All Good Things... Part 1

As I write this, I sit at the Portland airport waiting for my plane to board. That's right ladies and gentlemen, the road trip is at an end. As soon as Collin manages to sell the bus, I may make the last post. But until then, STORIES!

Yesterday's journey took us to OMSI, or the Oregon Museum of Science. It was jam-packed with interactive science exhibits. While not all the information was new, we still had fun doing fun little educational games. They also had one of the most complete skeletons of a T-Rex(you missed out Scott). After enjoying the entire museum, we headed out to Fred Myers(think Walmart). As some of the readers may know, I had collected two years worth of spare change from my room at school. Well we finally figured out how much it was. The grand total came out to (drum roll please), a large 72 dollars and 1 cent! Yeah, it was more than we thought. Still have the wad of $1 bills though. Then the rest of the night was spent playing Sins of a solar empire.

Today we had a late start, we didn't leave Collin's house till noon. We headed out to the coast, but not before stopping at a cheese factory. Cheese is delicious, free cheese is better. We eventually made it to the beach, Collin immediately broke out the shovel and made a sand castle. We then walked on the beach until it was time to leave. After stopping to get the last dinner we would be having as a group, we made our way to Fry's. Now if you never heard of Fry's, shame on you. Imagine all of new egg in store form, now your imagining Fry's. Needless to say it was awesome. Sadly it was then time to say our good bye's at the airport.

And there you have it, the end of the road trip. Its was fun and I hope that we can get the group together relatively soon.

P.S. I haven't heard from Matt, but hopefully his job interview went well.

Insanity of today

So we started our day by heading to the Portland airport to drop of James. From there we headed to Mt. St Helens. After a few hours of driving, we found out that we had been driving up the wrong side of the mountain and that the only way to get to where we wanted to be was to back track for an hour then head up the correct side of the mountain. Yeah, that was fun. We finally made it to the observatory we wanted to be at and gazed at the magnificence that was the mountain. Unfortuanly I forgot to bring my camera(don't worry Jessie took pictures, when they will be posted is a completely different story) and as such I am unable to share the shear beauty that we saw. Thankfully via the magic of microsoft paint, I have painstakingly recreated the view for your enjoyment.
That's right ladies and gentlemen, Mt. St Helens is pure white! Well not really, but the observatory was cloudy and we couldn't see anything.

Next we headed to Seattle. We wondered for a bit and got dinner. Since we where there, we decided we needed to get coffee. The weird part was that all the shops in the area we were in all closed. Apparently the majority of the cafes and shops all close at 6. After we finally found a place, we headed to the Space Needle and took a couple of pictures then headed to the airport to drop off Jessie. The rest of our day was spent driving back to Portland.

So lessons learned for today, 1. Check to see if you have the correct driving directions and 2. check the weather for outside activities.

And then there where 3

Encase you haven't been paying attention, Kurtz has been trying to get a job at GE waters. He finally had a conformation of the second interview this morning. As such, he is flying out of Portland tonight. Then tomorrow, James leaves in the morning and the rest of us will then head out to Seattle WA, where Jessie will later take flight to where ever she is heading(I think its Orlando). This leaves just Anne, Collin and yours truly(oh no, I'm the awkward third wheel!!). Lastly, Collin has gotten emails asking about the bus, so hopefully it will sell soon!

WINDSURFING IS FUN!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, title says it all. Would have been better if the wind hadn't picked up so much, but it was still awesome. And yes, that was all we did today, well aside from the pancakes this morning.

Parades, soccer, and proposals, oh my!

Today was an interesting day, that started with half of us knowing when we were planning to leave for the day, and the other half being confused. After everything was sorted out, we made our way to the Rose Parade in Portland. That was a fun time and we watched until 11, then those of us who have our priorities straight made our way to the Widmer brewery to watch the USA vs. England soccer match. Eventually everyone met up and we enjoyed the rest of the game. Afterward we made our way to down town Portland and checked out this very large book store where we wondered for a bit. During this excursion, Jessie split from the group to get an iced coffee. During her purchase, she walked into this random guy, who out of no where, proposed to marry her! Fortunately for Kurtz, she declined. After this little shocker, we made our way to the train station and took the train back to White Salmon. The plan for tomorrow is to learn how to wind surf, which should be fun.

Captain's Log, Star Date 63906.3

We have lost part of our group who have decided to start a colony on the strange planet known as Utah. We will miss Ensign Scott and Lieutenant Carolyn and we wish them the best of luck at their new home. After parting ways with our friends, we made our way to Chief Engineer Collin's home Star Base in White Salmon, WA. The journey was long and exhausting, but way made it and are currently resting from the trip. Star Fleet has given us orders to make our way to the uncharted planet named Portland after we have refueled and are ready to go.

-Captain Chris

Supplementary: You know I had to do at least one posting like this.

We now know what it feels like to be a floater

Yes, we are still alive. We have been staying at Carolyn's aunt and uncle's house who have been nice in letting us stay at their house for the last few days. During our few days in Salt Lake, we have thus far gone to the Mormon temple, well at least the outside of it, and some places down town. Today we went to the Great Salt Lake and swam for a while. Swiming in the lake is an unique experience as you will float with out trying. The downside is that if you have any cuts, they sting like no tomorrow. Tomorrow the plan is to go on a hike while Scott and Carolyn continue the hunt for an apartment.

Close Enounter of the Third Kind/ Crazy mountain

Today was filled with mostly driving, but we were able to stop at two famous mountains. The first stop was at the Crazy Horse memorial. Just encase you dont know about it, the memorial is a mountain carving of a famous Native American named Crazy Horse.Later in the day we made our way to Devils Tower, while not a mountain it was impressive non the less. The tower is made out of volcanic rock and is considered a national monument. Along the bottom we drove along a large colony of prairie dogs which we enjoyed(especially Collin).

And yes, this is the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, no we didn't find any aliens(this time).

Worst Case Scenario

We are so wet right now.
We hiked 22 miles.
Everybody fell in the river.
We got really high and found a mountain goat.
We saw a chipmunk fight a bird while feeding the mountain goat
Start: mt. rushmore
Camp: intersection of Horsethief and Grizzly creek trails
Summit: Harney Peak Elevation 7242ft
End: Spokane Creek Campground

Mt. Rushmore

Half of us are in Spokane Creek, half are unaccounted for. Some of us wanted to drop some stuff off at the campground, so we took off. Our bus does not do well on these black hills roads, so we decided to have the other people hike the 10 miles to meet up with us. They plan on arriving in the next few hours. Hope the get here safely!

On a lighter note, last night we hit Wall Drug. Wall is a super touristy town... Well, I guess more of a town build as a rest stop? We ended up staying the night at Arrow Campground in Wall, which was quite empty (read: privacy!!!) and nice. We saw Mt. Rushmore, with mixed reactions. I thought it was like the Mona Lisa: pretty, but much smaller than I thought it was going to be. Matt thought it was spectacular; Chris thought, "It was fine. Exactly what I expected. Needs more lasers." We all think Lincoln looks unfinished, but Scott thinks it looks very cool if you pretend Lincoln is bashing his head through the mountain.