On the Joys of Hot Tubbing and Huge Burgers...

So New Girl, aka Risa, and I had a couple of milestones this weekend. The first was a hike into Bagby Hot Springs with the dogs. Our first hike together, and hot tubbin' to boot! The hounds are getting along very nicely, although Burke had to bust out the snarling and get some boundaries worked out with Moe in the car on the way up. Dogs will be dogs, I suppose. As for the humans, Risa was well prepared, but I misjudged the season/elevation, and wound up hiking through snow in my Chaco sandals (very capable footwear, even in the pow). Not the first time that's happened, mind you, but I was glad it was a short hike! We got up to the tubs and soaked for about an hour while having a very nice conversation with a three-generation family of old Oregonians (who were NOT naked - what's up with that? I guess "clothing optional" means that you can, indeed, wear something if you really want to, but that ain't the way they do things at Breitenbush... although to be fair, I was wearing my glasses most of the time). On the way back into town, we stopped by the Fearless Brewing Company in Estacada. I had the Jumbo Blues Burger, a half-pound behemoth with bacon and blue cheese dressing:


It's hard to fully appreciate the size of this thing from the photo, but the diameter of the bun is just shy of that of a frisbee! It was pretty tasty, although the bun itself was a little disappointing. The fries, while too skinny for my taste, were perfectly cooked: crispy on the outside, nice and mushy on the inside. Risa had the steak sandwich with grilled onions and horseradish:


In-between bites of our unhealthy but well-earned sandwiches, we partook of that other milestone: our first game of Scrabble. We're both pretty good at this game, and were talkin' a more than healthy amount of smack at each other leading up to the big event. I won't mention who beat the crap out of whom, but let it suffice to say that the winner's streak went unbroken... Here's a shot of the board:


"Stasis" and "private" (triple word score!) were Risa's, while "insane" and "equine" (double word score!) were mine. A rematch is in the works, I'm sure... Amazingly enough, the dogs behaved themselves in the car while Risa and I were going at each other over the tiles. A good day was had by all involved!