Backpacking in Big Sur

Weekend of Oct. 18, 2009

Big Sur, California

(if you are blind, these are useless to you. Then again, so is this whole blog)
It was the middle of October, and we figured that if we wanted to enjoy any more mountains in north-central CA, our time was running out. So Hogan and I brought our backpacks to the base on Friday and then headed straight for the coast to go backpacking in Big Sur (a big, mountainy region south of San Francisco right next to the coast).
We made it to the Pacific Coast Highway just as the Sun was starting to set. Um, I'm not sure if you've ever seen the Sun set over the Pacific Ocean, but HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

The water is on the wrong side of the land on the west coast. This is one of the benefits.

We stayed the night at some campground right near the trailhead. It was... lackluster. As was the meal we "enjoyed" at the nearby "restaurant." The next morning we started the ten mile hike. Not a long hike, but there were quite a few ups and downs. The best part about it was seeing the mountains ahead of us and the Pacific Ocean behind us. Haven't really ever had THAT before.

We're professionals, I can assure you

It was a fun hike... until the trail kind of disappeared. It looked like it ended at a deep, fast-moving river, and were like "well what the hell? Are we supposed to ford this shit?" Meh. We gave it a shot. It was right about the time when I was waist-deep in freezing cold water, holding my hiking boots and praying I don't slip, that we decided this would be too ridiculous to actually be part of the trail, so we headed back. It turns out, the actual trail cuts up the side of a rocky ledge (requiring some rock-climbing/backpacking combo skillz), so we eventually continued on our way.
Blah blah blah and we finally made it to some campsite areas, so we set up camp and then took a dip in the nearby natural hot springs. It was... interesting. It was warm for sure, but the sulfur made it smell like our shower water back in Hanford: LIKE ROTTEN EGGS. Yum. Yeah, imagine getting out of the shower and feeling dirtier than when you went in. THAT WAS EVERY DAY LIVING IN CENTRAL CALIFORNIA. To wash off the... odors... from the hot springs, we took a dip in the freezing river.

I think Hogan's expression might be "oh hey I just remembered how to make the water warmer..."

Then we cooked whatever noms were brought that night and chatted with some peeps who were visiting from France and living in Oakland. Kind of uneventful, but whatever. We just backpacked in Big Sur. I'M FINE LEAVING IT AT THAT.
The next morning we got up, ate some apples or something, and then booked it back in some ridiculously short amount of time, like under four hours. The mountain was all "slow down guys" but we were all "No." and then we kicked it in the face.

"Oh we have to ford another river? LET ME JUST CAULK THE WAGON AND FLOAT."

Before we headed home, however, we opted to drive up some more of the Pacific Coast Highway, because that road is the shit. Our destination was Pebble Beach, the most prestigious golf course in the world. Let me paint this picture for you. Two kids who just spent the weekend backpacking in the forest, dirty as hell, smelling like pure sulfur, walk up to the nicest golf course in their hiking boots and scrub clothes, amongst the richest people EVER, and snap a few photos of the 18th green. We got some nasty looks.

Still waiting on that invite to come back...

Haiku-a-Day Challenge: Week 3

Poetry is HARD WORK.

Caturday 7/23/11
Cool Cats went camping
Harbor Island adventure
Things got weird out there

Sunday 7/24/11
Grilling up some noms
Spur of the moment shindig
Poison ivy? CHECK.

Monday 7/25/11
Violently typing
Jet engines are fickle beasts
So many emails!

Tuesday 7/26/11
Kicked ALL the kickballs
Also tore my knees to shreds
So much blood. Standard.

Wednesday 7/27/11
Let me guess: more work?
Fun. Yeah, not like I'm busy
Wind turbines are hard

Thursday 7/28/11
Free music Thursdays.
Contemporary art? meh.
Great harbor sunset.

Fridayday 7/29/11
Early nap tonight
Tomorrow: Prezzie Traverse
Hopefully won't die?

Fleet Week in San Francisco

Weekend of Oct. 12, 2009

San Francisco and Monterey

(here is proof that these stories are actually true)


Most of the base had Columbus Day off, so we had a nice three-day weekend, which we used to drive up to San Francisco. Hogan was visiting one of his friends in the city, and I went and visited my friend Rebecca, one of the funnest people/fastest talkers I've ever met. She actually lived in Marin, just north of San Francisco, but we explored the city and the entire surrounding area. It was an awesome time, and I'm sure the fact that we drank wine in her outdoor jacuzzi every night didn't hurt.
Hogan and I drove up and took the BART into the city (at our manager's insistence), exploring a bit of the wharf area before nightfall.

Get out of the way seagull, you're blocking my view of the water!

Then we went our separate ways and Rebar picked me up to check out a really cool cafe for dinner. It was fairly late already, so we just hung out in the outdoor jacuzzi LIKE BALLERS for a bit before heading to bed.
The next morning, we woke up and were like "know what would be good? A nice sunny bike ride." SURPRISE JACKASS. It was cold and foggy, but whatever, we did it anyway.... or at least tried to. We went up by a really sweet lookout of the Golden Gate (would have been a bit cooler without the fog, but I GUESS I'll have to make do) and started riding down a "bike path." It turns out that after a quarter of a mile, it became a "MOUNTAIN bike path," and were we more certainly not riding mountain bikes. Long story short, Rebecca's bike chain breaks, so I have to bike back up the long hill to get her car and drive down to meet her. And it was freezing. But hey, that's of no concern, because I got a LOT warmer when the chain on MY bike broke and I had to carry the bike up the rest of the hill. We opted not to ride bikes for the remainder of my stay.

Just another thing to check off the list of "things I've peed on"

We then did a little hike... somewhere. I'm not actually sure where. But I do know it was visible from Rebecca's house and was her favorite mountain. Somewhere in the Marin area. Hey, I CAN'T BE EXPECTED TO MEMORIZE EVERY MOUNTAIN I'VE EVER CLIMBED. But it was good. AND THEN we went to Point Reyes seashore, where I went into the Pacific Ocean FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. SO PUMPED UP. It was a cool place, despite all the bird watching dickheads out there.

Lighthouses? Billions of steps? LET'S DO IT.

It was an awesome day seeing the beaches, walking around outside, I think we had some mexican food in a quaint-as-shit little nearby town where the woman didn't speak english, so I was just like "surprise me." It was good nonetheless.
When we got back for dinner: BOOM. IN N' OUT BURGER. Visits to this glorious establishment were clearly the highlights of my stay in California. I remember each one as a vivid and beautiful dream.
The rest of the night was pretty hilarious. I don't remember all the details, but it definitely included visiting the Marin brewery, having some jacuzzi wine, and eating a shitload of delicious cupcakes. That combo of things is among the highest caliber of of things you can do in a single night, and if you disagree, then shut off you computer, smash the hard drive, and cancel your internet, because you are hereby banned from visiting this interblag ever again.
Know what's great about long weekends? Just like longcat, long weekends are looooooooooong. We had another day to hang out in San Francisco! And we used it to go into the city to check out the airshow for Fleet Week.

Jet engines and crazy colored smoke and Alcatraz? I don't know about you, but these are things that I don't typically experience all at the same every day.

Airshows in general are awesome, but when you're sitting by the bay, watching jets zip around by the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, it's just a little bit awesomer. THAT IS A WORD NOW. We also saw the Blue Angels. I had never seen them before. I managed to shout up at the sky "hey! I design your engines!" in their general direction. But they may have been flying past Mach 1. So I'm not sure if the sound got there in time...

Great day for an airshow on the bay

We probably ended our evening in a similar manner as the previous two nights. In fact I guarantee it.
The next morning was time for me to head out, so I met up with Hogan and we were like "OH WAIT. Why don't we continue the adventure rather than waste a single moment in a state we might not return to in a while?" "GREAT IDEA BRO." So we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway (aka the greatest road EVER) to Monterey, a cool coastal town with the best aquarium in the country. We spent our day watching sea otters frolic and sharks swim and jellyfish... jelly. It really was a great aquarium.

So adorbs

I think we spent about half an hour, at least, just watching those fucking sea otters. Then we had to drive back inland to our gross valley town of Hanford. Yep, just living in CA, working on a naval air station during the week and trekking out to every cool location in California every single weekend. Wow, I can't believe that was my life for four months...

Living on the West Coast? Why Not Visit Seattle? Oh because it's 1000 miles away? Whatever.

Weekend of Oct. 4, 2009

Seattle

(oh hey! pictures!)

We're only three weeks into our jobs in CA and Hogan and I are already like "let's take a vacation day." As if the entire thing weren't vacation enough as it is. But whatever, we took Friday off to fly up to Seattle to visit the one and only James-motherfucking-Harris. Seattle isn't a game, but if it were, we would have won. James picked us up at the airport Thursday night and took us back to his apartment, which is AWESOME and at an amazing location. Right by the Space Needle with a great roofdeck view of the city.

Not a bad view

James had work the next morning, so Hogan and I putzed around the Space Needle area for a bit. The weather was shit, as it is wont to be in Seattle, so we didn't mind too much. We opted not to go up the Space Needle though, since we wouldn't see all that much anyway. We trekked over to a hill for a great view of the city, which is when the skies decided to open up and dump on us. We were soaked. And we had to walk to over to Pike Place. So that was fun. But hey, it's Seattle. I had a rain jacket. Hogan decided not to bring one for some reason... But eventually, with enough complaining and cursing of the heavens, we made it to Pike Place for some chowder in exact seats that Tom hanks and Rob Reiner (gross) sat at in Sleepless in Seattle! If anyone cares about that fact, let me know, because I haven't even seen it, nor do I intend to!
We then hopped on the somewhat newly constructed light rail out to where James works. Oh, did I mention he works in the coolest place ever building space rockets? Yeah. The only thing that could make that visit more enjoyable would be riding Segways. OH WAIT, WE DID THAT. James, start working on getting me a job.
At this point the weather went from "shit-tastic" to "NICEST WEATHER IMAGINABLE." I don't understand the climate of the pacific northwest, but then again, neither do the meteorologists.

This is what Seattle looks like with nice weather. Try to remember it, for you will never witness it again.

So at this point it is about 6pm on a Friday, and we do what any group of 23 year old gentlemen would logically do: pound beers and oysters. LIKE A BOSS. We started out at a few good seafood places by the Puget Sound, where I was dared to eat a spoonful of horseradish. Challenge Accepted.

Painful? Yes. Worth it? Doubtful.

Then we went to a few other bars, where insanity ensued. I'm pretty sure the night ended with Hogan faking a limp in a liquor store as we bought 40's, and on the way out he stole an umbrella. I also think we may have been kicked out of a dance club? Questionable. But definitely a great night.

Oh we went to a classy establishment too

The next morning we nursed our hangovers by watching internet videos and Futurama literally all day. Like, the entire day. Then we went to a microbrewery for dinner and some tasty concoctions. I wouldn't call it a rally, because it is like 6pm the next day, but we DESTROYED some seafood that night. It was also Hogan's birthday, so we raged as hard as our hungover digestive systems allowed us to. Which, incidentally, is a fair amount.

Birthday shot

Wait, are you telling me that there is more to do in Seattle than just eat seafood and drink all the beers? Interesting concept...
But yes, we actually got up and took a tour of the Underground! About a hundred years ago the city of Seattle burned to the ground, and instead of being pissed off, most of the residents were like "good riddance." So they built a new city on top of the old one, made the roads less steep (it might be more accurate to describe them as "slightly more horizontal than vertical"), slapped some plumbing in there, and called it a day. So the "old" city is still under there. It was interesting and informative and I... learned something. We also had some of that famous Seattle Coffee. Well, I only had a sip on account of the fact that coffee tastes like a bag of vomit being filtered through a septic tank.

"No thank you. Would you mind taking it back and swapping it with something that isn't made with the contents of an old lady's colon?"

Classy. So anyway. I think we watched some more lolcats or something until our flight that afternoon. Pretty great weekend. It was good to see James, and Seattle was awesome. Had another great time on our epic road trip, but this was my first time visiting, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Hiking Half-Dome in Yosemite

Weekend of Sept. 27, 2009
Yosemite National Park
(These pictures will only show themselves if you are truly ready)

Our second weekend living in California, we decided to be even more awesome than we were the first weekend (if that's even possible). The seven of us spending our assignments in various parts of the state planned to converge in Yosemite to hike the illustrious Half-Dome. It was nearing the end of the season, and I think it was the last weekend that the chains were still up to scale the nearly vertical "dome" portion of the mountain all the way to the top. But first things first. We needed to partake in the greatest gift the west coast has to offer: In-N-Out Burger. As an east coaster, I really didn't want it to be as good as all my west coast friends had been blathering on about. However, it was delicious. Almost so delicious that I wasn't able to finish two double burgers, a shake, and an order of animal-style fries because I was just so stoked from all the amazing flavors my taste buds were experiencing. Almost. I'm fully on board with In-N-Out.

It tastes like cupcakes, mixed with little pieces of heaven, blended into a smoothie, and then injected directly into your eyeballs. That's a viable flavor, right? I'm going to order that one the next time I go for ice cream.

Now that I had finally experienced the objective excellence that is In-N-Out Burger, we drove into the park and luckily found an open campsite. We set tents up, but I'm pretty sure nobody slept in them. We all went to sleep under the stars, because just like in Sequoia, they were RIDICULOUS.
The next morning we went over to the Half-Dome trailhead a little before dawn (because, let's be honest: sleep is for suckers) and started hiking what I now rank in my top 5 hardest hikes. But holy crap was it worth it. The hike itself was fairly strenuous: a SHITLOAD of uphills, and I think the hike is something like 14 miles round trip. Not the most intense, but for the elevation change it's balls-sweatingly arduous.

The most difficult part of the hike was walking in the right direction, because everything around us was gorgeous and we were all "I WANT TO GO TO THERE"

There were some waterfalls that looked like they were in Lord of the Rings, and about a billion switchbacks all the way up, some of which were incredibly steep, to the point where I was like "I should probably not lean back very far..." BUT THEN: we got to the base of the dome-portion of the mountain (please, let's try to be mature here). Here, you use the chain railings to hike up the extremely steep, hazardously smooth side of the wall. Unless you don't wake up at fuck o'clock in the morning, in which case your afternoon will be spent waiting in line. No joke: when we went back down, the wait to go up was something like three hours. GOOD LUCK MAKING IT DOWN BEFORE DARK.

Yes. It is exactly THIS awesome.

There's a pile of discarded gloves at the bottom, so we grabbed some of those and trucked our way up. Oh, a 360 degree view of pure awesomeness? Hello. And at the top, holy crap. There was a part of the stone that jutted out about four feet, with NOTHING UNDERNEATH except the ground, about 2000 feet below. I'm not afraid of heights, but this was terrifying even for me. So I used that adrenaline to do something objectively stupid...

Sometimes I question how I haven't been naturally selected yet

I managed to not pee my pants, so I'm calling that a win. Then we hung around, chucked some rocks, freaked out about how beautiful everything was. You know, the usual. Heading back down was a bit of a challenge, because gravity, in all it's smugness, wanted us to just careen down the side of the mountain. Luckily, we were not among the few people who died on Half-Dome.

I wanna go again

Given a lifetime of knee injuries, I'm actually a bit confused why I decided to literally run down the entire mountain. But I did. And by the time we got down to the Lord of the Rings waterfall pool, we were hot and exhausted, and that water looked SO GOOD. So we dunked our heads in, which was great, and then finished the hike like goddamn champions.
If you're wondering what a group of gentlemen do after having just climbed the most awesome mountain in Yosemite, the answer is quite simple: drink our faces off. And eat ALL the food. Man, camping is great. Except the part where the sausage wasn't cooked all the way and me and Nick got up in the middle of the night to voms the entire contents of our stomachs out. That part isn't great. But all the other stuff is.
The next day we took it somewhat easy because all of our knees were exploding. We saw a few cool views, nothing fancy.

American Heros

So yeah, that was one of the coolest hikes of my life. And I definitely want to do it again. WHO'S WITH ME?

Haiku-a-Day Challenge: Week 2

Second batch of the most poetic haikus that have ever existed. Yes, this is a bold claim, but NOT UNTRUE.


Caturday 7/16/11
Getting our beach on
Almost voms'd during frisbee
Moonlit skinny dip

Sunday 7/17/11
More perfect weather
Third Bar-B-Q in three days
You kidding me bro?

Monday 7/18/11
Thesis progressing
My adviser might leave Tufts
Shoot me in the face

Tuesday 7/19/11
Sometimes you need strength.
Maybe a break. But for now
you just need kickball.

Our team name is "Dr. Alan Grant and the Velociraptors." So clearly, we are dinosaurs in this picture. Another great game is to imagine that these are the faces everyone makes when they poo.

Wednesday 7/20/11
If tour driving I'd
live a pickup, otherwise
I'll be in a field
Went on a pub crawl for work event. This was a drunk text I sent to Michelle.

Thursday 7/21/11
It is balls hot out
Consider ways to keep cool:
Potluck without pants

Friday 7/22/11
Lunch will be awful
Accursed Chipotle food
Bye digestive tract

An additional haiku written by Andrew Miner, based on our discussion of me punching the Sun in the face because it is too hot out, and then constructing a new sledgehammer/raptor claw limb as a replacement:
Step One: punch the Sun
Burned arm needs to be remade...
Raptor claw-chain? Done.

This one time I was at Sequoia National Park

Hey guys! Remember that time when I was all "you guys, I'm going to go live in California for a bit and I'll make a blag about all the stuff I do and it'll be sweeeeeet" and then I never actually wrote about anything I did while I was out there? Well guess what. I'm doing it. Right now. Because those few months are when Chris "I do ALL the things" Severino started a life of some serious adventures. This is my adventure in Sequoia National Park.

Weekend of Sept. 20, 2009

Sequoia National Park

(pictures here. IF YOU DARE)

I'm not actually sure I've even mentioned the living situation in CA, but basically me and Chris Hogan, a buddy of mine who went to Tufts and who I now work with, were sent to CA for 4 months for a field rep. assignment for work. We road tripped from Boston and were roommates during our stay in Hanford, CA, near the naval air station we were working at. It was a good deal, because we were both under the same mindset of "I'm in California. I'm going to do EVERYTHING THERE IS TO DO. Get out of my way, world." And we friggn did. Plus, the town we were living in was in the middle of NO WHERE, smelled like sulfur and cow shit (easily in the top ten worst smell combinations ever), and was an average of 103 degrees when we first arrived. But it's location was pretty centrally located in the state, so we could easily get anywhere in the state each weekend.

Becoming partially deaf from the jet engines is TOTALLY WORTH IT

After our first week of work, we were definitely ready to get out of that literal shit-hole. So Hogan, Jimmy (best friend from home who now lives in CA near San Francisco), and I decided to head over to Sequoia after work on Friday for some camping/hiking shenanigans. We got to the park after dark, so we quickly cooked some noms over a fire, pounded a few Tecates (the finest beer Mexico has to offer), and passed out.

The next morning, we got up, shoved some bagels in our faces, and started walking up mountains. Hard. It was actually pretty slow going at first, because this was our first time hiking over 7000 feet, and our circulatory system was NOT PREPARED for the thin air. Also, it was a fairly aggressive 14 mile hike up and over an 8000ish foot mountain. But we rocked it like a hurricane. And there were tons of cool views along the way.

FYI I didn't end up falling off that cliff

We ended up trailblazing down the opposite side of the mountain after the summit, which was fairly painful for the ole knees. But it was fun trying to scout out the best route down through all the gorges cut into the rocks. And are you kidding me? We're champions. We're not going to let blinding knee-pain slow us down! In fact, there were definitely moments where we triple-timed down the side of the mountain. This may have added to the severe leg irritation now that I think about it...

"My knee is going to explode." "Mine too. Let's run down the mountain."

We made it down the mountain and back to the trailhead before dark, which is good, because we did NOT think to bring flashlights. We then spent the next hour driving down the most intense switchbacks I've ever seen (people don't want to drive STRAIGHT DOWN a 3000 foot elevation change? what a bunch of babies) and devoured some baked beans and sausage cooked over the fire, and finished the rest of the sweet, sweet Tecate. Then we had a REAL treat. We decided to attend the campground "talk" or whatever it was, which ended up being the most insane stargazing session of my life. No joke. I have never seen so many stars, so bright, in my entire life. I'm a big fan of stargazing, and this was SO FRIGGN INTENSE. The only thing I had to compare it to were the tops of mountains- er... hills on the east coast. But there is so much light pollution in the east that it really doesn't compare. In the middle of CA there is no light pollution and you are higher, so there is less atmosphere for the light to travel through. It was mind blowing. I was looking at literally billions of stars and galaxies. We also saw a few really great shooting stars. Seriously, if you don't appreciate looking up and seeing stars like that, feel free to shoot yourself in the face.

The next morning we opted for some shorter hikes through the crazy Sequoia forest. Um, I'm not sure if you knew this, but Sequoias are the greatest. They are so effing big that you need to take a moment for your brain to calm down and say "eeeeeeeeeasy. This is still planet Earth. It's just a really big tree. Stop screaming and just settle down."

The most insane part is that this one wasn't even the biggest one we saw

After taking some time to clean up our "adrenaline vomit," we kept hiking through the forest of these monstrous trees. I collected an enormous, football-sized pinecone from one of these beasts (it was later used as an engagement gift for Michelle, and then hurled to the ground a few times). And then we saw a friggn BEAR. It was the first bear I had ever seen in the wild, and this is where I learned that I will probably end up fighting a bear one day: instead of that feeling of terror and caution that I assume most people get, the only thing going through my head was to run up to it. So I did. And I got pretty close before it saw me and ran off.

I forgot to lure it in with honey

I'll get him next time. But yeah, seeing one of the largest land predators was exciting. We did a bit more hiking after that, trees, mountains, blah blah blah, then went back to the apartment in Hanford. Great first weekend in California.

Haiku-a-Day Challenge

I was going through some old emails from when I first got gmail and was inundated with tons of emails from my summer after my junior year. Most of the Dodgeball House residents had some intense email correspondence via haiku. Every day. All summer. It was, needless to say, awesome. Here's one of the last messages of the summer, right before our internships ended before school started up again:

Thus ends a summer
of exquisite poetry.
See you at home LOL
-Chris Last day as a GE Intern

As I am wont to do, I just randomly came up with a new challenge for the year, for no reason. To write a haiku per day. My intention is to maybe update my interblag once a week with all of the week's haikus (is it still "haiku" when plural? I don't think I care enough to take the ten seconds and research it). I know, most of you are saying "but Chris lololol, that sounds stupid and I don't think you can do it!" Well guess what. Challenge Accepted. And I'm sure you need some friggn culture in your lives, so get ready to be amazed at the EXTREME shittiness of my poetry skills. Did I mention I took a poetry class at Tufts? Yeah, that was... uncomfortable.


Anyway, here are my haikus from this past week:


Friday 7/8/11
Black hand-print face paint
Capture the Flag was epic
Even though we tied

Caturday 7/9/11
Ate the Vermonster
so much ice cream, so little room
But: hey! Free bucket!


Sunday 7/10/11
Grand trip to Six Flags
Sun poisoning? Possibly.
Awesome? Fucking yes!


Monday 7/11/11
Work and thesising
Two things I'd rather not do
Time for food? Probs not.


Tuesday 7/12/11
Kickball was cancelled
but watched Jurassic Park and
played Ninja instead


Wednesday 7/13/11
Thesis work at Tufts
Definitely sucks big time
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
That's just good poetry right there


Thursday 7/14/11
Butterbeer potlucks?
Dressed as Dementors and Elves?
HP Midnight show!


Friday 7/15/11
Bro-B-Q tonight
Gonna eat ALL the burgers
Red eyes from Xbox

Let's see if I can actually keep this challenge going all year...

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/22/11 Seattle Airplane

GET READY FOR A RECAP OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.

Here I am, at the end of my Pacific Northwest adventure, literally on a plane back to Boston (well, LAX, but THEN onto Boston. Calm down about the semantics). It is 5pm west coast time, so I'll be getting back at 6:30am Boston time. NOT EXCITED. I have to work tomorrow too. Before I start reflecting all over the place (ewww), I'll give a summary of the day's events.

We slept until about 8:30 (our hangovers pretty much prevented us from getting up any earlier). After another shower (w00t), we headed to Pike's Place for some coffee from the first Starbucks. Well, I had some chai tea. But only because coffee objectively tastes like ass. Not much else happened after that.

We went back to our hotel for our free shitty buffet breakfast, where I learned that Nadkarns is wont to make up words. I asked her where the hot water for tea was, and she used some word, which I later learned means "liquid container," but the word doesn't actually exist in the english language. I can't even remember what she said, just the incredulous look I gave her for trying to trick me into thinking her false vocabulary was real. She apparently was not aware, but even our server was messing with her for saying ridiculous jumbles of sounds and passing them off as "words." I didn't even want the tea after her display of insanity.
We then bid our farewells to Colleen, who was going to meet her parents for another day in Seattle (she left us a lovely parting note too: I was all "awwwww"). Then the original four of us went down to check out Pioneer Square. I took an Underground tour before, but this time we walked around, saw a man-made waterfall, a fireman museum (really cool olde-timey fire trucks), and the Yukon gold rush museum.

Vroooom

We then went back to the hotel, divided up the smores chocolate we had left, and left the hotel to Pike's Place one last time for lunch. Great lunch spot: a chowder cafe: preposterously delicious. Good choice, past-self. Hopefully it will hold me over for this train-wreck of a flight home.

Omnomnom

Then Scott and I drove to the airport (Nads and Alex have a later flight). Hahahah, turning in that beast of a car to the rental company was hilarious. So dirty, bugs ALL over the front, 2700 new miles on it (we got it with only 500 miles on it!). The mud was caked on the outside, dirt and pine needles all over the inside. That thing is going to need some serious professional work. Goodybye, Beast.
Now I'm flying to LA, and then on to Boston. What an incredible, life-changing trip (ugh, bear with me as I get into this weird "emotions are happenin" kind of mood). I liked that I started "thorns and roses" for each day. It helped us with mini-reflections throughout the 12 days, and kept me at an all-time high for stoke levels. We went through our "Overall Trip" thorns and roses:

Thorns:
Me: missing seeing Mt. Saint Helens
Scott: same
Alex: same
Nads: not a very mobile knee

Roses:
Nads: wildlife up close and in natural habitat

"My head is so fucking big holy crap"

Scott: seeing the Grand Tetons pop into view right at the park entrance - I agree based on it having such a "this trip is going to be so fucking good. Also those mountains are insanely gorgeous" kind of feeling

MIND BLOWING

Alex: Prismatic Spring - I agree because it is definitely one of the 10 most beautiful things I've ever seen

HOW IS THIS PLANET EARTH?

Me: Seattle sunset dinner - great food, most beautiful sunset ever seen by human beings, great people, Joe taking close-up pictures of Alex - just a great, perfect way to end the trip

ok

I like the idea of the bookend moments: Grand Tetons coming into view and the Seattle sunset dinner. It entirely encapsulated the extreme awesomeness of the trip. It set the stage to pump me up and then it wrapped everything up with a wonderful moment that... pumped me up again. Excellent trip.

YOU GUYS. Hold on to your butts. I just saw Mt. Saint Helens. Really. We flew directly over it. I looked DOWN INTO IT FROM THE FUCKING SKY. The trip just became perfect. My thorn is nullified. It was so beautiful; I can't even describe this moment. Emotions be happenin. The conditions were PERFECT: Scott and I both had window seats over the right side of the plane, the Sun is still up, the cloud cover parted EXACTLY over it, I happened to glance out the window right as we were over it. It was meant to happen. The Universe wanted me to have a perfect trip. It was literally my ONE regret: not seeing it because of the fog. And I just saw it so crisply and clearly in the best view possible. We had gone there, and I saw postcards: I could identify it, but couldn't see it. It was MEANT to happen. I am beside myself, I can't even think about how to describe my thoughts or anything. Scott and I JUST saw it, knew the situation we were in, and now we can't even talk to each other. I am so overwhelmed. It was just so perfect. I'm never going to forget this feeling. Perfect trip. Perfect adventure. Absolutely fucking perfect.

I can't believe we ended up seeing it after all

Just turned to my right and saw the Hollywood sign (cue stupid Miley Cyrus song) above the cloud layer flying into LA. Third time seeing it. Awesome.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/21/11 Seattle

Unfortunately, we had some standard overcast skies, which I am now used to, so we slept in until 7:30ish. The morning was fairly uneventful: packed up the tent FOR THE LAST TIME, enjoyed the amazing view of the Pacific Ocean from our campsite, watched an awesome dog romp around on the beach, went down and splashed around in the Pacific Ocean for the last time in the foreseeable future: normal stuff.
We drove around to the south side of Olympic, watching the scenic views of Lake Quinault and eventually driving into the Quinault Rain Forest. There was a bagel incident in which I ended up scraping up most of my leg. Don't ask.

Last chance to do really stupid things while hiking - I'm going to take full advantage of this opportunity

We did our last hike after driving around on some unpaved roads deep into the forest. Since we didn't really get the opportunity to, we used our 4-wheel-drive capabilities on these roads, even though we didn't need to. Did I mention this car is a beast?
Hiking in the rain forest is really interesting. There are huge ferns all alongside the path, making you feel like there definitely should be dinosaurs running around. There are a ton of frogs, one of which Scott "accidentally" kicked while hiking. We made it to a small lake, really pretty. The weather finally got it's shit together to provide a nice sunny sky. And the mountains off in the distance were fucking epic. I swear, I screamed from excitement no less than 20 times on this trip.
It was a decently long drive from the south side of the park to Seattle. Driving through Olympia, we decided to stop for lunch at a traditional Olympic (can that please be the actual word?) food: chinese food. SEE WHAT I DID THERE? I hadn't had chinese since we started the trip (HOLY FUCK) and I had an extreme hankering for some fake-asiatic cuisine. Delish. And the year of the Tiger description was spot-on. Basically: aggressively awesome. Yep. I grabbed a handful of the "take one" dum-dums and we hit the road like a goddamn hurricane.
On the drive, we FINALLY got an unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier.

I was on that? What? INSANE.

Holy shit, that thing is INTENSE. All the surrounding mountains are less than half it's height. It is so huge and so distinct that I absolutely lost my shit. I was so amped about finally seeing that big beautiful bastard (I think we ALL were) that we turned off the highway to try to get a good viewing spot. We kind of did? We also used this opportunity to fill up gas for the last time and scrape some of the larger bugs off the front of the car, including 3 cat-sized bees. Gross.
BAM! Seattle is awesome. We made it to the hotel around 4pm, unpacked the car, showered, organized our shit, fixed any ACL issues (mostly Nadkarns), basically just settled the fuck down before raging around a new city. We also trucked through our free thing of lavender spray that came with our Portland hotel. There isn't enough lavender spray in the Universe to cover up the smell of campfire smoke and B.O. unfortunately.
Joe met up with us and then we began the Great Seattle Adventure of 2011. He had a week-long conference the same time we went there, which is awesome, so we hung out all night. First place we hit was right around the corner from our hotel: Pike's Place. I love that place. We saw some fish throwing, the cafe where Sleepless in Seattle happened, where I sat in Rob Reiner's seat when Hogan and I went two years prior (I've never seen that movie, so I really don't give much of a shit). We then enjoyed some amazing weather and got our shit together to book dinner reservations at one of the seafood places on the Puget Sound.
We used our time to go hit up the Space Needle.

Nailed it

I hadn't seen it in such good weather before, and I had NEVER seen the nearby fountain turned on. It was apparently the nicest day of the year so far in Seattle, so every single citizen was outside, some of which were in bathing suits running through the fountain sprays. It looked hilarious and super-refreshing, so Joe and I joined in. Definitely a good move. I love that freaking fountain. It spritzes with musical accompaniment (oh dear lord that is WAY too graphic...). If we didn't have to go have a delicious seafood dinner, I would have stayed longer for sure. Then we rode the monorail to dinner!

Joe is great at taking pictures that look like album covers

We got down to our dinner place in time, but discovered that it wouldn't have the same sunset view as some of the others, so we said "fuck that." I don't know if you know this about me, but I enjoy a good sunset. We ended up going to Fisherman's Restaurant. They were worried we wouldn't be ok with a ten minute wait. I don't know what it is about the west coast, but they think a 15-20 minute wait is super long. This happened in Portland too. "Yes, I can wait the time it takes me to de-board a plane in order to eat a fantastic meal. It's no problem."
As we were led to our table, I got pre-pumped just looking at what an awesome sunset view we were about to see. But then I noticed that the only free table was literally the closest table to the water, right in front for sunset: literally the best table possible. Holy shit, the view of the setting Sun, the Olympic mountains (where we were this morning!), the Puget Sound, the Seattle skyline: I went from 6 to midnight. So ridiculously epic. I had yet another mini freakout session of the extreme awesomeness of the situation.

How do they expect me to eat a delicious dinner when this this view is already overloading my senses?

We ordered an incredible dinner: some bottles of wine (including two free appetizers and a free incorrect order!). Then Scott and I shared a romantic (spew) feast of seafood: clam chowder, clams and mussels, rabbit food, and 3 types of crab. The King Crab legs were fairly pointy and sharp, but they were all delicious. Especially the Dungeness Crab. Fucking great. Then I had a nice Seattle beer and, oh wait, more appetizers? The meal ended up costing like $65 per person, but hold the phone, GREATEST SUNSET OF RECORDED HISTORY WAS INCLUDED IN THE PRICE.

You have got to be shitting me

Delicious food, great drinks, amazing friends, the fucking SUN setting over the Olympic mountains, creating insane colors that don't even EXIST, all over the fucking sky. FUCK. Best. Meal. Ever. (calm down bro) It was definitely my "rose" of the entire trip. My favorite part was the end, when Joe was playing around with my camera as we ate. He took about a trillion pictures of Alex eating. It was a hilarious montage I shan't soon forget. Then I swiped a wine glass and we GTFO'd. (classic)
The night did not end there. NO SIR. We went back to the hotel to change into warmer clothes (pfffttt) and finish our bottles of beer (yay!). Then we headed to a microbrewery for some more local beer. It was last call (really? midnight?), so we grabbed some drinks as fast as we could. I started singing along with a Foreigner song that was playing ("I want to know what love is..."), and was accompanied by a slightly crazed looking dude with an epic beard named Vladamir. This dude was bomb. We started talking to him - he was a Mormon trying to get ex-communicated, enjoyed beer, and was all-around badass. He gave us some good bar recommendations and some chocolate covered strawberries. Seriously. He worked at a place that made them and uses them to get free beer. FUCKING AWESOME.

Yeah I dug right in

Everyone in Seattle is friggn insanely nice, but Vlad was just baller.
We left and headed past the gum-wall: literally half a block of walls covered in old, chewed up, disgusting gum. It was awesome. Vlad told us that it is the third dirtiest location in the world after the Blarney Stone and Mecca. Kind of cool though.

Gross

We snagged a beer at the bar Vlad suggested, and then opted to actually seek out the bar he went to - the Blarney Stone (Vlad freaked the fuck out when Colleen led him to the gum-wall/bar name connection). We had a few PBRs (so disgustingly hipster), said our goodbyes to Vlad (including a group hug), and then said our goodbyes to Joe as we headed back to the hotel to drunkenly flop into bed for the night. Great fucking day.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/20/11 Olympic National Park

I woke up this morning and learned that sunrise was not a possibility due to intense cloud cover (yet again), so I went RIGHT back to sleep. We got up around 7:30, packed the tent up, and fled to the south eastern part of the park. We parked at a double trail head area (is that a phrase?) and had two short, but really fun hikes: Grove of the Patriarchs and Silver Falls. The former was a woody area with huge fir trees, almost as big as the Sequoias in California. It was a fun, relaxing hike, which ended with me hugging a 20 foot diameter tree.

Awwwww

The second hike went down to a cool, SLIPPERY waterfall area. There was a bridge and a lot of mist, which made for some really good pictures.

"We enjoy waterfalls."

We then drove north, along the side of Mt. Rainier (it was still covered in fog, so we couldn't see that fucking mountain) and on towards Olympic National Park over parts of the Puget Sound. We stopped for lunch and had some strawberry lemonade and I devoured a huge breakfasty meal (I love breakfast served all day). Then we drove into the northern part of the park, up an awesome-to-drive road along Hurricane Ridge. It was really fun to drive, and we got AMAZING views of the Puget Sound and of the incredible, snow-topped mountain range. The mountains, including the tallest, Mt. Olympus (guys, that's where the Gods live!), were gorgeous.

Standard Severino move right there

I was freaking out from how fucking beautiful they were. There were some black tail deer amidst the snow by the visitor center, but I'm still jaded by buffalo and bears in Yellowstone, so I didn't care too much for these boring-in-comparison animals.
The park itself is enormous. I didn't realize it, but most of the day required that we drive around the park to get to our campsite at Kalaloch beach. It was a LOT of driving, but luckily everything was beautiful, and there were tons of fireworks shops, and it was really fun to drive, so I didn't mind. I would have liked to hike more, but we just stopped for lookouts at Crescent Lake.
We managed to walk around at Ruby Beach, on the FUCKING PACIFIC COAST. There were tons of rocks to climb, and it was a beautiful landscape, so I was amped, naturally.

The ocean is on the wrong side of the land, but it's ok, it's still pretty

The Sun was also close to setting, so shadows made for some really cool pictures. I spent most of my time climbing the huge rock structures, because it was the most unsafe thing I could think of doing. Sometimes, while I was on top of the rocks, the waves would crash and spritz me with water: I felt like I was in Fantasia. That one with all the brooms? Yeah. Hilarious.

I am a pose machine

On the way back to the car we picked some wild raspberries. They tasted a little unsafe (that is a taste?), but whatever, I still haven't dropped a barf.
Then we drove to our campsite, which I had booked a while back. It was literally the last site with a beach overlook. And holy shit, when we arrived at the site, I almost crapped myself. The view from our site was amazing: RIGHT ON THE BEACH. It was cloudy, so sunset over the ocean wasn't possible, but who cares; it is still an incredible view.

This is the view we have to deal with from our campsite? UGH. FINE. I GUESS it's ok.

After setting up the tent, we made some dinner over the fire. Our mission was to use everything up, since it is our last camping night. MY personal mission was to dump the rest of the propane into the fire, since we can't take it back to the east coast with us. I did a good job of "accelerating" the fire with it. The dinner was good, but I'm just still so pumped about our perfect campsite location to even think about it. Also, I'm fairly tired from driving all day and not getting a chance to nap. If I had to describe the day in one word, it would be: Pumped.