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.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/19/11 Mt. Saint Helens/Mt. Rainier

Bear with me. This journal entry isn't the most optimistic of the trip. I think this might have been a turning point where we were all tired, the weather was shitty, and we had been within 100 yards of each other every moment for literally the previous 192 hours. It wasn't the greatest day of the trip. And when I say that, I of course mean that it was SLIGHTLY less than the greatest experience of my life. Because I'm comparing it to the rest of the trip, which is like comparing winning 500 tons of delicious bacon in the lottery with only winning 499 tons of delicious bacon. SOMEONE TELL ME HOW I CAN ENTER THE BACON LOTTERY PLEASE.

Mt. Saint Helens
We woke up to leave the hotel around 6am. I got another shower, which was amazing. But there really wasn't all that much that happened besides checking out of the hotel and driving to Mt. Saint Helens. Good story, I know.
Driving along the curvy roads toward the mountain, we realized that the weather might not cooperate with us. In fact, we drove through a cloud literally the entire way to the observatory. We got out to see what was supposed to be an amazing view of the mountain, but as Alex so aptly described it, it looked like we were on the inside of a ping pong ball. Fog everywhere. No view. Hooray. I haven't been this downtrodden on the trip since our dealings with the Canyon Campground people in Yellowstone (I recently wrote a review of the campground. I gave them the worst possible ratings due to "extreme incompetence"). Sorry for the less-than-terrific start to the trip, Colleen. Now we're just waiting in the car for the visitor's center to open. Coooooool. But we saw the movie they play before they dramatically open the curtains for a view of the mountain/fog: kind of interesting?

There have been better views

Mt. Rainier
Driving to Mt. Rainier did not so much improve the weather. I feel like morale on this trip has decreased a bit due to the weather, or maybe the fact that we've been in each other's immediate presence for at least 23 hours a day every day for the past 9 days. Most likely a combination of the two. But we played some word games during the drive to lighten the mood, and then once we got to Mt. Rainier, my over exuberance was sufficient. It was so amazing! Super green rain foresty pine trees! LOOK AT ALL THE GWEEEEN (Katie Rizzolo, you've ruined the way I react when I see trees).

This isn't as bad as Mt. Saint Helens, but still kind of looks like the inside of a ping pong ball

We actually didn't do all that much in the park since it is really foggy and there was snow everywhere. Nadkarni wanted ice cream at one point, and I decided to make a note of it.
We drove to a cool lookout over a waterfall. The trail down to the lookout was snowy, cold, and icy, but totally worth it. We then ran up a huge snowy hill to ass-sled down. Still fun... but then my shorts were soaking wet after that. WORTH IT.

Ass-sledding: best kind of sledding?

Oh! Then fun news. Scott, who was driving today, just noticed that we were basically out of gas. I feel like more attention should have been paid to that, but hey, NEW ADVENTURE, LET'S DO THIS. We stopped at the visitor center first to hear a ranger talk about the first Summit of Mt. Rainier. Somewhat pleasant? Then we drove all the way out of the park for gas after a short hike over another waterfall.

Is it just me, or does Alex make the greatest faces of all time?

Almost ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS to fill that huge fucking car. Ugh: it gets like 17mpg HIGHWAY. We've driven about 2000 miles on the trip so far. Intense.
After that, we just cooked some dinner over a fire, trying to get rid of most things since we only have one more camping night. Scott, as he tends to do, messed with a perfectly good fire to the point where it went out. Classic (to his defense, we were trying to use the coals to cook, so we had to make sure it was arranged such that our food wouldn't come out super raw). But it was rebuilt and we cooked a successful fucking meal. We're planning on doing a morning hike, so we're heading to bed pretty soon. I sincerely hope the weather is good tomorrow. I've already given up on seeing stars on a clear night for this trip. It sucks that I'm somewhat pessimistic here, but that's just the way things are proceeding. I better see SO MANY TIDEPOOLS at Olympic tomorrow...
Another great thing we've picked up on this trip is that when Scott tells a story that doesn't elicit the reaction he was looking for, he adds "and then I found five dollars!" to add a little ironic "pizazz." Today, Alex added "and then you found TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!" at the end of one of Scott's stories for the same effect, to simply indicate "cool story bro." It was hilarious. Kudos to Alex, because we've started doing that whenever someone has a "seemingly nonsensical" story.
Just remembered my post about Mt. Saint Helens. I was SO frustrated with the weather. Sure it is really our only real setback for the trip, but that really did suck.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/18/11 Portland, OR

Started the day at 4:15am by taking down the tent and driving out of camp in the pitch black (actually, the moon is fully, so it was fairly well lit up).
Then we drove for a while (I drove for a while) until the Sun rose over the mountains in the most beautiful spectacle that I've ever seen. I had to stop the car twice to pull over and see the ridiculous sunrise. Holy fuck.

HOW INSANE IS THIS SUNRISE? Answer: moderately to extremely

Then I drove for a while more, and after stopping for gas/lunch, Scott drove.

We saw a ton of wind turbine blades pass by us on the highway, so cool! HEY CAN ONE OF YOU DO MY THESIS PLZ?

My story isn't very exciting because I'm definitely drunk right now (HAHAHAH I was wondering why my handwriting was so sloppy for this entry! Oh boy, let's see what adventure drunk Chris takes us on!). Once we got to Portland (holy shit, Oregon is full of beautiful mountains and pine trees and an awesome river), we met Colleen at Rogue Brewery, which has amazing beers. One of Michelle's favorite beers is here, so I had it's steroid brethren. ANd got her a Rogue Deead Guy beer Glass (no typos here, I'm just typing exactly how it's written. Hahahah I had a few beers that evening...).

Then we had another brewery (we just basically had all the samplers in this fucking city): Crystal Hotel maybe? We were told that Bridge House or Bridge Port (a brewery that I can't [unreadable, maybe "remember"] the name, we're looking it up [unreadable] map right now: BRIDGE PORT!) was good, so we went there for dinner and a third sampler. Oyster sandwiches. (ok I guess I'm just going to start speaking in sentence fragments?) Like 12 more beers.

Yep, that explains it

We also went to a HUGE bookstore at some point in there (got postcards, huzzah!) and then looked at a donut shop that was actually closed down - Voodoo Donuts. (Apparently it is a really famous place, but we didn't feel like searching out the temporary location across the city). We didn't go to the alternate store. Holy crap I'm less than sober. Scott and I pissed off a bridge, then we all went swimming at our hotel. More stuff happened. Oh! Scott and I had a 4-Loco! (THERE IT IS). Then we went swimming. I know more things happened, but I'm not all there right now (seriously, you should see my handwriting here. It looks like I'm just learning how to draw letters). I talked to Michelle, which was good, and I got a message from Jessie, and I'll call her back again when it's not [late maybe?] at night (I ended up calling her super early in the morning, apparently so early that it was too early on the east coast also). We're on Pacific coast time btdubs. Oh 4-Loco. Fuck. (HAHAHAHAHAHAH I was out of my mind when I wrote this).
Then Portland had a naked bike race, which we didn't see, but it happened. I called my Dad for father's day (it is 1:40am in Philly, so that was a hilarious conversation), and now I'm ready to sleep. Let's do this again soon.
I don't actually think I was drunk when I wrote that. Well... maybe a combination of drunk and super exhausted. (ok so this is me writing the next morning).
I almost forgot: during the drive I saw a hawk fly by us and take a MASSIVE shit. Like, a gallon. It was hysterical. I can't explain why, but it was. AND everyone who has a green jacket looks like Colleen. This stems from seeing a girl at the bookstore with the same jacket as her, and then we went a little crazy with that joke, as we are wont to do.
Another thing! Apparently I talk a tad in my sleep. Also, I pass out IMMEDIATELY when my head hits the pillow. Some gems that I've had thus far (told to me later):
"Get the shotguns" - zombie dream.
"Alex spilled all the crackers" - ?
With Colleen still awake next to me:
Me: "Awesome."
Colleen: "What is awesome?"
Me: "no."
Colleen: "what?"
Me: "what?"
Colleen: "What is awesome?"
Me: "Cupcakes"
Colleen: "What?"
Me (quieter): "cupcakes"
I do not remember that conversation.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/17/11 Craters of the Moon National Monument

We managed to get up at 4:30am to head out of Yellowstone and towards our Idaho destination. We drove through the park one last time for about an hour as the Sun rose... and as the snow fell. It was odd. I saw one last black bear run across the road before we left. We entered Montana for about 20 minutes, and then on to Idaho, where we saw a CROP DUSTER fly right over us and then dump it's... stuff... onto a farm (seriously, what is that stuff? Pesticides? Fertilizer? I'm not going to exert the energy required to look it up). It was so awesome.

After driving a while through apparently beautiful Idaho (huge mountains as a backdrop to vast empty green farm fields - so epic), we went to Arco, ID. We actually missed our destination, the first nuclear reactor, so we had to drive all the way back to it. I enjoyed it thoroughly: it was a lot of really cool nuclear power info. They actually had the lead engineer's notebook (shit, I can't believe I forgot his name), open to when they first created power; something like "electricity was created with nuclear energy." SO FUCKING STOIC. The EBR-1: Experimental Breeding Reactor. I can't believe how nerdy I am right now.

I'm winning science!

Then we drove back to Arco to have lunch at "Pickle's Place" - I figured it was right up Scott's ally. They had decent burgers and fried pickles. They also had the schedule of the local town's (Butte, ID) baseball team: the Butte Pirates. AHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHA

We got to Craters of the Moon, a small national park "area" completely devoid of trees since it is the site of a huge lava flow. The landscape is really bizarre; kind of like Mars or something. Or the moon... whatever. The rocks are redder. I say they change the name to Craters of Mars. ...I think I'm nerding out again...

We set up the tent and basically did the entire park in about 5 hours. I'd say half a day is more than enough time to spend here. There were some goofy little hikes around some lava flows. The Hawaiian names for the two different kind of lava are hilarious and awesome, a lot like Bryce's "Hoodoos." Pahoihoi (sp?) and Aa (pronounced Ah-Ah). Basically, I just scream these words whenever I see a lava flow rock.

We checked out a few caves - they were interesting; some required headlamps. One in particular was awesome. It was super icy (so obviously I slipped and tore my leg up a bit) and then Scott and I found a little crevice where we went spelunking: basically crawling through a tiny cave hole until our bodies can't fit any more. I managed to scrape up my arm and legs and cracked the LCD of my shitty small camera, but whatever, it was awesome. I don't even like that camera anyway. At the point where my shoulders couldn't fit through spaces anymore, I backed out again. AND made it out alive. Score. Plus, added a few more battle wounds.

I'm smiling, so this must be pre-gashing-my-limbs-on-sharp-rocks

The Scott, Alex and I went for a 3-mile hike up and down a couple of the big craters. Volcanoes are crazy. It was a fun, dry, dusty hike. We've hiked through a lot of different types of terrain: we were in snow yesterday, and rocky, dusty, lava rocks today. We ran most of the downhills, which is funny, because Nadkarni could see the entire downhill run from our camp. Our site is literally viewable from almost all locations of the park. It is awkward, but funny. I tried to pee earlier, but realized people hiking across the lava flow pit could see. Whoopsidaisy.

LOOK HOW STRONG WE ARE

We just finished dinner AND watched sunset from our campground. It was really cathartic, and good to have another easy-ish evening. Finished off our ground beef with burgers, had some hot dogs, veggies, and baked beans on my camp stove. Only some minor grease burns; I'm calling it a success. The sunset colors are amazing - right over the nearby mountain range, which still has some snow on the top. It was really nice seeing another good sunset. Now if only we could get a cloudless night to see some fucking stars. (holy crap, I just realized that there wasn't a SINGLE NIGHT on the entire trip where we could stargaze. That blows).

We played/learned how to play Euchre. It was a lot like Spades; except that Nadkarni and I won. Thus ends Scott's reign of terror with card games.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/16/11 Yellowstone National Park

I got up alone to see sunrise this morning. Apparently normal human beings need a decent amount of this thing called "sleep." Weird. I'll sleep when I get back to Boston. Instead, I walked down to the lake (carefully avoiding the mounds of buffalo shit seemingly placed methodically enough to force me into a maze-esque adventure), and although it was overcast, there was an opening in the clouds just above the mountains to see the Sun and amazing colors. It was really pretty seeing the lake, mountains, and orange just above the mountains. I made the right choice - sleep can wait.
When I got back to the tent, everyone was content to continue sleeping, so I drove to the spot where the Grizzly lives. I saw the mother again, a bit closer this time, but still a ways off. I also saw a white and gray wolf. BOOM! Cross another animal off the list. He was pretty damn swift: just trotting, but he was going really fast. Also: definitely a lot bigger than a dog. I'd say the morning has started out pretty great.
Some of the hikes we intended to do today were closed due to too much snow or bear activity in the area. So we sent some postcards and then dropped Nads off at the lodge while the rest of us went on a hike in which the trail was actually open: Elephant Back. This proved to be highly ridiculous, because it was 100% snow and mud; at some points the snow was as deep as our knees. (THAT IS TOO MUCH SNOW FYI). Still fun, but definitely more arduous. We kept having to take layers and winter hots off and on as we worked up a sweat and then got blasted by a frigid wind. It took us a while, but we finally made it to the top (a fair amount of trailblazing was involved).

It was at least 5 miles of THIS

The view of the lake was great; we could even see the backed up cars at another area where another Grizzly was spotted. Counting the previous bear's two cubs, this brings the Grizzly count up to 6. How fucking awesome is that? THE ANSWER IS "EXTREMELY." (ps. there is speculation among the group as to whether this bear was the same as the other one at it's "usual" location. I contend that it was NOT the same bear, because we saw bears at both locations within 10 minutes of each other, and as far as I know, Grizzlies don't have the power of apparition, so I'm going with different bears.).

This bear is not in a mauling mood right now, so I got up fairly close

We then finished the hike: sliding down mounds of snow, trailblazing and sledding past switchbacks. We finally made it back to the car with about 5 lbs of snow/water in our boots. Seriously, I wrung out my socks after: it was probably 5+ gallons of water. That is a believable amount, right?
Then we picked Nads up, went back to the campsite, and built a fire to cook our lunch of hot dogs, grilled cheese, and smores. I'm not a huge fan of smores. I don't know why; on paper they seem pretty awesome. I think it might be because I'm partially OCD and hate dirt or grime on my hands, so it might be that I hate how they are the stickiest snack in the world. Weird. Anyway, we're probably going to go seek out showers and a place to wash our clothes (Colleen might literally run away if we don't wash the stink out of our clothes by the time we meet her).
And now I'm bored waiting for laundry to get done. The showers are closed for cleaning, but I am LEAPING in once we throw our stuff into the drier. We stopped at a little lake lookout briefly, beforehand. It was a great view, but we all went a little nuts when we learned that we had about 10 seconds of phone reception finally. I called my Dad, but lost reception midway through. I swear, once we get into better phone areas, I'm going to go NUTS. I've liked not having access to phones or internet, but it gets frustrating having to deal with 60-some emails when I finally DO have reception.
When we got back to camp, we organized the back of the car (it looked like 40 tornados had gone through - it was time to rearrange) and started another fire (apparently the smoldering ashes weren't good enough for a passing park ranger while we were gone, so they dumped a bucket of water into our fire pit. Some propane helped start the new fire though).

FACT: cooking over a fire is always a group effort

We used Scott's pie irons to make sandwich-pizzas and pies (they sound weird but are really good: little irons where you toast bread and filling). After a few Montana beers, I was feeling not as freezing as I should have: it is about 40 degrees. We've been playing an intense game of Spades in the meantime, where Nadkarni and I just won an incredible hand, so I'm going to get back to the tent to finish it.
Spades game update: it is now snowing outside. Nadkarni and I barely lost the game, but I successfully pulled off a blind nil. I'm calling it a win.
To finish this post, Scott and I made some scientific sketches of a Grizzly bear. This is so that when future generations find my journal, the Grizzly bear species will be documented:

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/15/11 Yellowstone National Park

Today started off with clear skies, so FINALLY we were able to get up and go see sunrise. We headed over to Inspiration Point on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (we learned our "east vs. west" lesson finally). It was a really awe inspiring sight. The colors and the canyon getting blasted with light make for a really breathtaking combo. Sunrises are great because all the n00bs don't have the energy to get up on time to go see them (a disease that I definitively do NOT suffer from), so we were the only people there. (I hate when people ruin my sunrise with their presence. THAT IS A MOMENT BETWIXT ME AND THE SUN, STEP OFF). Oh also, sunrises are just fucking beautiful.

Your argument is invalid

We then saw some more of the dawn rays hitting the canyon from Artist's Point on the south rim - still fucking amazing, as per usual. (This happened after we followed a lone bison cross the bridge from the north to the south rim. MY GOD THEY HAVE BIG FUCKING HEADS). I managed to stand out on some precarious ledges (standard), so that was fun. Not having a fear of heights is pretty great.

Even the slightest breeze would have knocked me off this cliff

Then we went back to our tundra-esque snowy campsite, broke down the wet tent, and bid that god-forsaken place fucking adieu.
On our way to our next location, we probably saw a bunch more animals, including about a billion buffalo. It's getting hard remembering how many we see at this point because there are so many. We did see a vast number of buffalo today: crossing the road, walking around some hot springs, taking dumps near our car - the usual. We definitely saw a crapload of baby bison, including one running to it's parents. So adorbs. I walked up to a few today. Dangerously close: probably. Dangerously awesome: definitely.
We did a small hike early on in the day near the Roosevelt Tower area. It was a bit more intense than the other hikes we've done. I feel bad that Nadkarni keeps sitting out at the lodges while we hike, but she's more than willing, so I guess it's ok. We passed by a really cool lake, a petrified tree, and a group of elk. I then took a piss with a grand mountainous view, and finished our hike as the weather persisted to stay perfect.
We then drove to Bridge Bay campground: our new home for the next two nights. The check-in was INFINITELY easier this time around: competent employees, no snow on the ground, an actual fire pit and place to set up our tent. AND a great view of Yellowstone Lake. It is, however, intensely windy. When we arrived back at our site later in the day, the tent was completely blown upside-down. Tents all over the campground were blown from hell and back - it was really funny.

The wind got a little crazy

After setting up the tent at our better, but windier campsite (seriously, we had to put boulders ontop of all the stakes so they wouldn't get ripped out of the ground), we headed up to see Mud Volcano: yet another location that makes you think you should be hanging out with dinosaurs. The entire place smelled like horrible, acrid sulfur. My clothes are going to smell like pure awful: sulfur, campfire smoke, B.O., and pine trees, by the end of this trip. But there were some really cool things: a place called "Dragon's Cave" - a cave with "smoke" pouring out and the sound of dragon breathing. I know it was steam and bubbling water inside a cave, but shit, I was like 40% sure there was an actual dragon in there. There was also a really cool bubbling mud area, the Mud Volcano, and some super sulfur-y stuff (smelled like absolute ass), and a lone buffalo walking through all of it.
At some point (we did so much that I've already mixed up the order of things we did) we had a leisurely lunch at the Lake Lodge. It was good to calm things down a bit and enjoy a decent meal. Bagels and hummus, PB+J on shitty bread, and granola bars were starting to get on my friggn nerves.
We then took a short, easy hike that Nads could join in on by the lake at Storm Point. There wasn't any elevation change, but it was a really great hike regardless because we passed through several different environments. We were by the lake, so a portion of it was a windy, sandy beach area. Then a bit of prairie, into a dry forest, then finished with a super-dense wet forest. It was beautiful will trillions of tall, thin evergreens everywhere except on the trail. However, we had to balance on fallen logs to avoid the muddy, sometimes water-filled trail (Alex's nightmare - he has NO balance).
The rest of the day, until now, we kind of took it easy. We re-supplied some of our food (let's be real - just the snacks). OH SHIT! Then we saw an enormous Grizzly bear at the side of the road. It kept crouching and digging things out of the ground (potentially Pikachus?). It was epic: it was a huge fucking bear. We stayed by the side of the road, where tons of other people gathered to watch. Throughout the rest of the evening, whenever we drove by the area, there were a lot of people stopped at the side of the road - the bear hung out in the area for a while, but stayed in the trees at that point. Total bear count for the trip so far: 3 Grizzlies and 7 black bears.

Grizzly bears are terrifyingly huge. When I fight one, I'm going to need ALL the adrenaline.

After the Grizzly bear escapade we spent some quality time at our campsite until now: fixing our overblown tent, cooking some burgers and grilled vegetables over a campfire, and laying out our clothes to dry/de-smell-ify them, etc. Our plan now is to head to the east side of the lake to see the Sun set over the western side. Then we might go for a moonlit stroll around the Steamboat Point area. It is going to be a full moon tonight, so we'll have plenty of light for a short hike. Hopefully the sky won't be overcast for ONCE and we can see some stars.
Aaaand I just sllipped in a big pile of mud. Awesome. Now all my warm clothing is sopping wet and dirty. Hopefully the Sun will be up long enough to start drying everything out (in retrospect: IT WASN'T). And I got a huge gash on my hand. So that's cool. This sunset better be FUCKING AMAZING. (Alex started laughing when he saw me fall, which was right of him to do, because I'm sure it looked hilarious. He later felt bad after he saw blood dripping from my hand. HA HA! I win due to the fact that Alex has a conscience!)
Ok, it was fucking amazing, crisis averted. We first drove by the lakeside where waves of SNOW were crashing against the beach, shooting ice pellets up onto the road. It was amazing. Then we got to Steamboat Point, which had a few thermal vents and an incredible view of the western mountains.

The superman pose is unstoppable

It was a bit cloudy, but we ended up seeing some spectacular colors as the Sun set. I was pretty blown away, and that is hard to pull off.

I don't know physics well enough to explain what's happening here. Actually I do, but I'm not going to.

On the way back, we passed the Grizzly Bear's roadside "territory" again; it turns out it is a mother with TWO CUBS. We could only see them from far away, but it is clear that they are insanely cute. I plan on being cautious when in that area from now on... pissing off a mother Grizzly might not be a great idea. jk I'm going to go in there with guns blazing.