Eighty Four Degrees and Counting

The sun is shining.  Right now.  The sun.  Shining.

To some of you, this may not be a big deal.  To Portlanders, this is a HUGEFREAKINGDEAL.  We spend all year trudging through puddles, wringing our clothes out when we get home, and grumbling about  the lack of vitamin D in our systems.  And we do it all for those rare occasions when this fair city shakes the rain water off and explodes in serious awesome...ness.

It's 84 degrees today and the people in this town are bursting at the seems with joy.  Every radio station seems to be playing only songs with the words sun, sunshine, or some variation of the two.  Roommate and I headed to Sauvie Island; it's only a short bridge away, but feels like you've crossed into some sort of Anne Shirley alternate universe.

There's berry picking, gravel roads, endless expanses of fields and farms, and a nice little beach along the Columbia River.  It's not exactly the blue waters/ sandy white beaches one might expect-- it's more like damp sand and straw nestled next to a murky river-- but it definitely has it's own charm.  Trust me.  And, to entice you more, one of the beaches is a naked beach.  Naughty bits danglin' all over the place.

Roommate and I laid out in that sun all day.  We read, sipped on cheap bear, and at snacks.  Nothing could've been more perfect.  She got a nasty burn on her lower back and the back of my legs turned a lovely shade of lobster.  But our Vitamin D levels were replenished and it would take a lot more to take us off that high.

The entire weekend turned out to be warm.  It was fun to see everyone stumbling out of their houses, bleary eyed and pale, shaking off the winder dust and walking into the warmth of summer.

Of course it's already raining here again, but at least we now have hope that 84 degrees can happen again.