wow, what a weekend.

rachel adams graduates with her master in library science this week so we all had drinks last friday at linda's to celebrate.

saturday morning, we woke up early for camping with philip and maeve. we started out earlier in the week with a destination in mind (somewhere around the enchantments) but as the weekend got closer the weather seemed crappier. so we drove until the weather cleared...3 hours to a beautiful spot in a canyon called sun lakes state park. a 10 in maeve's pacific northwest camping book.



brian and i were in charge of alcohol. i made iced sweet tea/lemonade vodka drinks, bought some rose and rainier. everyone really like the tea drink. the extra vodka is an afterthought making this drink dangerously good. we spent most of our first day out in sun lakes, chatting and sitting in the sun. grilled some hot dogs and drank more. the next day we ventured out and found some pretty amazing, secluded lakes in between canyons. one lake called deep lake, a few kids were cliff diving from. awesome! watching that reminded me of my time at possum kingdom (west of dallas?) with an old roommates' family. i jumped off a 45+ ft cliff with a pool noodle! i wonder if i will ever do something like that again...



sunday ended with a slow drive back home, vanessa was in town and stayed with us a night. we had drinks at bimbo's and a night cap at cafe presse. a great end to the weekend.

it's shit hot outside!i haven't done much at home other than sit outside on the front stoop and cool off with the neighbies and most of the past week has been spent on dave and michelle's porch.

i'm trying to finish curtains for philip and patrick's supervan but standing next to a hot iron and pressing curtains is not fun.

off to meet brian for lunch soon. i think we will dine inside today. after work we are checking out a SIFF movie, art & copy. and then just mayybe i can convince him to have a drink with me at sun liquor. yum!

camping this weekend with brian, maeve and philip. i'm bringing the holga too. i know it's supposed to cool off quite a bit but i think i'm not too bother by that notion

Roadtrip to California - Day 2 & 3 Humbolt Redwoods

We woke up on Sunday morning, ate some bagels, used our brand new french press, and took off from the Del Norte Coast Redwoods. I have to say when I first saw the north coast redwoods, I was a little dissapointed. I thought "oh yeah, I guess these trees are tall?" We drove to Patrick's Point State Park, with our pass saying we camped in a Cali State Park we got free access to any state park. Pretty rad. We decided to do a small short hike to Wedding Rock on the coast. On our small, easy hike I tripped over a root in the ground and fell hard to the ground. Scrapped up my hands and knees real good. My right knee was bleeding pretty bad and it freaked me out for a moment because I thought I was going to need stitches. I wasn't that upset about it, I think I just wanted to get to the stupid rock. By the time we made it to Wedding Rock my knee scrape stopped bleeding and I completely forgot about fall. The view was magnificent! Beautiful coastline and the Pacific Ocean that seemingly goes on for a lifetime. I think about boats out there, islands, and just how remote and vast the ocean must feel like when you can't see land.

We continued our journey to the Humboldt Redwoods, driving on a gorgeous HWY 101. When timing the trips on our atlas everything was so different when we were driving. Winding roads, avg speed of 40 mph. Nothing like the 60+mph I thought we would be traveling at. We stopped in a cute town just south of Avenue of the Giants. We found our campsite easily. The park ranger mentioned the bears in the area "are different and will want to hang with you so put your food in the car". We followed her rules, diligently. Our night was super relaxed. I got drunk on tecate and Brian and I played twenty questions.

We woke up the next morning, drank our french presse coffee and made bacon and eggs using Dave's camping stove. I love camping! I love camping in the redwoods. I constantly forgot how hugely tall the trees are. Every once in a while I would look up and giggle. The trees are just so freakin' giant! We did nothing on Day 3 except gawk at redwoods for about 6 or so hours. It was one of the most awesome moments of my entire life, there really are few words that describe how I feel about them. The redwoods are my new friends and I cant wait to visit them again.

We did nothing the rest of the day. Played a few games of rummy, drank beer, and made another successful fire. My time with Brian has been amazing, relaxing, fun, and enlightening.

camping in middle fork at the snoqualmie river was great. we left on friday night and arrived at the campsite at twilight. we aimed to get there earlier but too many stops on the way to north bend kept us running behind. in order to get to the campsite, one must cross a creek that is usually low in the summer time. however thursday night's rains swole the creek up real good and we all had to get our feet wet. i slipped and fell in the cold ass creek with regina's sleeping bag. oh, i felt terrible. luckily once we made it to camp we built a huge fire that helped dry it out. everyone made hobo packs. i made a delicious antipasti plate and began drinking my tito's vodka straight from the bottle. hah! it was so good! i was stoked when i saw that the liquor store had tito's in stock.

on saturday we all woke up later than usual for camping (9am), made food, hung around the fire, and then matt and i went fishing. he lasted much longer than me since i did not want to get wet again. matt caught about 9 fish over the whole weekend i on the other hand caught nothing. later in the afternoon more friends arrived. i was so happy to see brian. i bragged to him that i set up our tent first before anyone else. our new chairs from rei were the talk of the campsite and our new metal camping dinnerware was really nice to eat on. using all our new gear made me so so excited for the big trip.

sunday morning was relaxing and slow. we spent most of the day wading around in the river and throwing rocks at targets. when we got back to seattle, i was so tired that i fell asleep at 730pm. it felt great. i have a pretty good sunburn on my face that i didnt mean to get but on sunday the sun finally came out and took us all by surprise. it felt great.