwin there is day and there is night, and that's all that matters.

Our weekend was spent adventuring across the lake by rowboat, wakeboarding and tubing behind motorboats, and then jumping off the rooftop of the boat dock to cool down after dozing off in the sunshine. As you can tell, this is just another perk of having the Pacific Northwest in your backyard, but this isn't quite the same as the rock slides from last weekend.

As Ross and I left Merwin this afternoon, the temperature was about to break 100°F. Perfect weather for swimming. We relaxed in Portland long enough to watch the Giants lose to San Diego, and then headed down to Winston's house in Keiser. It was his father's birthday today, which meant that we were lucky enough to experience a "Dave Burger," yet another first for me this weekend.

I wish I could explain how utterly delicious this burger was, but there's nothing I could say that would do it justice. Long story short, we had a checklist of ingredients that included: cheese, bacon, ham, fried egg, grilled onions, fresh onions, tomatoes, and lettuce. Plus we had to choose between regular mayo and spicy chipotle mayo. And, yes, if you were allowed to have everything if you wanted. I would've gone back for seconds, but the first burger took up too much space in my stomach.

It was certainly a weekend worth remembering. Now we're back in Eugene. One more day of rest and I'll be back at Facility Services on Tuesday morning. Some might think that my summer is over, but I think it's quite the opposite. My California summer has ended, true, but my Oregon summer is just beginning.