the most wonderful time of the year

To me this is the most wonderful time of the year. (I like summer and all, but nothing beats this). No, I'm not sick and twisted. I don't ENJOY finals week or anything. I crazy about Christmas. Last week Advent started, so we're on our way. Saturday, I got all ready for the season. First, I decorated my church all blue and white for Advent (it looks so pretty in blue). Then I came home and helped Jamie decorate our beautiful live Christmas tree. It's all white, red, and gold and classy looking. I tried to take a nap, but I looked out the window and noticed it was snowing. We don't get snow often in Seattle, so it was special. Plus, this was amazing snow: big fat flakes! It was like living in a snow globe. So, to really get in the spirit, I watched my all time favorite Christmas movie, "Muppet Family Christmas." Kermit of course steals the show, but the best scene is when the Swedish Chef tries to cook Big Bird for a Christmas turkey (mmm, turkey wurkey... gobbla gobbla). Fabulous really. If you haven't seen it you should. I love it. Seriously, you have the classic Muppets, Sesame Street, AND Fraggles all together? Wow.

Adrian and I finished the night off with a Christmas party with the people I worked with last summer. We all had lots of fun, possibly do to an abundance of wine. The most entertaining might have been the group ping pong tournament. Total chaos when all of us decide to play at once to determine the order of present opening. If you know anything about me, you'll know I was the first one out. Eye-hand coordination just doesn't exist. (Except that I really rock at air hockey.) My boss arranged a bus shuttle for us all home, so even with all the snow everyone made it home safe.

So, it's time to back track a bit. Last Thursday was it was the six month anniversary of Adrian and I. I can't believe how fast that six months went. So what did we do to celebrate? Well to hint at the elaborateness, I'll say that Chad and Erin from work say that he's set the bar way too high for himself. Apparently, they think at six months, Dick's Burgers is appropriate. However, Adrian decided dating me for six months was worthy of a table. Woo hoo... I hate eating in the car in the dark anyway.

I had to back out of dinner on our actual anniversary, so instead we had a special breakfast and a special lunch. Gotta say, the banana fosters french toast was about the best meal a girl could ask for (carmel? whipped cream? bananas? in one dish?!? and I get to eat it for breakfast?). A few hours later (and not nearly enough calories burned) we had lunch at Agua Verde. Agua Verde was integral to Adrian and I getting together (and I thank Jessica for backing out on me for dinner that night).

Adrian had a special meal planned for our anniversary. Seriously, I don't expect much, so it's sort of crazy to think that we needed a third anniversary meal. Adrian kept our desination a secret. All I knew was that he had to borrow a suit jacket from his roommate, so I knew it was going to be fancy.

Since we had to change our reservation from Thursday, the meal was set for late on Friday evening. It worked out perfectly, because that meant we could go to the last Architecture Happy Hour of the quarter. (Had to get all we could out of that $12 glass for the quarter). The theme of the Happy Hour was "Dress Your Best Beerfest," so it was totally appropriate to go dressed up. I wore my red dress and my new pearl necklace.

So after Happy Hour, we headed to the restaurant. He took me to Canlis, which overlooks Lake Union. We pulled up and both of our doors were opened for us. As we walked in, Adrian gave them our name. From then on, every staff member that addressed us used his name. To explain how fancy it was, they put the napkins on our lap. Wow, now that's service. (Consider that at Dick's, you have to pay extra for ketchup). We had a wonderful meal; the food and wine was amazing. I had salad, duck, and chocolate lava cake. Adrian managed to be so sweet that he made me cry. Sometimes that boy knows exactly what whisper in my ear. The restaurant was probably most impressive when we were leaving. As we walked out, the staff again addressed us by name, got my coat without asking, and pulled up Adrian's car without a word. Wow. I felt really spoiled. Adrian told me before we started dating that he treats his girls really well. That was no exaggeration.

After all that fun, it was back to work for both of us. Today was the last day of class. Next week is finals. I have 3 classes left to finish out of 5. I have a big test for 40% of my grade, a big paper for ethics, and a little take-home exam that's worth 100% of my grade (yikes!). Sounds like fun huh? After I finish all of that, my goal is to write one last paper (the law paper from spring quarter) and possibly do my traffic school online. "Yes, Mom, I got a speeding ticket... No, Mom I wasn't going 90... No, they aren't "making" me take traffic school, they let me..." As entertaining as that conversation was, it couldn't beat the Thanksgiving dinner conversation with Adrian's aunt about why I couldn't talk my way out of it (the officer was a woman). We'll just leave the rest of that one there. Fun stuff... We fly to Chicago in like 10 or 11 days, so if anyone has fun suggestions of what we should do, let me know.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah and all that happy stuff to everyone reading this. I hope you enjoy the holidays as much as I usually do. You can all look forward to entertaining stories about our adventures with family and friends after the New Year.

where, oh where...?

It all started small. I tell Adrian that the yellow highlighter is not, in fact, the most important or best highlighter in the pack of 10 colors (arranged in rainbow order). Then, the yellow highlighter mysteriously goes missing. Not a big loss, but the rainbow pack of highlighters seems to be missing that bright sunny yellow marker.

Then it gets worse. On Monday, I use my jump drive on several computers in the computer lab. On Monday night, I realize it is no longer on my key chain where it belongs. Unfortunately, I lose a homework assignment and my work spreadsheets. The homework only took 20 minutes and was easily recreated, the work spreadsheets will take a bit more effort.

On Tuesday, still in search of my jump drive, I realize that my cell phone is missing. I feel totally disconnected from the world. I email Adrian the dilemma, but alas, his internet is down. Technology sure can be crippling. I use the technology to stalk Adrian down and wait for him outside of his classroom. (Finding someone in person is a slightly more old fashioned way to communicated, though when you figure out the location based on the internet, is it still old fashioned? Seriously, how did people function before cell phones?)

I borrow the keys to his apartment, and I'm in luck, the phone is under the seat in his car. Finally things are looking up.

Today, I'm losing it again. I am now missing my student ID. Yes, the one that unlocks doors in buildings for me. Yes, the one that allows me to print in the computer lab. Yes, the one that lets me ride the bus for free. So, I had to use my leg power and ride my bicycle today and knock on the computer lab door several times to get in.

I feel that things might be looking up though. I just found the yellow highlighter under my bed. It must be over all the hurt and pain I caused it by downplaying its importance and inherent ease on the eyes. Perhaps next I will find my ID and someone will finally turn my jump drive into the lost and found.

Until then, I'll see if I can lose my keys somewhere.

apparently it's already november

I woke up this morning and looked at my watch... (Yes, I still wear a watch, instead of relying on the clock on my cellphone and yes, I wear it when I sleep and in the shower) ... and was confused why my alarm clock on my cell phone didn't go off. The clocks fell back and my cell phone updated itself. I really could have better utilized the extra hour awake, but such is technology, being all smarter than me. On a similar thread, we were discussing watch-cellphones in class last week. It might seem a little "Inspector Gadget" but I really would love having a waterproof cellphone that I could wear on my arm and never take off. I would rarely lose the thing and it would always be "handy" to answer (sorry, I never resist the lame joke).

I haven't written a blog since school started, so I imagine I have something to say. Next week is week six of about eleven in the quarter. The first 3 weeks were really slow paced, not having any studio really made a difference. Last week, things really picked up and due to an extension in one class and a week earlier due date in another, I had a ton to do all by Friday. Add to this that Adrian moved on Halloween night, and things start getting really crazy.

Adrian and I are taking a construction estimating class, which at a very basic level is very simple. You count things, highlight them on the drawings, and then do some multiplication, addition, and subtraction. The concept is simple, but it's actually much more complex. The counting thing is easy, but it gets harder from there. We're estimating two concrete tilt-up panel two-story office buildings which have a total price around $7 million. On Friday we each had to turn in a detailed estimate of how much the concrete work would cost to do. My estimate came in at $677,711 (including my profit). The printout of the estimate was 16 pages long.

I have four other classes this quarter, none of which are really amazing. I have another construction management class on scheduling. The concept is valuable and even almost interesting, but the class itself is pretty torturous. The professor teaches directly out of the book, which wouldn't be so bad if a) I hadn't already read it and b) he didn't confuse rather than clarify what I had already read. Adrian is in that class with me to, so at least I have someone to complain to.

I'm taking three architecture classes. On Wednesday nights, I take a class about the international building code. We take an amazingly detailed look at the 667 page code. All relevant info, but quite painful to try to stay awake until 9:20 when the class gets out. Sometimes the professor even looks like he's going to fall asleep. Lots of candy and caffeine seem to help.

On Fridays I take an "Ethics in Architecture" class, which is proving to be more interesting than I expected. It's a good balance of lecture and discussion. With only seven students, having everyone talk isn't overwhelming. I'm writing a paper for it about how architecture studio fails to create students who can serve society and culture, by isolating them from the rest of campus and focusing on individual work. I've learned that it's very easy to write a paper when you feel strongly about an issue and have some background knowledge on it. I was frustrated with the amount I got done for my rough draft (about half), but my professor loved it and wants me to try to get it published in the yearly UW architecture journal, Skin.

My last class is on sustainability, sort of. I actually don't understand the class at all. We sort of just sit around and talk about ideas and thinking. I'm not sure where the class is going, and neither does the professor. It's pretty hard to describe, and very frustrating.

Besides class, I don't do much that's exciting. Adrian thought we'd take some short road trips on weekends, but we seem pretty content to just stay in Seattle and do homework and watch football. By "watch football," I mean he watches and I fall asleep. In two weeks we're going to watch the Bears/Seahawks game. That's pretty exciting. I better not fall asleep! I'm actually becoming more and more entertained by the sport, so I think I'll manage.

We just bought plane tickets for the holidays yesterday. We have a crazy airport itinerary. We're spending the week before Christmas in Pittsburgh with Adrian's family. The week after is in Stockton with my family. By the time we're done flying, we'll have been in 5 airports (Sea-Tac, Denever, Chicago-O'hare, Chicago Midway, and Pittsburgh) and on 3 separate airlines. There's a good chance someone will lose our luggage! We set it up so we have a 2 day "layover" in Chicago, giving us the chance to enjoy the city and see some of my friends from undergrad. Christmas is my all time favorite holiday, so I'm starting to get excited. (Is it too early for me to start listening to John Denver and the Muppet's Christmas album?)

So far this blog is without pictures, so I have to include our Halloween costumes. Early in the quarter when I wasn't busy at all, I spent a whole day trying to figure out what we should be. I settled on "hammer & nail." Adrian thought it was pretty cheesy, but he agreed to participate. Then one night he started laughing and explained that it's even more funny because Washington's anti-drunk driving slogan is "drive hammered, get nailed." I laughed so hard I cried as we pictured ourselves following the police officer as he pulled someone over for driving intoxicated. A lot of felt, cardboard, glue, and duct tape later, we had our costumes. I think we were a pretty big hit at the party. It was difficult to walk around with the gigantic hats. Probably the funniest part was watching Adrian dance in the hat. It gave a whole new level of meaning to "head-banging." Some of my other favorite costumes included green eggs and ham (my friends Amanda and Anisa), Jared the subway guy, Rainbow Bright, the happy tree painter guy from PBS (my friend Sam), and a nudest on strike. The hammer is currently behind Adrian's tv, and I keep half expecting someone to walk out wearing it. It makes me laugh, because it's totally ridiculous.

That's about all the fun stuff I can think of. Adrian is settling in to his new apartment with his old roommate and a new one. He's got a great view to Lake Union and downtown. Also, he's about 4 blocks closer to me, but he's 4 blocks further from campus. If you all are lucky I'll post again before January, but don't hold your breath!

A Glacier is Snow that Never Melts: Days 6, 7, & 8

Rain, Rain, Go Away
We got out of Jamie’s quickly and headed to another Super Walmart. We bought a few supplies, most importantly, an extra fleece blanket. The drive from Missoula to Glacier was shorter than I expected. I spent most of the ride working on my blog. By the time we arrived at the west entrance to Glacier, it was raining. We stopped at the Visitor Center and found out that the main road (Going-to-the-Sun Road) through the park was closed in the middle. We could drive in like 16 miles, but then would have to exit the park and drive around to the other side. Wow, the day wasn’t looking good. The ranger suggested a few shorter hikes and told us which campsites were still open for the year.

Despite the rain, Glacier proved to be amazing. We stopped at a pullout along the road. There were stairs built down to this small little set of falls. As we were checking them out, I looked down river and saw a moose drinking some water. We got a ton of photos of her. Between the moose and the pretty creek, I was starting to get over the rain and the closed road. We drove as far in as we could. Right before where the road closed was the “Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail” (nice name, ey?). I wasn’t looking forward to a hike, since my knees had been bothering me. What we wanted to see on the hike was Avalanche Creek, and lucky for me it wasn’t very far in. The creek was amazing. The creek cut through these dark purplish-red rocks. The forest around it was full of huge cedars and hemlock trees. We read on one of the signs that the forest hadn’t burned since the 1500s.

On our way back to the main road, we stopped at the creek where we saw the moose. Adrian wanted to climb out on the wet-slippery-sharp rocks. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but apparently all the warnings about drowning got to me. Apparently, the number one cause of death in the park is drowning. I’m sure he was super careful out there with his camera. He made it back to the car in less than 3 minutes, but it felt like much longer.

We headed out of the west entrance of Glacier and got on the road. We planned to camp on the east side of Glacier at St. Mary’s. The drive around the park took awhile, but even in the rain it was beautiful. The mountains looked amazing and the trees were amazing yellows and oranges. We stopped at Goat Lick overlook, but alas, the goats only lick the side of the mountain during the spring. Once we got to the little town of East Glacier, the skies had cleared up. The sky was totally blue with pretty clouds hanging over the mountain range. In East Glacier, we got a fine photo of the World’s Largest Purple Spoon. It was awesome. We drove on, enjoying the leaves. We got to the turnoff for Two Medicine and decided that taking it was a good idea. It was especially good since the road to St. Mary was closed and we could think of no alternative. On the road to Two Medicine we saw our first bear. It was a black bear and he was right along the road. We took some pictures from the car and then headed on.

By the time we got into the park by the campsites, the weather had turned nasty again. I told Adrian that if there were no other tent campers, we were certainly not setting up camp there. There were about four RV’s and one tent camper, so we decided to give it a try. We set up camp in record time, broke out the camping stove and heated up some sloppy joe’s. I think we set up camp, cooked, and ate in less than 30 minutes. It was freezing and wet. It was still too early to go to sleep, so we decided we would watch a movie on the laptop in the car. It seemed somewhat ridiculous to be watching a movie while camping, but it was warm, dry, and entertaining, so why not? After the movie, we piled ourselves under the blankets (including the new fleece from Walmart) and tried to get some sleep.

The Rain Stops But the Wind Blows
When we woke up, it was still freezing outside, but it wasn’t raining. Had we decided to take down the tent, it would have rained. We had decided to camp in the same spot two nights in a row, so with our extra time we made ourselves some pancakes. True to form, the first two pancakes I made were pretty ugly, but still tasty. The rest turned out quite nicely. The park ranger came around and told us how to get around the closed road to St. Mary. It would take us a bit longer, but we could get there easily. After breakfast, we loaded up into the car and headed out. Along our detour, we saw lots of cattle. On the way, I taught Adrian the difference between a dairy cow, a beef cow, and a horse. Now he knows when to say “Got Milk?’ and when to say “you’re what’s for dinner” and when to not find the animal appetizing.

We arrived at St. Mary Visitor Center mid-morning. The wind was so strong, the flag was about ready to fly right off the pole. The ranger gave a few hike suggestions and we started along the other end of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Along the road, we saw two coyote pups running along. We snapped about fifty pictures of them. It was a bit excessive, but they were kind of cute.

We stopped at Sun Point to do a hike that was supposed to take us to some waterfalls. Sun Point itself was a point overlooking St. Mary Lake. The wind there was so strong you nearly fell over if you didn’t lean into it. Adrian made some comment about not feeling wind like that since he was in the Navy, though the way he said it alluded to something that made me laugh crazy hard. He later would deny saying such a thing.

The hike led us to a small waterfall and Sunrift Gorge. Adrian really enjoyed the creek and the gorge. I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t just hike a mile to reach something that was 40 feet of the main road. Adrian begged me to let him climb down into the gorge. Again, I was worried about the slippery rocks, but I gave in. He took off his shoes and socks and waded across the creek. His enjoyment of it was quite entertaining. We got back on the trail to head back to the car. We had been instructed to make lots of noise as we hiked to warn any bears that we were coming. Apparently, bears don’t like to be surprised. Adrian settled on belting out Queen’s “Fat-Bottomed Girls” every few minutes. It must have been effective because we didn’t see any wildlife.

After the hike, we got back in the car to head up the Going-to-the-Sun road. The drive was really beautiful. The mountains in the park are this amazing purple color. Since it had been raining and cold, up on the peaks was a dusting of snow. It gave the mountains a wonderful texture. We stopped at Jackson Glacier Overlook, which is the only place in the park you can see a glacier from the road. We made ourselves some sandwiches and ate lunch while enjoying the view. A few miles later, the road closed again, so we turned around and headed back out of the park.

We drove a few miles north to Many Glacier, another road into the park. We stopped at a hotel on Swift Current Lake. The ranger had told us the wind would be better here, but we had no such luck. Adrian took a few shots of the hotel, which looked like a Swiss Chalet. We decided to check out the lobby (anything to get warm). There was a huge fire with couches around it on all four sides. The hotel guests were making great use of it, with their feet up, leaned back and reading books. We bummed around for a while and then went back out to the wind to get more pictures.

The creek and the falls near the hotel fascinated Adrian. He insisted on climbing all over the rocks to get great shots of them. I mostly just wanted to get out the wind, but I waited patiently, trying not to blow away. By the time we were done I was exhausted and perhaps a bit cranky. I was done exploring for the day. It was time to head back to camp. On our way out we noticed some people staring at the side of the mountain. One had a huge telescope. We stopped to see what the fuss was all about. As it turned out, there was a black bear with her two cubs. Adrian got some shots with his telephoto lens. We talked to the people with the telescope. They let us take a look and “gave” us pictures they took with it. (We had to buy their DVD of other pictures of the park).

Once back at camp, Adrian suggested we cook hotdogs on the fire for dinner. The burn-ban had been lifted so we finally were able to burn the firewood we had been dragging around since Yellowstone. It was nice to have some heat from the fire. We ate our hot dogs and had some s’mores. Soon we had burned everything we had, but unfortunately, it wasn’t even dark. We had to find something to do before going to sleep. We decided we’d watch another movie, but didn’t want to have to sit in the car. Adrian maneuvered the car right up next to the tent so we could have the laptop in the tent while it was plugged into the car. We watched “My Cousin Vinny” and then crashed out for our seventh straight night on the air mattress.

We woke up around 8 am. As we were contemplating crawling out of the covers, we started hearing raindrops on the tent. Go figure, apparently taking down the tent in dry weather would not be something we’d do more than once this road trip. It cleared up a bit so we packed up camp. Just as we were taking down the tent, we got about 2 minutes of small hail. Lovely.

We had been discussing whether we would head up to Banff. Neither of us wanted to explore another park in this kind of weather. We found a phone number in our atlas for “Travel Alberta.” As soon as we got cell phone service, we gave them a call. Adrian asked for weather information for Banff. It sounded like the weather would be equally bad as it had been for the last few days. Adrian and I decided it would be better to visit Banff in more palatable weather. I really enjoyed Glacier even in the nasty weather, so I want to come back. We decided to take a road trip to Banff NP, Jasper NP, and Glacier NP in the future.

We had stopped to make the call in front of a café called “Brownies.” We both agreed brownies would make an excellent breakfast. Well, the skim milk we washed the brownie down with was healthy at least. Now we’re back on the road headed towards Seattle.

In a few days we’ll be starting classes, so I’m glad we got out of the city to take this trip before we get swamped with studying. We saw a crazy amount of beautiful stuff. September gave us an amazing backdrop of colors to view this part of the country (so I suppose the nasty weather was worth it). Adrian and I still like each other and all that fun gooey stuff, so I would call the trip a successful one. Like our other trips, I’m sure I’ll be enjoying the memories of it for a long time.

By The Numbers
Days gone: 8
Nights slept on air mattress: 6.5
Showers Taken: 2
Distance Traveled: 2900 miles
Distance driven by Ana: about 700 miles
Stops for Gas: 14
Books on tape finished: 3
National Parks Visited: 3
Times Crossing Continental Divide: 10
Times Crossing Hudson Bay Divide: 2
Highest elevation: Dunraven Pass, 8859 feet
Pictures Taken: 1077
Pictures Kept: 353
Bears seen: 4
Geysers seen: at least 63 too many
Blog posts written about trip: 4
Word count of blogs: over 4900
Times it rained taking the tent down: 3
Times it didn’t: 1
Trip cost: $0.35/mile
Trip value: priceless (you didn’t think I could resist that, did you?)

A Yellowstone is a Smelly Stone: Days 4 & 5

Things that Look Weird and Smell Funny

Our first order of business upon entrance to the park was to find ourselves a campsite. We registered for a site at Grant Village on the south side of the park, close to Yellowstone Lake. We got our reservation and the weather forecast. Apparently, the forecast included afternoon thunderstorms and the possibility of snow over night. Wow, night number four in the tent was looking good. We set up camp one more time and got back in the car. Yellowstone has to be the quintessential American park. To view the sites, you pretty much drive to a parking lot, park, walk between 20 and 100 feet see something cool, get back in the car, and repeat.

We got in the car to drive to see Old Faithful. We crossed the continental divide, twice. Just as we were approaching Old Faithful, Adrian saw it erupting. I totally missed it. Lucky for us, they don’t call it Old Faithful for nothing, so it would happen again soon enough. We made ourselves some lunch from the parking lot to pass some time (and keep me from getting too cranky). We walked over to Old Faithful and overheard that it would be erupting again at 1:45. That gave us enough time to check out a whole bunch of other geysers in the area. I had no idea there were that many geysers in the park, much less in just one spot right next to Old Faithful. Adrian took no less than three pictures of every one we passed. Old Faithful erupted around 1:40. It was cool. Yup, once again, I rock it up with great descriptions. There’s about a gazillion geysers in the park and most of them reek of sulfur. My favorite one was this crazy clear blue, but it really smelled bad.

The plan was to drive north as far as we planned to go for the day, saving all the stops for the way back south. We drove as far as the Norris Geyser Basin. We stopped, got out of the car and did a little more hiking on boardwalks around the geysers. There’s a sign about every 10 feet that says to stay on the boardwalks, just to be sure you don’t go off the path and fall into some boiling water. I have to admit the illustration of the boy accidentally doing this on the signs was a bit funny. So, by this time, I’m exhausted and already pretty bored with the geysers (they all start to look the same after awhile). I go anyway, so Adrian can get his three pictures of each geyser. We did find one that was about the exact same color of my coat, so that was exciting. After Norris Basin, I crashed out in the car for a bit, waking up to take pictures of the random wildlife we’d catch along the road. We stopped at a nice waterfall. Our last stop for the day was at the Grand Prismatic Spring. After that, it was back over the Continental Divide, twice, and to our campsite.

Since it was cold enough for me to sport my fleece, jacket, and beanie hat all day, I was glad that we had bought firewood for the night. We decided to make spaghetti carbonara for dinner. It was somewhat difficult to get enough heat from the Coleman stove to both boil water for pasta and cook bacon, but we managed. Eventually we just threw the spaghetti pot on the fire to boil there. It tasted insanely good. I made the perfect amount for us to finish without leftovers (although it was so good I’m sure we would have finished it no matter how much I made). Since we had a fire, we made s’mores for dessert.

Around 8 pm we decided we’d try to shower in since we hadn’t had one since Jamie’s. We got all our stuff together, put out the fire, and drove over to the showers. We arrived just in time to find out it closed at 8:30 pm. We missed it by about a minute.

Since the fire was already out, we decided to make it another early night. We pilled a mountain of blankets over us and tried to sleep. Apparently, when it’s cold enough for them to predict snow, four blankets aren’t enough to keep warm. I had the pink fleece Powerpuff Girl blanket on standby just in case it got too cold. I broke it out pretty quick. Adrian is no longer allowed to make fun of the Powerpuff blanket, since it was much needed. I was slightly warmer than Adrian, because I had brought my beanie hat into the tent. Mr. Warner told us all in 5th grade that you lose like 50% of your body heat from your head, so I was all over that. Adrian was not. He considered a trip to the car for the extra blanket and a hat, but reconsidered after stepping out of the blankets for a millisecond. I offered him my fleece jacket to wrap around his head and he gladly accepted. We still barely slept. I decided another trip to Walmart was in order, we needed more blankets!

Do We Have to See More Geysers?

In the morning, it was time to pack up camp once again. We considered making breakfast, but like almost every morning on the trip, it started raining as we packed up camp. Back on the road in Yellowstone, we stopped at a few more geysers. Since geysers were all starting to look the same, I was thrilled that next destination was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. On our way, we stopped to photograph some wildlife. We saw a bull elk along the road, a bison right on the road, a coyote down along the river, and a bald eagle perched along a ridge. We eventually made it to the Canyon. The canyon had two falls, the upper fall dropped 109 feet and the lower dropped 308 feet. We parked and walked to photograph the upper falls. There were stairs built down to the lower fall so we made the trek to the bottom. We got a few pictures and then made the climb back up.

We drove over to the other side of the canyon and did the American tourist thing. Drive, park, photograph, repeat. There were several spots to view the falls. We drove through the rest of the park fairly quickly. We stopped again at Mammoth Hot Springs on the north side of the park. We saw an elk, just chilling out on the lawn in front of a chapel. Later, when we were eating our lunch, a man told us that he and his wife had watched an elk head butt a parked car. Interesting. Mammoth Hot Springs was more geysers. I was fresh out of interest in the geysers, so Adrian took off with the camera and I started downloading pictures to the laptop. We had filled both memory cards so it was time to clear them off.

The entrance to the park was just a few miles north of Mammoth Hot Springs, so once we were done there we hit the road. I was exhausted so I crashed out in the passenger seat. We stopped for gas and a few Red Bulls right before Interstate 90. I got into the driver seat to head towards Missoula to stay with Jamie once again. Adrian spent about 2 hours in the car deleting the pictures we didn’t need to save. He even started putting captions on them, which I thoroughly appreciated. We got to Jamie’s around 8:30 pm. We were both happy to have access to hot water and a shower. Apparently, we needed a good warm night of sleep, because by the time we woke up it was already 9:30.

Tenting in the Tetons: Day 3

The Middle of the Middle of Nowhere

We woke up bright and early (well, early anyway) to hit the road to Grand Teton National Park. We picked up Interstate 15 in Montana and headed south. I have never seen so little traffic on an interstate. Adrian realized he was nearly out of gas, so I started studying the map in the new atlas for places to stop. You’d figure most exits would have gas, but no such luck in the middle of Montana. Eventually we found an exit with the little gas tank symbol on the exit sign. That seemed simple enough, but we could see zero signs for gas. We head in the direction that looked more civilized (but just barely). We found the place; it was marked with a sign that said “fuel”. It was a bar that apparently sold gas. There were two pumps and they were the oldest pumps I’ve ever seen. Any older and you would have had to physically pump the gas. The only sign of life at the place was a very friendly dog. Adrian went inside and did indeed find someone. We bought a few gallons, just enough to get to the next gas station to find some higher octane fuel (Adrian’s car is particular apparently). Unfortunately, we barely made it to the next place with gas, and it was nearly as shady as the first. The tank of gas wasn’t even buried underground. Somewhere in Idaho, we finally found some acceptable gas and filled an entire tank.

The Tetons Don’t Look That Much Like Breasts to Me

Finally, the drive brought us close enough to the park where we could see the Tetons. The trees had already started changing to their fall colors, giving mountain backdrop a beautiful foreground of color. We arrived at the park early in the afternoon. Our first stop was at the newly opened Moose Visitor Center. Adrian and I really enjoyed the building design. It was nicely detailed and took advantage of some amazing views. The park ranger suggested we hike Cascade Canyon. We noted this and went to find ourselves a campsite.

We found a campsite at Jenny Lake and set up for night number three. Adrian made us sandwiches while I set up the tent. After lunch we headed out pretty quickly to catch a boat across the lake. The ranger suggested we take it to save some hiking time. It only ran until four and by then it was 3:30 or so. I really enjoyed the hike because there were so many places that were worth stopping at. It was a short hike to “Hidden Falls” which was a much prettier waterfall than our pictures of it suggest. The next stop on the trail was “Inspiration Point” which overlooked Jenny Lake. Once we got back into the canyon, the fall colors were everywhere. The trail followed a creek most of the way up, so there was always something to look at. We found a pretty sweet dam. Adrian was scared of the beavers, so he broke out the bear spray just in case he got attacked. Soon after we found a cave, which I determined was a prime location for a bear den. Seriously, it was right by water and the trail brought a steady supply of hikers for the bears to eat. What more could you look for in a home? The rest of the trail just offered spectacular views of the side of the mountain covered in reds, oranges, yellows, and greens.

On the way back, we found this tower of rocks that someone had stacked just off the trail. Since I’m about seven-years-old at heart, I really wanted to knock it down. However, I figured someone had put in all this effort to build the thing, so maybe I should leave it. Perhaps some family had been building the thing, stone by stone every time they visited the park. I mentioned to Adrian how much I was itching to knock it down. Since he’s only five at heart, he lacked my reservations about knocking it down. Twelve pictures later, the tower was destroyed.

We hiked back to the car, and headed back to camp. We unloaded all the food and cooking supplies and I made Adrian “camping casserole.” I’ve never actually cooked camping casserole while camping, so that was exciting. Since we lacked firewood and it was freezing, we headed to bed soon after dinner. Being “bear aware” we made sure that everything that could possibly attract a bear was packed safely in the car.

Since we went to bed so early, we woke up at a decent time and packed up camp. We stopped at a few view points on the way out of the park, but nothing was as nice as the hike. We did see a bull elk along the road and got a nice picture of his rack. About 10 miles after leaving Grand Teton, you enter Yellowstone. Our pass to Grand Teton covered our entrance fee to Yellowstone as well, so we were ready to start exploring our second national park.

The Road Trip "West" Begins: Days 1 & 2

It’s Thursday morning. Adrian and I have been on the road since Saturday. We’re at the halfway point of our trip, 5 days down and 5 to go. At this very moment, we’re driving on HWY 93 in Montana. To be more specific, Adrian is driving; I’m riding in the passenger seat (I’m not that good at multi-tasking). Apparently, we’ve seen a lot in the past few days. We’ve taken over 600 pictures, though thankfully Adrian spent two hours sorting through them and narrowed it down to 271. We’ll see how many details I can actually remember.

The Wedding
We left my place at 10 am Saturday morning, headed down to the Columbia River Gorge for a wedding. We met up with Adrian’s friends Royce and Stephanie to caravan down there. Royce had this plan for us to stop at Olympia (Washington’s capitol, for you out-of-staters) to get pizza. Seems a bit random, but it was on the way and it was excellent pizza. While we waited for the pizza to be cooked, we walked around downtown Olympia. We found the artesian well in the middle of a parking lot (just as random as it sounds). We stopped at a sporting goods store and I bought a fleece, which has come in handy because it has been freezing. So, we got the pizza and ate it on the campus of the Capitol. Then it was back on the road to the wedding.

The wedding was an outdoor wedding at Caroline’s house (the bride). The setting was beautiful; her backyard overlooks mountains. Behind the bride and groom was the garden, with plenty of sunflowers blooming. The groom, Kane, is one of Adrian’s architecture friends, so there we knew a lot of the people there. I’ve never been at a wedding where the bride and groom looked so happy to be there. After the ceremony, there was plenty food and beer, and thus, lots of eating and drinking.

Later in the evening, we headed to some sort of “Hoptoberfest” in town. With all those locals drinking beer in a tent, it felt very small town and comfortable to me. Adrian had a good time dancing. Unlike me, he drank enough to enjoy dancing. It was pretty entertaining (and by that I mean embarrassing). I spent most my time out of sight of the dance floor. When they stopped selling beer, it was back to Caroline’s for a little more celebrating. Caroline’s family let the guests camp in their field, so we spent the first of 7 nights on the new air-mattress. It was wicked windy, enough that the tent would blow in far enough to touch my shoulder as I tried to sleep. Continuing their hospitality, Caroline’s family provided the whole group breakfast in the morning, so we filled up before hitting the road.

Missoula Here We Come
Sunday was uneventful, we had to drive like 8.5 hours from Kane & Caroline’s to Missoula, Montana where we were crashing with Adrian’s friend Jamie. The drive was pretty insignificant, driving through south-eastern Washington was excruciatingly boring. We did make a few stops to entertain ourselves, one of them being at a Super-Walmart and the other being almost as good (but it’s pretty hard to beat Super-Walmart… they don’t have those in Seattle). We listened to the Seahawks game on the radio. They lost in the most pathetic of ways. It made Adrian a bit cranky. We made it to Montana, where I swear the sky is bigger. Adrian thinks I’m crazy, but I’m pretty sure it is. We finally rolled into Missoula and found Jamie’s apartment. We cleared a spot for the air-mattress (night 2 of 7) and went to a sports bar so we could converse AND watch football (woo hoo, football). Jamie was a lot of fun, seems like exactly the kind of person I’d make friends with.

the places that are home

Adrian and I flew to Illinois over Labor Day weekend. He got to meet the family and see where I grew up. I think everyone liked him (though my family would never volunteer that sort of information). My mom seemed not to want to offend him, forcing me to relay messages to him about how EXACTLY the salsa should be made, though she was in the same room as me. We both gave her a hard time about that.

As always it was great to be home. I was able to spend a little bit of time in all my favorite places: on my swing in the back yard, my grandparents deck over looking the beautiful rolling hills of Jo Daviess county, and of course, Tower Rock. I'm pretty sure this photo of tower rock is extremely distorted, because it never seemed that high to me. I love this picture because it makes it look much harder to climb than it is. Though it may look like I'm stretching hard to climb up, we're actually on our way down, and I'm just reaching for a camera. I swear I'm well planted and in no danger of falling off, though I'm sure my mom would feel otherwise. In a few weeks when the leaves change colors, the view from Tower Rock is unbeatable.

Sometimes I miss home, and lots of times I miss my family, but Seattle is feeling more and more like my new (possibly permanent?) home. Though it has its flaws (lack of my family, cost of buying a home) it has become a very special place to me. I feel comfortable here and if I ever complain of boredom, it's entirely my fault, because there is plenty to do and see. How could I complain about living in a place where all I have to do is walk out on my balcony to see mountains, Lake Union, and downtown?

climbing tall steep things for fun

I never thought I would climb a mountain. There aren't a whole lot of mountains in Illinois to climb. I grew up in the highest town in Illinois, near the highest point, Charles Mound. The elevation of Charles Mound is 1,235 feet. Not a huge climbing feat by any means.

Adrian kept asking me if I wanted to climb Mt. Rainier this summer. Climbing Mt. Rainier seemed like a good idea. Doing it this summer did not. I ended up talking about doing it to my friend, Josh, who goes to my church. He suggested that we try something easier first, like Mt. Shasta in California. This sounded like a great plan. A few days later, he asked if we would like to climb Mt. Adams with him. This sounded like an even better plan.

Now the only thing I really knew about climbing a mountain, I probably learned from movies. Given my terrible movie memory, this wasn't real promising. Lucky for us, Josh was willing to help. He gave us a list of supplies (non of which I seemed to have) and let us borrow backpacks and a tent.

So how does one even begin to get ready to climb a mountain? Adrian and I decided to torture ourselves running stairs. It was pretty painful. Last Sunday (after an amazing lunch, planned by my amazing boyfriend), we went to REI to attempt to get all the stuff on Josh's list. Lucky for our wallets, you can rent a lot of the stuff you need at REI. We hooked ourselves up with rental sleeping bags, sleeping pads, ice axe, climbing boots, and crampons. Unlucky for my wallet, I didn't even have an appropriate coat.

Mt. Adams is 12,285 feet above sea level. The climb itself is about 7,000 feet, over less than 6 miles. That's a whole lot of going up. Essentially pure torture on the body until you stop going up. Then you get to torture yourself because your body already hurts and you have to go back down. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Adrian and I met Josh and Sterling at Josh's place and piled our gear into Josh's blue WRX. Josh and Adrian have pretty much the exact same car, same year and everything. We left Seattle at about 1 pm or so to drive down to Mt Adams. Since some of the roads are washed out, we had to drive all the way down to Portland and back up. Unfortunately we hit tons of traffic and arrived much later than we wanted to. We had hoped to get there early enough to start the accent on Friday so that we had less elevation change Saturday. We got our volcano passes, which allow us to climb the mountain, and went to set up camp. The only good thing about not being able to climb Friday was that we wouldn't have to carry a big part of our gear. Our tents and sleeping bags could stay at the bottom.

We woke up around six to get ready to climb. Ate some food, packed our bags and got on the trail by 7:05. By 7:10 I was ready to turn around. The mountaineering boots were totally hard to walk in. Eventually, we hit parts of the trail that were sandy and rocky and I appreciated the boots, but it remained a love/hate relationship the entire day.

Eventually we got high enough that we could see Mt. Hood to the south, across the Columbia River in Oregon. The view was starting to make the climb worth it. Soon we could see Mt. St. Helens to the east. The views were particularly interesting because clouds had formed over the mountains and valleys in the distance.

Josh, the only one on the trip with any significant experience, told us he needed to stop and attend to his blisters. A few weeks before he had attempted to summit Mt. Rainier and his feet had not recovered. In order to not lose too much time, we left him behind. We made it a bit further and stopped to rest to let him catch up. We heard from a guy who summited the night before that a storm was supposed to come in around 4:30 that day. Josh caught up and we tried to take care of his blisters but they were quite large. Before we left our resting spot, we heard from a big group coming down that they had decided not to summit because of strong winds higher up. We determined that by 2:00 pm we would turn around if we had not summited.

Not far after that, I reached a milestone I had been looking forward to. Being above the tree line. I sort of expected the tree line to be a lot more drastic (looking, oh, I don't know, like a "line") but the vegetation takes its time tapering off. Trees start to look wimpier and wimpier, then you only see bushes, and later only small wildflowers, and finally only occasional moss.

Eventually Josh couldn't go any further, so Sterling, Adrian and I had to continue without him. Soon we started seeing tents. We had reached the first areas where people set up base camp to do the climb in two days. At this point the wind really picked up, making an already exhausting climb even more tiring. Trying to step up, balance on sharp rocks that could shift at any moment, while being blown by 40 mph winds, while your muscles are exhausted... doesn't this sound like fun? Oh yeah, then do it again and again until you finally get to take another break. Torture.

A few hours into the climb we reach our first patch of snow. Walking on the snow is a great break from the sharp rocks. Unfortunately, the patch is small. Soon after we reach the first glacier. (I think it was a glacier, but really I don't know.) It was time for me to use my crampons. Crampons are these metal teeth things you put on your boots to give you traction in the snow. Basically I felt like I was attaching a bear trap to my shoe. Adrian taught me to "self arrest." I actually couldn't even imagine what that meant until they told me. Basically, all it is is using your ice axe to dig in the snow to give you traction in case you slide down the slope. It seemed pretty easy until I just read about how to do it on wikipedia 10 minutes ago. Now I think someone needs to teach me for real before I go climb again.

Walking in the snow was a good break, but since Sterling did not have crampons and Adrian had not put his on yet, we switched back to the sharp rocks when we had the opportunity. If we ever climb again, everyone is bringing crampons and the ice axe and we'll climb when more of the mountain is covered in snow. Snow climbing is much easier and safer than the rocks.

At this point I announce the the party that my motivation is fading fast. It was becoming clear that we would not summit that day. Even making the false peak (Piker's Peak, elevation 11,657 ft) seems out of reach. Our GPS devise told us we were somewhere around 9,600 ft (if I remember right). We decided that, indeed, we would not summit, instead we would attempt to reach 10,000 feet.

A few hundred feet later we ran out of rocks for Sterling to climb on. He determined that he was done and would likely turn back as we climbed further on. My body was pretty much screaming at me to stop at this point, but Adrian encouraged me to make it to at least 9,800 feet. Of course, when we got to that point he convinced me another 200 feet would be well worth it. I agreed, and my body grudgingly complied. At this point the only way I kept going on was to count my steps. 20 steps, take a break, 20 steps, take a break. Occasionally, I'd get a burst of energy and make it to 40. All the while Adrian's checking his GPS to see our elevation.

At about 9,930 feet we ran out of snow. Taking off the crampons seemed liked too much effort, if we sat down, we may not have continued on. Given that they were rentals, we tested them out on the rocks. It was sort of an extreme version of wearing track spikes on metal bleachers. Luckily the rocky patch was short and we were back on snow.

Finally, Adrian stopped and announced he was above 10,000 feet. Finally, the end in sight, I make the last steps to catch up to him and plop down on some snow. We took a few pictures and reveled in the fact that had made our goal. Not making the summit was a big disappointment, but hitting 10,000 feet was something to be proud of and definitely something that sounds impressive.

Our next move was the dumbest of the entire trip. Those rocks we had just passed, still there. The crampons on our feet, still there. The combination: absolutely ignorant. About halfway down the rocks, I step on myself and fall flat on my face. Now falling flat on my face is something I've done before. Falling flat on your face on that steep of a slope, an entirely different experience all together. Totally embarrassed, I refused to turn around to look at Adrian, much less the family of four sitting right above us. Adrian attempted to rush towards me to see if I was ok, and subsequently fell flat on HIS face. I turned around just in time to catch it. I must say, that was very good for my ego. We had a good laugh at how dumb we were and decided to never do that again. We stopped to take of the crampons and I put my pant legs on to cover my newly cut up knees.

The best part of climbing (besides reaching the goal) is descending on snow. There are lots of options. Some people carry up skis, or snow boards, some sled down in garbage bags (or so I've read), many just slide down on their heels or on their bums. The technical term for this slide is "glissading." Glissading is just as fun as it sounds, and takes much less energy than actually climbing down. Adrian and I used a combination of the bum glissade and the standing glissade.

This blog is getting long. I guess it takes awhile to climb a mountain.

After the snow, the way down hurt in entirely different ways. Pretty much every step hurt because of the stiff boots unless you manage to land with your leg totally vertical, which happened about 1 out of 10 steps. Once we got off snow, we changed into our hiking shoes and life was a lot better. The rest of the way down was pretty uneventful. We paused to talk to pretty much everyone we passed. I normally dislike small talk, but something about trail small talk is really wonderful to me. Maybe I just enjoy the time catching my breath and relaxing my muscles, but I think it's something more.

Not much else to say about climbing the mountain. We're going to do it again next summer, give ourselves more time and make it. Adrian asked if I wanted to try again this year. I told him I needed to forget how much it hurt first. I think pretty much all I wrote about how much it hurt and how bad it was, but I loved it. I don't have the desire to go do this all the time or climb Mt. Everest or anything, but it was an amazing experience.

knock on wood

I should post a blog about my weekend last weekend. I'm kinda feeling lazy and uninspired to write like I normally do. Let's just say the weekend had its great moments (like hanging out with Gary and Becky, and sunning ourselves on the beautiful Smith River). It also had some rough moments (starting with my speeding ticket in California and getting worse). Yeah, good stuff. I survived. Adrian got to see me cry for the first time this week. We both survived. I'm pretty sure it only happened because I told him Sunday afternoon that it would be a long time before he ever saw that. Yeah, a long time turned out to be just a few hours.

Ok, I'm short on words tonight. My week is turned out pretty good. I've spent lots of time seeing and emailing friends (old and new). This weekend Adrian and I are staying in Seattle. Amazing. When was the last time we did that?

i ate cake for dinner

Life has been crazy this summer... I feel like my mind is about three days behind my body. I'm having way too much fun. A lot has happened since I last blogged, but I'm feeling sort of lazy so I'm going to write the Reader's Digest version.

I got accepted into the Construction Management Master's program at University of Washington. Basically that means that in May of 2009 I'll graduate with two master's degrees, one in architecture and one in construction management. Part of the reason I ended up in architecture was because I love the construction process so it seems appropriate. I actually got accepted into the construction management program at Iowa State University in high school way back in 2000, and now here I am seven years later... I love architecture but very differently than most architecture students. The technical and construction side of architecture is way more fascinating than designing and drawing pretty pictures. (I maintain that I don't DO pretty).

Two weekends ago Adrian and I went on a Hike with a few people from my church (Gift of Grace). Seven of us took a seven mile hike over on the east side of the Cascades at Ingall's Creek. It was fun to go hiking with other people. As always Adrian got some amazing pictures. Our favorite was this rock that had just a few inches of water rushing over it. It was a great place to stop and dip our feet in at the end of the hike. You can check out my Ingall's Creek Picasa album if you're interested.

Last week flew by as they have been all summer. Thursday night was dedicated to packing and getting meals ready for camping. I didn't really realize or appreciate how much work my mom must have put in getting ready for all the camping trips growing up. We headed down to the Columbia River Gorge Friday right after work. Our friend Rachel and her boyfriend Ryan came along. Adrian's car was packed to the point of near explosion. Luckily Rachel likes her boyfriend, because the back seat was a bit cramped!

Friday night we slept at Adrian and Rachel's friend Kane's parents' place. (Was that enough possessives in a row?) Adrian, Kane, Rachel, and I are all in architecture at UW. Actually Rachel graduated, but that's not the point. We woke up to the smell of pancakes and bacon. Nice work Kane. Before leaving for our hike Kane's dad showed us how he makes biodiesel. Totally a sweet little set up. I found it fascinating.

Saturday was spent hiking Dog Mountain (see photos). The hike was 7.1 miles with 2850 feet in elevation change. It was pretty difficult with lots of switchbacks. Somehow I managed to get to the top without my calves completely cramping up but it was close. Note to self, avoid workouts for 3 days before big hikes. The views of the gorge were pretty great. The top was really windy and cold but the views were great. We had ourselves a good snack and headed back down.

After the hike we went swimming at a little creek. Actually it was really cold, so Adrian and I never went in above the waist, but everyone else did. Craziness.

We stopped at Kane's so we could shower to make sure we didn't get any poison oak. After that we went and found ourselves a really nice camp site. Adrian and I cooked everyone tacos for dinner. We enjoyed the fire... burned a ton of wood... then went to bed. Adrian and I got up early to make us all breakfast (egg mcmuffins, sans egg for me). I totally dig the coleman stove, even if I can barely work the thing.

We had to get on the road quick to make it back to Seattle for the Blue Angel's airshow which was part of Seattle's annual Seafair. We made it to our spot along the water with absolute perfect timing for the start of the show. Adrian got great pictures with his telephoto lens (see the pretty blue planes here). It was really really fun. Adrian knew all these random facts about them from his time in the Navy. Apparently he's even worked on their planes.

I'm sure I have a ton more I could write about, but I'll never sleep if I write it all. This summer is one of the best I've ever had and it isn't even done yet. Left this summer is a wedding down in California, climbing Mt. Adams, a trip home to Illinois so Adrian can meet my whole family (and to celebrate Meghan and Jake's wedding), and possibly a trip to Portland. We're also taking a week off before school to travel some more. We might head down to southern Utah, maybe climb Mt. Shasta in California, maybe go to Yellowstone, maybe some other national park in Montana... Probably not all of those things, but we'll see what all we can squeeze in. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Wait, I was exhausted before I started thinking about it. School should be relaxing compared to all this.

Phew, so that's my update. Most of my time outside of work is spent being all "goooooggly" over Adrian. That's my sister's word for it anyway. I think that quite aptly describes how I feel about him. Lucky for me he's quite "goooooggly" over me too.

Oh and just for good measure I find it necessary to point out to the whole world that my boyfriend not only owns the movie "Love Actually" (great movie but kind of girly), but he also owns "the Notebook" (and probably cried watching it too, who wouldn't...) Now I find this pretty amusing and cute that he owns these movies, but the other day I noticed he owns "Titanic." That's just wrong. Even if it did win lots of awards and make lots of money. I'm pretty sure he's been hiding it under his bed because I never noticed it before. What's next? Hope Floats? Dirty Dancing? Clueless?

Time for some sleep so I don't die of exhaustion before the end of summer.

the only stupid question

My brother, Drew, asks a lot of questions. Actually, "a lot" doesn't even to cover the amount he asks. Growing up I always remember him asking the questions when we were in the car. Not that I remember him asking it, but the type of question would be like: "why is the sky blue?" Usually not impossible questions, but frequently ones that no one in the car knew the answer to. My mom would try to come up with answers, but at some point she just ran out of answers and started saying, "I wonder."

I find it convenient to blame my personality traits on my siblings, so I like to think that the reason I don't ask many of questions is because of Drew. I tend instead to take things at face value. What I see IS what I get. Unless forced into small talk, I don't ask much. I usually just sit back, watch, and listen and eventually figure things out. Most of the time my questions get answered eventually without me asking.

To be totally honest, the other reason I don't ask a lot of questions is that I like people thinking I already know all the answers. Actually, that isn't true, I doubt people think that about me. I simply don't like them knowing I don't know something when I do ask. It's one thing for someone to think I'm not perfect and all knowing... it's another thing to have proof.

Sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me, as it did late in the day on Tuesday at work. Our office is two floors of totally open studios. We don't have cubicles. My boss, Brian, sits directly across from me. He doesn't have any walls either. Generally the office is really quiet (well, upstairs where I sit it is). Brian walks upstairs and tells Erin to turn the music he's listening to through headphones on so all of us can hear it. Apparently it was too quiet (which I would agree with).

So Erin turns the music on, and I recognize it, but I just can't quiet place the name of the band. All I know is that I'm pretty sure I own the album that is playing and I like it. I have a horrible horrible auditory memory. I usually can remember about one line of lyrics from a song. The only song I consistently name when it comes on the radio is Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" (random song to know). Since it's the end of the day I'm packing up my stuff. Before I leave, I can't stand it anymore, I have to ask.

"Erin, what band is this?"

All the sudden behind me, Brian stops mid-sentence and says, "look over your head" while Erin just keeps saying, "seriously?" while laughing.

Oh man, bad news. I totally insulted my boss's favorite band. Above my desk, directly above my computer is this six foot tall poster of U2. There are only two pieces of decoration on the whole floor and both of them are giant U2 posters. You would think that since I own the particular U2 album that was playing, I would recognize it. Not so much. I stammered half coherently about my bad auditory memory and trying to defend myself by explaining I owned the CD. I don't think it helped my situation at all. Everyone thought it was pretty funny. It was, but I turned pretty red. This is exactly why I don't ask questions.

So, the moral of the story is: maybe there aren't any stupid questions, but there are lots of questions that might just make you look a little stupid. As for me... I'm going to think twice before I ask the next time. I didn't really want to know that bad anyway.

i'd vote republican if it got me longer weekends

I woke up to the sound of rain on the pavement this morning. (Well, and the sound of my phone beeping to wake me up). I love the rain. One thing I really miss about the Midwest is the thunderstorms, they're so amazing in the thunder. I miss the nights on my parents porch watching the lightning or getting woke up by a huge clap of thunder. Seattle doesn't have storms. I've seen it lightning twice since I've been here. Both times everyone stopped what they were doing to watch because it happens so infrequently.

So my summer seems to be flying blissfully by. Work seems to occupy a bigger chunk of time than I remember. That five hours between getting home at six and going to sleep at eleven sure fly by. The only way I seem to get things done is to wake up at 6 am.

Adrian and I are trying to take maximum advantage of the beautiful place we live in. Despite being exhausted, I agreed to go up camping in the North Cascades last Saturday night. We tend to camp with little preparation (and by tend I mean the twice we've gone). Even though I have equipment to make meals, we live off of granola bars, fruit, and s'mores. Totally manageable when you're only camping one night. Adrian is pretty good at planning where we go, but beyond that he has a bit of trouble, particularly in packing for himself. I couldn't resist making fun of him for packing only one pair of shorts, no pants, and nothing to swim in. But hey, he remembered a jacket this time.

We got up to the Cascades midafternoon (we can't seem to get out of town before eleven). We took in some amazing views along the roadside and then found ourselves a campsite and set up camp. We have a nice little devision of work. I put up the tent and get our sleeping bags set up and he gets the fire ready.

We did some hiking then decided to try in swim in the lake that had probably been all snow further up the mountain a day or two ago. What I'm saying here was that it was insanely cold. Even the kids were cold and kids will swim in any temperature. It took a little convincing, but I jumped in off the end of the dock. It was bad. Pretty much cold enough to hurt. We got out immediately and I thought that was that, but then Adrian pushed me back in. Apparently I went in too willingly the first time.

We spent the evening playing with our fire and Adrian's camera (check out my Picasa Album). Probably the most entertaining part was listening to our neighbors' drunken fire conversation. ("That's pretty cool, huh?" x 148) Too funny really.

Of course it rained a little that morning so that my tent would be damp once again when I put it away. (I'm lacking a yard to air it out in). We explored more of the road through the park and forced ourselves to make one more extremely difficult hike (one mile and no elevation change) up to Rainy Lake. As you can see in the picture, it was totally worth it.

Basically after that we went home. The rest of the night was pretty good too (who am I kidding it was amazing) but it was really just me and Adrian hanging out so there isn't much to say, other than we're both stupid crazy about each other. I'm still recovering from all the mosquito bites. With my lack of self control it's making me itch like a girl in tights before her piano recital (which trust me is REALLY bad itching!).

Time for another day at work. I hope the rain holds off so I can play frisbee with Jessica tonight.

gotta love the rebel (especially the digital rebel)

Check out the hike Drew, Vanessa, Adrian, and I took at Mt. Rainier: web album of Mowich Lake. So much beauty in my backyard.