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: 6/10/11 Salt Lake City

Ok, similar for other posts, I'm going to transcribe my written journal of the epic road trip to the INTERWEBS. I'm going to break it up into pieces, because apparently we did a shitload of stuff, and if I put it all in one post everybody's head would explode and I would break the internet. Anything in italics is an added thought; everything else is the original journal. Enjoy! Or don't. I really don't care how you choose to react to these words, just as long as more than just my followers in China read this.

6/10/11 Friday - Boston

I'm sitting in the Boston airport right now, thoroughly pumped about the epic adventure I'm about to take. I'm waiting for Scott to arrive at the moment; we have window/aisle seats in the same row (turns out Scott decided to show up exactly 30 seconds before we were boarding). I REALLY hope there isn't anyone in the middle: otherwise this flight could get awkward. Oh man, I hope I sleep on this flight. Something tells me I'm not going to get that much rest on this trip. Because fuck sleeping. It's adventure time.

I'm not 100% amped though. I just got a great text from Michelle, and I'm realizing that I'm really going to miss people in Boston. I'll see them in a couple weeks though, so I'm not TOO disappointed. it's good to know that I have people that I'm this close with in my life.

Salt Lake City

After a short layover in Dallas (read: a Tex-Mex FEAST), Scott and I made it to Salt Lake. The flight was incredible, because the snow covered mountains are enormous and surround the lake and the city. I feel kind of bad that Nads and Alex won't be able to see how gorgeous it is. We plan on leaving at fuck o'clock in the morning for the Grand Tetons tomorrow, but maybe the Sun will be rising in time to see it? (in retrospect, not really a concern. While the Utah mountains were awesome, they were basically a joke compared to the mountains we saw in the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Olympic National Parks).

We picked up our rental car - a Ford Expedition. I'm not sure if you've ever seen/driven a Ford Expedition, but I'm not sure my license legally covers a vehicle that size. I think I need "tank" checked off or something. It is a beast. In fact, we named it "Beast." We look BALLER. We checked into our hotel, jumped on the beds (obviously), and then immediately drove over to Temple Square to see the Mormon Tabernacle.

It was fairly spectacular, but a bit awkward as we were easily the worst dressed people there (hiking boots vs. white button-ups? what?) and we weren't getting married (seriously, does every Mormon teenager in Utah get married there?). AND I guarantee everyone thought Scott and I were gay together. But everyone was super-polite and friendly and didn't care that we are heathens who don't believe their interesting religion.

Wait, am I pretending to be Amish or Mormon? I can't tell.

We definitely stood out. The first thing anyone said to us was "where are you guys coming from?" Oh you can tell I'm not from Utah? One hilarious conversation was when we told a girl that we were coming from Boston. She responded "oh, have you seen the Mormon church there? I've heard it is beautiful!" My response was just "nooooooooo..." and then we kind of shuffled away.

Then we bought 800 lbs worth of noms for the next few days at Walmart. At least we're kinda prepared now?

Lastly, we went to Squatter's Brew Pub, recommended by none other than Pete Rock. Great beers and Bratwurst. And Scott finally found his keychain! So now I'm readying for bed. Scott is going to pick Nads and X up from the airport since I am driving at some God forsaken hour tomorrow morning. Ugh.

Getting UNCOMFORTABLY PUMPED for this Northwest Road Trip...

An elite crew of adventurers are joining me for what will be known as "the greatest road trip ever achieved in the history of the Universe." Senator Nadkarns, X Mandeville, Scottholomew Hagerty, Colleen of the Kling Faction, and potentially Madam Surbhington the Third (more prodding is in order to nag her to accept) are joining me on my brainchild road trip that has been in the works for about a year and a half. And I'm getting way, way too pumped.

We're flying out to Salt Lake City on June 10, where we'll rent a car (kickass Ford Escape. FUCK YOU gas economy, we need leg room!). Over the course of 12 days we'll travel to the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Craters of the Moon, Portland, Mt. Saint Helens, Mt. Rainier, Olympic National Park, and flying back from Seattle. I know what you're thinking: "But Chris, that is WAY too much awesomeness for any mortal." Well, you are correct. But we are not mortals. We are fucking adventuretimes champions. The kind of champions that save you from all the zombie-raptors when you dream at night. The kind of champions that walk up to Cancer, kick him in the balls, and then send in a faulty version of his taxes so that the IRS audits the shit out of him. This is our plan:

Click on this map. If you dare.

In between boring things like sleeping, pretending to do work, and eating ALL the food, I spend most of my time getting physically pumped up for this trip. Like, I'll stomp around the apartment doing roundhouse kicks in the air and spitting ALL over the place. This one time I was making dinner, and I swear to god I punched my stir fry in the face. Or, where I'd imagine the face would be if stir fry had one.

In fact, just today, Scott and I spent the better part of ten minutes trying to come up with a name for the road trip such that the acronym would spell out something badass. We're tabling it for now, but what we have so far is TEARTITKU - The Epicest Adventuretimes Road Trip In The Known Universe. It has TEAR (that's what bears do!) and TIT (nice), so you know it has to be good.

So anyway, since this interblag was originally intended to capture the beautiful essence of America's greatest pastime - the road trip - I figured I might as well stay somewhat true to my roots and write some road trip bloggy kind of stuff. If you don't like it, then don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.