still adventuring

Just got back today from camping with AL, Andie, and Heado. we found a fabulous free spot on the north fork of the mckenzie, 6 miles past French Pete's which is like $20 for spots. the only differences between the campgrounds that I noticed was that French Petes was really crowded and had water spigots, Homestead did not.
I've been having many adventures with AL. Thursday night we hit the town, met up with Standard and went to 3 different bars in a one block radius. My dad dropped us off at the bar, and we borrowed my brothers razr scooters to get around. We razr scooted home from downtown, about 4 miles. I wiped out a couple of times. Turning right was difficult, I guess I'm not an ambi-turner. and I blame the whiskey. I actually have a bruise on my knee. I rarely ever bruise....
I have some pictures to post but its kind of a pain to put them on my parents computer, and i'm lazy. also my digital camera crapped out (again) and I may ahve lost all teh pictures from our camping trip last night. Boo!

AL and I went to Crater Lake yesterday. Then we camped at Newberry Crater at Paulina lake. Now we are in Bend, hanging out with Spencer. I think we're going to go hike to some falls.

AL's mom read my hands. I have a gift star. Its on the bottom left there...

Misty hwy

Me in the redwoods

Black sandy beach

Drive thru tree!

road trippin'

I made it to santa Rosa! I left Eugene yesterday at 9 a.m., took the I 5 to hwy 199 to hwy 101. I got to Santa Rosa around 8. Not too bad considering all the dilly-dallieing I did along the way. I stopped for lunch at the beach, took the scenic Avenue of the Giants through the redwoods for a bit, and went and drove through the Drive-thru tree! I was looking for the drive through tree, but I don't think this one was the one I was looking for. It was pretty cool anyway. this one was cut out by somebody. the one I wanted to see was natural and I used to look at pictures of it in the Viewmaster at my grandmas house. Viewmasters are so cool....I've got to ask her if she still has those.
I tried to post pictures with my phone, but it didn't work. I will try it again......

the saga continues

It turns out that they had to order a couple of parts for my car, an 0xygen converter and an EGR valve. they got the oxygen converter, but the EGR valve is on national backorder. my ol' pal Justin at the dealership said he put me at the top of the list in some red zone or something, but it could be a few days.....the good news is that while the draining of the tank to get the gas out was NOT covered by warranty, the new parts and work on that IS. yay! praise jebus! so in that case, the rental car is ALSO covered by warranty. So I went ahead and got a car, a lil' red rental dodge neon. I rushed back to my parents and started loading up my camping gear. I was all packed and ready to go..... but I couldn't find the damn keys ANYWHERE. it was ridiculous. my mom and i searched for about 3 hours. we took apart and unpacked everything..... about 3 or more times. This included every bag i have packed that I've been living out of for almost a month now, the closet of extra stuff I was stashing at my parents, and teh trunk of the car. It was funny having my mom searching through all my stuff. She found my condom stash in my purse, probably the other one in my travel bathroom stuff bag and i'm pretty sure she may have come across "Pharoahs Secret" (the HUGE purple 3 pronged dildo I got for my birthday, for those of you who weren't there check out 68 monkey's page for pictures)which I stashed in my knitting bag. So after about 3 hours I decided to not just re-trace my steps but re-enact my actions. the last time I remembered seeing the keys was when i used them to pop the trunk and i was on the phone with AL. I finally got my phone, called AL, and went to stare at the trunk. The keys materialized before my eyes, nestled in a little corner by the trunk rubber stuff, where the trunk lid shuts.
Barring any other huge signs from Gawd that I shouldn't drive to California, I'm leaving tomorrow morning in my lil' red rental.
for tonight I think I will stay in, I've got a Buffy DVD that was forwarded from Seattle to Aubry's house. I may have already watched them with Pulpshopgirl, but I think I'll watch them again. maybe I'll even bust out some knitting, I haven't done that in awhile.

Testing mobile blog

Mercer lake and more

I spent a couple of fabulous relaxed days at Mercer Lake out in Florence. the first night I got there kind of late and was totally exhausted so I just crashed out. I spent the day lounging around with my mom, grandma and aunt ann. here is my aunt ann from Scotland sitting with my grandma Chris. My mom refers to them as the grannies.



I convinced Aaron to come out that afternoon. My mom had to take the grannies back to Eugene because they had to catch a train at 5 the next morning.
I took Aaron canoeing on the lake, he'd never been in a boat before! He'd also never been fishing before, so I taught him how to cast.



we sat on the end of the dock with our feet in the water. The water was amazingly warm. as it got darker the bats came out. I've never seen so many bats, nor had them fly so close to my head!



Aaron and I spent the rest of the night drinking beer in the hot tub while having drunken existential conversation.

the next morning was Aarons birthday. But he had to leave and go back to Eugene to go to work. my mom came back out and we lounged around some more. We took Rosie to the beach and watched her chase the birds. We also stopped at the Darlingtonia Wayside. It was so cool! I can't believe I'd never seen it before. There are a whole bunch of pitcher planst growing in the boggy forests!




eventually we left the coast and I got back in town and plugged in my phone. I had totally run out of batteries and didn't get service out there anyway. But all of a sudden I had urgent messages. the guy at the dealership had called, and Robin had called about a surprise party for Aaron that was happening right away. So I kicked into gear, ran up into the attic to find an extra sleeping bag of mine. I wanted to give Aaron one for his birthday. He's never had a sleeping bag, and never been camping.
So I rushed off to the surprise party for Aaron. We grilled and played croquet. We decorated Aaron in all the decorations, then went back to Aaron and Robin's and drank beer and hung out on the stoop.
Here's decorated Aaron in the 7-11



also, they figured out what was wrong with my car. there was gas in my diesel. I should be bale to pick it up today, I'm hoping to hit the road sometime this afternoon. if not today, early tomorrow morning. I must go rescue AL from purgatory.

almost 24 hours of adventure with Aaron and Robin

last night aaron, robin, and i decided to pack a back pack full of beers and hike through the woods behind my parents house to Mt. baldy and the ridgeline trail. it was an epic adventure. it was pitch black on the way up, we had no flash lights and the only way we could find the trail was to follow rosie and her gleaming white butt. we made it up the hill through the woods and into the meadow, where i saw a big shooting star. (there is supposedly a meteor show happening, part of the reason for hiking at night) Then we went through more dark woods and up to the top of the hill. we hung out at the top and watched the city lights of Eugene blink. then we headed down the other side of the mtn, where the trail is very pitted and rutted from mtn bike tires. by then the moon was out though, so we could see for some of the time. We got to the end of the trail and there was an ENORMOUS house being built, so we hung out at the construction site for a bit.







By the time we got back to my parents house it was really late. We found my moms "cooking" wine, just a big bottle of cheap wine, and drank some wine while watching the DVD of the pindowngirls rebar show, and then we watched bad sci-fi until we all fell asleep in the living room. It was so high school! I loved it.



then today we gathered some gals and went swimming.






Now I'm packing a bag to go back on over to florence and meet up with my mom, my grandma, and my grandmas sister (i believe that makes her my great aunt) over at Mercer Lake. the fun just don't stop.

and no, they haven't fixed my car yet or figured out what the hell is wrong with it. Hopefully they'll have it figured out by tomorrow. thats what they said anyway..... so i'm crossing my fingers

I just got nerdier

I just talked to the VW service peeps....so far they don't know whats wrong with my car. they turned the service engine light off, but its still not running right and they've been driving it around but the engine light hasn't come back on. I asked if it could jsut be bad diesel, and he said it would have to be REALLY bad, like "raw sewage bad" for it to do this. They haven't dealt with this before and they called VW technical service, but ahven't heard back from them yet. He's supposed to call me later today. Ugh. The weird part was that he asked me if I wanted to come get it, because he knew I was wanting it. I said , "Yeah, I want it but I want it working. I can't relaly drive it to california if its not working!". What is that? "Hey, want to come pick up your car? It's not fixed but you can come get it if you want."
On the fun and ultra-nerdy side of things, Braden is teaching me how to play Dungeons and Dragons. he was trying to get some friends to come over and paly, but noone could and I said I was bored so he said "Want to play Dungeons and Dragons?". We didn't do much actual playing yet, because it took forever just to get my character all sorted with the abilities and classes and equipment and whatnot. But so far I'm a halfling druid with a riding dog animal companion. I have a longbow and a spear and hide armor and I have skills in concentration, knowledge of nature, spellcraft, and survival. Pretty sweet. I still have to come up with a name for my character, and for my riding dog animal companion. I was joking with Braden that it could just be Kore-eee and Roze-eee. Yeah........

photobooth friday

anatomist and I did the photobooth at Archie McPhee's one more time before I moved......

vacay and car troubles

part 1: vacay

I left Seattle and headed south, went through Abderdeen (Welcome to Aberdeen - Come As You Are), hit the 101 and went south all the way to bustling Wheeler, OR pop. 350. I got to see Angelina, who I haven't seen since last October. We hung out, played board games, went to the beach, went to the bar, went to breakfast in a town that starts with an N that I can't remember how to spell.......

this is the cabin Angelina lives in, and next to hers is her mom's, then her grandma's, then her aunt's. They're neat little cabins, and the view is pretty. You can see the bay.



We went down to Short sand's beach. evidently they filmed part of Point Break there. There were lots of hot surfer guys. and lots of dogs running around. Rosie ran around and played in the ocean. Angelina and her cousin Zane were throwing a big chunk of seaweed for her. She went swimming after it a couple of times. Angelina went surfing, here she is getting out of her wetsuit in the parking lot.



she didn't stay in very long because she saw a big shadow of something and got scared of sharks. though it was probably just a big chunk of bull kelp.

here's Ange's cousin Zane holding a wet and tired Rosie (I love how they match!) Zane is the coolest 13 y.o. I've ever met. It's kind of cool to meet smart kids.



We went to a bar called the San Dune in Manzanita. I could watch my car on the security camera. it was pretty exciting. There was supposedly an intercom, but there weren't people walking by very often so I didn't get a chance to say "Don't touch that car, Bitches!" which I really wanted to yell over an intercom. or "Don't even look at it!"



After leaving Wheeler Rosie and I continued down the 101. we stopped in Newport for lunch and to play on the beach. Rosie, like most dogs, LOVES the beach. we play frisbee, and she chases the seagulls. it's hilarious.



here we are on the beach! with my totally awesome windblown hair-do



part 2: car trubs

Everything was going along nicely, I had just been talking to Annalisa and had figured out where I was going to camp and about how long it was going to take to get there and from there to Santa Rosa. I stopped at the Rogue brewery and bought some beer. Then leaving the brewery my car sudeenly would not accelerate. It just kind of stuck, and there were huge black plumes of nasty exhaust. Right before I left Seattle I had my fuel filter changed because I had had a severe loss of power in accelerating. everything seemed fixed until Newport. I called my dad and we decided it was probably bad fuel, (I think there may be some bad biodiesel afoot in Portland) and i should fill the tank with new diesel and add some diesel additive. I made it to Waldport, where I discovered they do not have any diesel but I found the diesel additive. Then a big warning "Emissions workkshop!" came on. when I looked that up it said "reduce speed and drive to nearest dealership." I headed to yachats, 8 miles away. I have never been so happy to be stuck going slow in construction, because I couldn't go much faster than traffic was going anyway. the first station in yachats had diesel. i filled up and added the additive, but still could barely accelerate leaving the station. I hung out in yachats for awhile, calling my dad from a pay phone (yay for business 1-800 #'s) and sitting in my car staring at the ocean, with the car running trying to burn off the bad stuff and get the good stuff flowing. So eventually I gave in to the fact that I had to get to the dealership in Eugene. My Dad talked to the guy at the dealer and he said to just drive it over. It was not a fun time. It was like driving the old diesel vw van that I learned how to drive on that was a total gutless wonder. On hills you just floor it and hope for the best. I was barely making it. It was diesel without the turbo.
Now my car is at the dealer, though they probably won't get a chance to look at it until tomorrow (saturday)

So this is just part of my car curse, i guess. See, i got a new car so i wouldn't break down everytime I tried to take a trip. But I was really really lucky that I was so close to Eugene, and not down in Northern California or something. Now here I am, at my parents house in Eugene for a few days. Which is great, its just out of order from my original plans. But I'm making the best of it, showers and laundry. I'm going to go see my grandma today and then hang out with my mom when she gets off work. I helped her paint one of the extra bedrooms yesterday evening. and I have some boxes of crap I still need to go through, from when I moved to seattle last october. I've no idea what they contain.

here, there, anywhere

my last days in Seattle have dwindled down to 1. tomorrow is my departure. It has been a really fun last couple of weeks. So fun that it makes it that much harder to leave. I've been partying fast and furious. It's going to be really hard to leave my lovely beautiful fabulous friends here. They're so good to me. I may not deserve them, but I appreciate them. Auna has let me sleep in her living room for two whole weeks, on top of that she takes great care of me and spoiled me rotten on my birthday. and I get really drunk with her boyfriend and we talk about how awesome she is. Yay! Three cheers for Auna and Chris! and to all my Seattle peeps who I love and will miss and will come visit. and who should all come visit me in Portland.

I feel like I am breaking up with Seattle.
Oh Seattle, I love you, but we're just not meant to be together right now. It's not you, you're great. It's me. I have commitment issues. I want to see other cities. It's just too soon to settle down. We've had a lot of great times together, and I will always treasure those memories. I hope we can still be friends.

what I did in Seattle: a list
1. lived in a trailer in anatomist's backyard
2. got evicted from said trailer by the city
3. became a wrestler
4. did some underwear modeling
5. a. had many jobs b. became a barista
6. made many awesome friends

now on to the traveling: I may not be able to post much on the road, so I'll tell y'all ahead of time where I'm going
first: to Wheeler to visit Angelina, then to Santa Rosa to pick up AL, then camping in the Redwoods in Mendocino, visiting Ashland, possibly Crater Lake, then back to Eugene/Portland area to couch surf/camp in backyards/ do some local camping, look for a house in Portland