Achievement Unlocked: I Turned 30 and Survived

Whelp, now I'm in my 30's, so I guess that means it's time to become an adult and become mature and stop eating four bowls of Lucky Charms for dinner.

As some of you know (except for the random people from China who apparently visit this blog nearly as much as visitors from the US), I've been keeping a list of bucket list items of things I wanted to accomplish by the time I turned 30.  I called it my "Under 30 List" and I didn't shut up about it.  I wrote it (mostly) the day after graduating college, and for whatever reason set my 30th birthday as an arbitrary "you better have accomplished some of the things I want to do, future self" end date.  I think it might have stemmed from that one Scrubs episode where J.D. turned 30 and realized he hadn't accomplished any of the things he thought he would have by that age.  We really loved Scrubs at Dodgeball Haus.  But I'd be DAMNED if I let that happen to me.  And that's the childish rationale of my incessant pursuit of checking off bucket list items.

For my 30th birthday, I wanted to check off as many of the remaining bucket list items as I could, which turned out to be a great excuse to drink around the world at Epcot and then Mardi Gras with amazing friends.  WHAT A PARTY INDEED.  It was definitely the best birthday of my life, which certainly helped avoid that "holy crap I'm a new decade in age now" depression. 
Here's also why my 30th year wasn't all THAT bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp79N7RfM7Q

Now that the hangover from my Mardi Gras 30th celebration has finally started to subside, two weeks after returning from New Orleans, I suppose it's time to reflect on some stuff.  I guess that would be the ADULT thing to do.  Whatever.  You can't judge me; you're not my Mom (actually, if you're reading this blog, there's a 80% chance you are my Mom).

Live in California
This is kind of funny now that I've lived in San Francisco for a year and a half, but at the time I had never even been to the west coast.  I wanted to check out this "Cali-Fornia" place people kept talking about, and then I made a blog about it called "Goin' to California" and now you're reading it, so looks like I win this round!  That first stint out Californy-ways was just a three month rotation on a Naval Air Station in the middle of the state, but as a result I traveled all over California because I assumed it'd be a long time before I returned.  And now I live in California again because YOU CAN'T STOP THE JUGGERNAUT.

This isn't actually from one of my road trips into California, but from a drive around Lake Tahoe.  The sentiment is the same though so relax.

Eat the Spiciest Burger in the World
Oh fuck my whole life for adding this one.  If you want the entire story in gory details, check out the San Antonio portion of my California to Boston road trip entry here: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2010/06/lost-journal-entries-2-return-trip-east.html
TL;DR - I wanted to eat the burger from Man vs. Food that has the four hottest peppers on it, including the ghost pepper, and it ruined my world.  One of the three times in my life where I was positive that I was going to die.  So yeah I ate the fucking spiciest burger in the world in San Antonio and I regret every second of it.

The pain is still palpable on my face an entire hour after eating the burger

Skydive
Oh I guess I blagged about this one before too: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2010/07/apparently-i-enjoy-jumping-from-high.html
But yeah I moved back to Boston from the three months in California and was like YEAH it's time to rock out some more of these life goals!  Boom: jumped out of a plane.

Those little hats were entirely worthless other than making us look mildly penis-shaped

Go to Yellowstone
Another one of those moments where I said "fuck it, I want to go do that awesome thing on my list" and then made an entire road trip around it and convinced others to join me.  Six days exploring Yellowstone, headbutting Bison (not really), fighting bears (yes really), and ass sledding down snowy hills.  (One of many journal entry days: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2011/07/epic-roadtrip-journal-61511-yellowstone.html)

Steam spouts and bison - it doesn't get much Yellowstone than that

Hike the Presidentials
For those of you who don't know about the Prezzie Traverse, first off shame on you, secondly it is a chain of 8 mountains in the New Hampshire White Mountain Range that are over 4000 ft, including the highest mountain in New England - Mt. Washington.  To hike the entire traverse means 21 miles of intense terrain all while your knees are exploding.  We started our hike about an hour after sunrise and finished just after the Sun was setting.  It was bonerific (that means good).  Oh look it turns out I actually used to write in this blog occasionally: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2011/08/presidential-traverse.html

This is around mile one billion when our legs ache and we stop giving a shit about the views along the ridge

Brew Beer
I had wanted to brew my own beer for a while, so once again I said "fuck it, let's do this thing" one weekend and bought a beginners kit.  And then I learned that it looks waaaaay more daunting on paper than it actually is.  It's kind of fun and makes your entire house smell like delicious hops and malt that you can't drink for 6 weeks.  So now I occasionally brew my own beer and that's a pretty cool skill to have: RESUME BUILDER.

Eat the Vermonster
The Vermonster is this monstrous bucket of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream that you should only eat if you want to evolve into the fatter version of yourself.  It's 20 scoops of ice cream, a bunch of bananas and brownies and toppings and stuff.  Seven of us dove into it one evening and HOLY SHIT I AM JUST NOW LEARNING THAT THE VERMONSTER IS FOURTEEN THOUSAND CALORIES.  That's 2000 each from just a bucket of ice cream.  Worth it.  Especially because then we carried that empty bucket into every bar we went into that night and drank our beers out of it.  My favorite part of the evening was when a bouncer was like: "what's with the bucket?"  And my response was "it's an empty bucket."

It doesn't count unless you lick the bucket clean

Go to Bay to Breakers
Nooooohohohohoooo I didn't run Bay to Breakers, but rather did the typical San Francisco thing of walking the race route in a goofy costume while drinking.  A few of us visited Joe and Rebs for the weekend in SF, got up early to pre-game and get dressed up like Sexy Amish, and then meandered drunkenly down to Golden Gate Park.  Where I ended up taking a drunk nap until the weather got freezing cold and my phone battery died, all the while wearing nothing more than Jorts and suspenders.

Get Master's Degree
I guess my past self was feeling particularly academically driven the day after graduating Tufts undergrad, and as a result I had to sign up for a multi-year, part time Masters degree while working full time.  It's ok though: GE paid for it.  And now I know a lot more about lightning strikes to wind turbine blades, so that's good too.

Wear my Greenman Suit to a Sports Game
Ok it may have only been a pre-season Eagles-Patriots game, but it was the only time the Eagles came up to New England and I'll be damned if I wear the Greenman suit for a non-Philadelphia team.  Also the Eagles kicked New England's ass.

If you get heckled by a dude wearing a Greenman suit then you are doing something wrong

Hike all 48 4,000 Footers of the White Mountains
So the Presidential Traverse is actually a subset of ALL the White Mountains over 4000 feet.  Once I finished the traverse, I was like "well... I've already done 8, might as well do the other 40" and then I THREW IT ON THE LIST.  And then hiked them all.  This included my first microspike and snowshoe experiences and now I'm all the wiser for it.

Holding an ice axe makes you feel like a badass no matter what your achievement is

Climb Kilimanjaro
This is one of those bucket list items that takes a lot of careful planning, budgeting, and research.  Or in my case: blindly signing up while frustrated by a long day doing thesis.  Luckily Korin was also Down To Kilimanjaro and thus the adventure was scheduled.  Months later I realized I should get my ass in gear and maybe start training?  It was a hell of an experience: first time in Africa, first time climbing one of the 7 summits (and only... for now), the lack of oxygen, the temperature differentials, and then getting to see all the Jumbos on our post-Kili safari.  It was by far the most epic of my under-30 goals.  Here's more brazen over exaggeration: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2013/01/tanzania-hiking-kilimanjaro.html

That is all of Africa below us

See Firefly Mating in Smokey Mountain National Park
Imagine entire forest filled with fireflies but they all synchonize their blinks and light up at the same time, and fill the forest with light to the point that it almost looks like day.  Every ten seconds.  Yeah that's a thing that happens on our planet sometimes and I got to see it.

No photos of the fireflies unfortunately because I don't know how to operate my camera in the pitch black and rain, but here's the Smokey Mountains

Go to Bonnaroo
As part of that same road trip, I went to my first multi-day music festival and it blew my freaking mind apart.  Learned some new bands, met some crazy people, and oh yeah I saw Paul McCartney live, which is bittersweet because it was incredible, but at the same time I knew that I was seeing the best possible concert that I could ever see in my entire life and nothing would ever be as good, so that was mildly sad.  But overall it was incredible and here's some proof via journal entries: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2013/07/tennessee-road-trip-part-4-bonnaroo-at.html

"Prepare yourselves, things are about to get weird"

Paint the Tufts Cannon
Painting the cannon is a Tufts tradition where you paint it at night with whatever your design or cause is, then stay up all night defending it.  I never had a chance to do it while a student, so I did it in my final days of living in Boston before moving out to San Francisco.  It was a great experience: we used Tufts Brown and Blue to paint messages of thanks to Boston and of course, Dickcat.

DAMNIT I couldn't find a photo of Dickcat!!!

Oktoberfest in Munich
Not even a month into my new job in SF, I used the vacation time that I didn't have yet to fly over to Munich and Oktoberfest like a damn champion.  The food was amazing, the partying included plentiful cheersing, and I had more than my fair share of delicious German beer.  http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2015/01/oktoberfest-in-munich.html

The only problem here is that we only have one Stein each

Learn another Language
Ok so this one is a technicality.  I mean, where do you draw the line?  I was able to communicate effectively enough while I was in Germany and Spain my past few visits to be able to get around and get what I need to get, so I'm going to call that a win.  You can just deal with it.

Here's bullfighting from Spain because I don't have a photo of speaking a language

Backpack in the Alps
Nobody likes to see two technicalities in a row, but that's what's happening.  I didn't fully "backpack" around Europe, but I did travel through the Alps via bus/car/train during my Oktoberfest trip so I'm going to count this one too.  Ok yes it was a duffel bag but SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU, I'M ALREADY MOVING ON TO MY NEXT ITEM.

I'm touring around the Alps, this counts

Complete an Olympic Triathlon
At first I was going to count my Sprint Tri as doing a triathlon, but no sir, I went back and finished an Olympic length in Napa.  One mile swim, 26 mile bike, 6 mile run - I was one hungry dude after this one.  And let me take this opportunity to say that open swimming with people kicking you in the face every 6 seconds is a miserable experience.

Just one of my training runs.  It was real long and I was very sweaty when I finished.  A lot of people were impressed by how big this one was.  At the end it felt great.

Surf in Hawaii
I'm not saying I was good, but I was still out there and I still surfed, however briefly it may have been.  A bunch of friends/roommates from Boston all went out to Hawaii for James and Carrie's wedding, renting a beach house on north shore Oahu.  We spent half our time slothing on the beach with Pina Coladas and half the time doing some of the most dangerous hiking I've ever done.

Nice.  We rode a single wave that day.

Run a Marathon
Graduating Tufts, after seeing quite a few Boston Marathons, I had assumed that running one myself was an impossibility.  I had never run more than a 5k in my life.  But I signed up for a few races here and there with friends, and then found myself running the Philly Half.  After finishing with some energy left, I realized that I hadn't yet found my limit.  So I signed up for the San Francisco Marathon in 2015 and finished it.  I mean, miles 22-25 were some of the most brutal moments of my life, but at mile 25 I shoveled the best tasting watermelon in my entire life into my face and finished.  And then I ate all the food in the entire Universe.

If my knee sweat is any indicator, I'm not actually this happy in real life at this point in the race

Drink around the World at Epcot
I decided to make my 30th birthday the biggest party I could imagine, so Michelle and Rick joined me in Orlando to help me achieve a very important life goal: having a different, culturally-relevant themed cocktail at each of the 11 countries in Epcot.  We started with Mooseheads in Canada, and by the time we got to England I was feeling mighty pleased about this little project.  The only detriments were to my liver and my bank account.

I'm not even sure why Epcot is open to children

Go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras
Well I can't think of a better birthday party than Mardi Gras.  The Epcot trio met up with a bigger group of amazing people in New Orleans to enjoy the music, food, parades, and 50,000 tons of beads.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and watching the Sun rise over the Mississippi after staying up all night listening to music and people watching on Bourbon street was easily the best possible way to start my 30th birthday morning.  By the end of this trip, my sleep gauge was on empty but my joy gauge was maxed out.

I still don't know how we snuck up there to that balcony

There are, however, a few things on the list that I didn't get to before I turned 30.  If this were a thesis, I would put these under the section "Future Research Opportunities" because whoopsidaisy, I ran out of time.  But these can be the first items on my next bucket list:

Get a dog
Well... all the apartments that I've lived in since college have been anti-dog, so that kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.  Also my work hours are too shitty to take care of a dog.  Also I'm not responsible enough or adulty enough yet.  So I've had to make due with making lists of names for my future dog instead.  Current favorite: Dr. Spaceman.

Learn how to solo on guitar
Ok so this is one I'm actively working towards.  My new years resolution this year is to practice the guitar more, and once I get back into the rhythm of a healthy practice cycle I'm going to sign up for actual formal lessons.  You know, that thing I've never done ever.

Go to Japan
WHAT AM I, MADE OUT OF YEN?  Ha Ha do you get it, because yen is the currency there.  But seriously I haven't had a giant pile of money to send me off to Asia yet.  Plus too many other traveling opportunities came up and I'm not made out of vacation days either.

Wow that list is way shorter than I thought it would be.  Not bad.  Now on to my next decade of adventures.

Tennessee Road Trip Part 2: Smoky Mountains

Continuing the journal entries from last time.  I'm pretty sure the weather improves a bit, and as a result, so does my mood.  Plus I was witness to some pretty amazing things.

Sat. 6/8/13
Fog socked us in this morning, so unfortunately no sunrise this morning.  Instead, we slept in a bit and had some bagels and other easy breakfasty stuff when we did finally wake up.  Cataloochee campground, our temporary home for the first two nights in the Smokies, is a bit further away from the rest of the park.  Good news is that our view from the far East side of the park encompasses layer after layer of mountains stretching westward.  The unfortunate part is that it takes about two hours at least to drive to the rest of the park for hiking or sightseeing.  But we toughed it out.
We drove along Blue Ridge Parkway, which is a lot of switchbacks and views.  HOWEVER the fog really ruined our chances of seeing anything, so it was slightly unimpressive.  Also, the hike we were going to try was on a closed road, so we had to continue to another visitor center in an attempt to salvage the day for hiking.  We did - we drove up to where the Appalachian Trail intersects the road that cuts through the park.From there, we hiked north along the AT for four miles to Charlie's Bunion.  It was really cool hiking along the AT; we actually had quite a few amazing views of mountains layered on to infinity.

The clouds cleared up too!

We are LOVELY

 The other cool thing was that on one side of the trail we were on North Carolina and the other was Tennessee.  Not sure if you could tell, but I got a kick out of it.

Hahahaha Wheeeeeeeee this is the best

Charlie's Bunion was pretty amazing.  Some good views as the fog rolled in around us.

But seriously, who named it?  Charlie's Bunion?  Come on, Charlie.

WE DO NOT FEAR HEIGHTS

Moar poses

It was only an eight mile hike, so we drove over to Clingman's Dome, which is the highest mountain in the park (and third highest on the AT).  A portly southern gentleman spoke to us in what you could describe as an "extreme accent," warning us of the treacherous physical nature of the trail from the parking lot to the top of Clingman's Dome lookout.  It turned out to be a paved half mile.  And while the view was not "one thousand miles," it was still really nice.  We hung out for a bit, just people watching (making note of a particular group of unicorn/dragon enthusiasts).  We ended up playing the game "mentally hilarious or southern?" in which there are no conclusions or winners.

Sometimes it bothers me that my phone takes really nice pictures

Big windy path up to the top of the lookout

Is it just me, or do those farther mountains look a bit... "smoky?" har har har

I'm betting sunset from up here is pretty swell

"Headed down south to the land of the pines, thumbing my way to North Caroline"

Now we are watching our foil dinners graaaaadually cook.  The ground beef has been hanging out in a lukewarm cooler for... the duration of the trip, so... that should be fine.  The lack of ice suggests that the meat might be slightly suspect, but the real concern here is the level of complaining that accompanies it.  The fire took a little while to build up so we're going to check out a nearby meadow for some rumored Elk before we start the cooking process.
We just got back from our little Elk adventure: we saw five large females in the meadow, which was really cool to see.  However, the number of mating insects... on my windshield... was surreal.  So many.  It was insane.  But still, the Elk were worth it.  Especially to see the sky turn sunset colors.  We are now a-cookin' up our foil dinners in the coals.  Driving around all day has worked up an aggressive appetite.  And dinner is turning out to be pretty damn good.

PRETTY

These are some serious collars on the Elk

Later on, Scott and I went back down to the meadow for some star gazing and firefly watching.  Words can't even begin to describe how truly epic of an experience it was.  The stars were out of control clear.  And the fireflies were just insane.  Thousands of them surrounding us in the meadow and in the forest.  And the most impressive part was the synchronous nature of their blinking.  Everything would be completely black for a few moments, and then all at once hundreds of fireflies would start blinking like an enormous, endless Christmas tree all around us.  And then this would repeat.  I've never seen so many of them before.  I can't even.


Sun. 6/9/13
The day had a bit of a slow start, but we eventually packed up camp and started on our way to the other side of the park.  Scott and I were actually able to pack up camp and pack up the car in a relatively decent speed - we're getting efficient at this.  On our way out we saw two male Elk on the side of the road looking majestic as fuck.

Helloooooo sir

REALLY big

The drive to the other side of the park (the north/Tennessee side) was long, but actually a pretty fun drive.  We made it to a few pretty good overlooks.  One of the things I've noticed about the Smokies at this point is that the farthest layers of mountains have a blue haze about them.  It definitely gives them that quintessential "smoky" look.

Almost offensively beautiful

Out first stop for the day was the Ramsey Falls hike: an eight mile round-trip hike to one of the more impressive waterfalls in the park.  It was also quite humid and steep, more so than we were expecting, so it was an extremely arduous hike as well.  But so absolutely worth it.  Plus, I got to hike fog's-out-guns-out all the way to the falls.  We then went for a "swim," or more realistically a walk under the falls, and it was amazing.  By the end of the hike all of our clothes were soaking wet, either from the falls or the sweat, which really only added to the horrific smell that my car has been acquiring.

SO DELICIOUSLY COLD

I'll take all the "showering" I can get at this point

We then continued on to our campsite for the next two nights: Elkmont campground.  This place is extremely popular this time of year because it is the best place to witness the mating synchronous fireflies.  Luckily I researched the crap out of this so that we were able to get two consecutive nights here.  AND we were able to set up our tent before it started raining.  Well... barely.  But it is more than we can say for either of the other times we've set this friggn thing up.  We scrambled inside and ate some "peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches," which can only be called as such because the crumpled smushed bread is still technically "bread."
With that ordeal behind us, we drove up for a short walk to another waterfall called Laurel Falls.  We were PROMISED a bear, but I guess that's some sick joke the rangers play on us, because there wasn't a damn one.  We did, however, get to see a nice waterfall that we climbed up on for pictures.  This started a wave of copycats.

The person taking our picture decided that getting the waterfall in the picture wasn't really important

I've stood on higher

Fully drenched again, we piled back into the car to obtain some beer in the sickeningly touristy town of Gatlinburg.  That place is so bad it made my skin crawl.  So tacky and touristy, even worse than a boardwalk.  But our beer obtaining mission was a success, just as the downpour started.  We had a difficult time starting a fire with soaking wet tinder, but our neighbors lent us a hand and we shared some beers and had a grand old time.
Once dark set in it was firefly time.  We were lucky that the pouring rain did nothing to dissuade them from the mating procedure.  And our campground was prime location.  Some people were getting bussed in from Gatlinburg - it was that big.  Only red lights were allowed so as to avoid messing with the firefly mating.  The combination of the lack of light and the torrential rain made it difficult to stick together, but we somehow all found each other after getting separated.  After our eyes adjusted a little it started getting really intense.  More fireflies than last night even.  It was overwhelming.  I don't know how long we stayed there, but we were fortunate enough to see a few iterations of the synchronous blinking.  One time it would start from the right and move left, passing along in front of us with literally thousands of blinks, all commencing at once.  Later in the night the blinking would start very far away from us, and then gradually sweep toward us along the forest in a wave of blinks.  It was so hard to believe that it is a completely natural event carried out by beings of this planet.  Just so incredible.  It's a feeling that's really hard to describe.  And unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures of it (not that it would do anything to justify it).


Mon. 6/10/13
Scott and I awoke early this morning for our big hike - a ten mile round-trip trek to Mount LeConte.  We woke up around 5:30 with the intention of catching sunrise, but the clouds were determined to thwart our plans.  We did, however, make it to the trailhead by 6:30 - well before anyone else, so we had the entire trail to ourselves for the morning.
The start of the hike was humid and rainforesty, but that early in the morning it felt great.  The trail followed a stream for about a mile and a half before breaking off into a rock-tunnel-staircase type thing.

Scott makes his way through the "tunnel" ok I have no idea what you call this

We then ascended a bit to the bluffs, which was a really unique rocky semi-cave structure.  We walked through a curtain of falling water to enter what looked like a wide half-cavern.  And the views of the Smokies were unbelievable.  They are aptly named because the mists and fog traversing the mountains absolutely looks like smoke.

So smoky!

The waterfall created a doorway into the cave area

Scott has made it under the ledge

I've not seen anything like this before

A few more miles of hiking through rocky, wet terrain (with some great views of the surrounding mountains) and we hit the point in which we entered a cloud, so it got a bit colder, wetter, and foggier.  But it wasn't too steep and summitting was easier than I expected.  We had a few snacks on the summit, listening to the wind blow through the trees, which sounded exactly like waves crashing at the beach.
And then the downpour.  I knew it was coming.  After just a mile we were completely soaked, but it was ok because I was still riding high from what a good hike up it was.  It didn't clear up until we made it back to the bluffs, but we didn't mind too much.  The other hikers that we passed were not of similar disposition.  By the time we made it back to the creek the cascades were torrenting and my dogs were barking.  And everything I owned was completely soaked.  But we completed the hike and made it back to camp in time to find Michelle and Sarah awake and antsy for things in the car.
Upon our return, we feasted upon a plethora of bagels, english muffins, and hummusy snacks.  We then slothed pretty hard most of the day.  I believe I briefly fell asleep on the picnic table, and perhaps in a sunny patch of grass by our tent.  After a few hours or so I decided to be a little active since it was suddenly nice out, so I went running along the river.  Holy crap, so hot.  I had to dunk in the stream afterward.
A few people wanted some odds and ends, so we made another trip out to Gatlinburg (UGH) to pick up some supplies.  Now we are about to set off into the world of pie iron pizzas before we head out for fireflies once again.
Time passes.  We ate.  Deal with it.
The fireflies, as expected, were once again epic.  I still can't even fathom how a phenomenon like that even occurs.  It is straight-up magical.  Thousands, maybe millions of these guys lining the forests and meadows and streams, all blinking in sync.

Thank you Smoky Mountains.  You are awesome.