#trip recap

[minniesplaytime]

Barry had a fun time at the hotel! And we ate way to much White Castle 😅

[s0lisawesome]

SIGHS IN RELIEF

GUESS WHO'S BACK F- FRICKERS!! (hi blue :]) HOLY HECK I MISS MY THERAPIST.

Yell and shout at me all you want but I CANNOT survive in the wild- 😔

Wisconsin is COLD.

I was COLD and SWEATY and LONELY and CRAMPED and LOVING AND WANTING TO GO HOME AT THE SAME TIME.

oh and I got carsick and had a massive headache the entire way back.

But other than those cons, I had an amazing time!!! Highly suggest going to the peninsula and going to Pebble Beach. It's really peaceful and calm there. Not to mention that there's no sand and the pebbles are actually comfortable to sit on!!

Lol my dad fell in while kayaking in another lake and now he's traumatized and doesn't like kayaking anymore-

I would go again, but next time, we're going without my anxiety infested frenchie, and the other frenchie who doesn't bark, but is quite stinky. My chihuahua was the only one who somewhat behaved cuz her and her anxious sister kept barking at people who passed by our camp spot.

But she's used to traveling cuz she's always in the car with us. We worship my chihuahua 🙏💪

But hey! I'm back and ready to post art again!! I totally was NOT thinking about ShadowVanilla the entire trip guys trust. And even when my family is a pain in the a- neck, I still love them and am looking forward to traveling with them again <3

[provenance]

Four day trip to Louisiana (and Mississippi) completed:

Three college visits with my niece and my Momma.

my favorite cousin's baby shower where I managed to evade any questions about my personal life and managed to withstand the dull roar that is my family

A lovely expensive fancy dinner with my parents and my niece where my niece discovered she *does* like steak and has a fine taste for wine. And then we walked home through the Quarter and my Mom had to hold my niece's hand for her stability and the locals behind us spotted this and said "see that's why she's holding her hand- she's wobbly- We gotta get wobbly drunk!" 😂

Had a family bbq where my Dad made the best bbq I have had in a while and my Aunt Faye made me the strongest martini I have ever had and then kept filling my (sparkly) wine glass and then I got really chatty with family members I normally avoid talking to for fear of offending them.

Stayed with my cousin and her husband and we got to tell my niece all the reasons she should stay in Louisiana for college (mostly that family is nearby and it is cheaper) and how LSU has improved so much since we went there haha.

Met a new batch of (second) cousins that were pretty darn cute.

Spent two afternoons alone with my niece- one we walked around the Quarter chatting and eating popsicles. The second we went to the 'new' but 'now only' mall in Baton Rouge and went to Francesca's, Sephora, & Hot Topic (lol).

The most impressive feat for me? Managed to go by tons of places and old apartments and not be haunted by memories of long lost ex-bfs and friends. That's growth!!!!

[edukaition]

Part 4 of our PNW road trip: the Oregon Coast

After waking up early at Kalaloch and tearing down camp, we got on the road pretty early in the morning. We made a quick stop at Lake Quinault so Nick could show me the area he had stayed in when he came to Olympic National Park a few years back, including the world’s largest sitka spruce, but we were on our way to Oregon pretty quickly.

Crossing over the Columbia River to enter Oregon was like a breath of fresh air (and sun!). It seemed to immediately get warmer, brighter, and lighter. However, we didn’t realize that although it’s no longer the law, most gas stations still won’t let you pump your own gas. Nick kept getting in trouble for forgetting and starting to do it, and then the workers would get all offended. 

Our first major stop was at Cannon Beach, which was a bustling tourist town with plenty of boutiques and restaurants. We struggled to find a parking spot, but once we did we took off down the beach toward Haystack Rock, a giant seastack much more impressive than those we saw in Olympic. We ended up getting super warm and waded through the water with our pants pulled up and our shoes off - it felt amazing.

We ended up spending more time than we planned in this town since we liked it so much. The brewery (Pacific Coast) was also a total win, with dogs on the patio, delicious beer, and fresh caught fried fish. We both ended up buying shirts there and were tempted to stay even longer, but we had a lot of coast to cover.

Driving along the coastline was fascinating. Every 20-30 minutes we’d hit another tourist beach town, each with its own unique personality or flair. Some were more downtrodden, some were super expensive looking. There usually wasn’t much in-between. We found out later that a lot of the towns have main drags closer to the shoreline that we had missed being on the 101 highway, but even without that, we were enjoying the sights and stopped quite often to get out and walk.

Our destination for the night was a first come, first served campground in Florence called Washburne State Park. Nick really wanted to see the sunset again, so we stopped at a town about 20 minutes north of there and found some beach to walk down to. We then stopped a brewery (Yachats Brewing Company) which only served fermented food and had kombucha on tap with their beer. We had such a large, late lunch that we didn’t eat a ton (shared an appetizer) but we were both exhausted from a long day of driving.

Finally, after dark, we arrived and found a campsite. Setting up in the dark wasn’t ideal, and in retrospect we probably could have just slept in the car (which we did do later on in the trip). However, it was nice to just crash after a busy day of planning on the fly!

[edukaition]

Part 3 of our PNW road trip: Olympic National Park

The next morning we woke up to clearer skies, which was honestly so exciting! We decided to make another trip up Hurricane Ridge after taking down camp and were greeted to much more visibility compared to the day before, even though it was still cloudy. We didn’t linger for long, since we had quite a day ahead of us.

On our way through town, we finally made a decision. We stopped at the local bookstore in Port Angeles and purchased a travel guide to Oregon. We would stay one more night in Olympic since we had reservations, but from there on out - we’d be using this guide and limited cell service to plan the rest of the vacation on the fly. 

However, we still had our day in Olympic to enjoy and although it was a little chilly and misty, it wasn’t pouring rain like it had been the day before. We headed out to the Pacific coast and stopped at both Rialto and Ruby beaches to walk around. Rialto was super rocky and the waves were coming in pretty hard. Ruby was a little sandier and is where we saw a dead baby humpback whale on the shoreline. It was fascinating to see up close, but obviously also super sad.

By late afternoon, we had made our way to Kalaloch, where we were spending the night right near the beach. We set up camp early, attempted to dry out our clothes from the day before, and made an early dinner of chicken and corn burritos. This allowed us plenty of time to head down to watch the sunset, which coincided almost perfectly with low tide. This beach was pure sand and seemed to stretch on forever. 

We saw the Tree of Life with its suspended roots and this is where I SAW A SEA OTTER. I didn't get very close but it was very clearly a sea otter playing in the waves near the shore. 

Honestly, this evening at Kalaloch was one of my favorites during the trip. Everything seemed calm and lovely and serene. A night I’ll never forget! 

[colorado-wildflowers]

These boots and those legs and my body took me over 100 miles this last 9 days. 

It’s always been kind of a silent goal of mine to get to 100 miles over one of these trips: we’ve been doing a big parks trip over spring break for years now. 2014 was the epic road trip to Bryce and Zion and Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. 2015 was back to Zion for an entire week. 2016 was Palo Duro State Park and Big Bend National Park in Texas. This spring break was Arizona and so much more. 100 miles. 101 to be exact, over the last 9 days. When it became clear a few days in that we could really make it, pushing past 10 miles a day easily, I knew I wanted to make it happen. But I still kind of can’t believe I did.

Even crazier, when I looked at my FitBit stats for floors climbed (a measure of elevation gain) and added them up, I got 15,800 feet. With hiking to the top of 2 different mountains and that many miles of hiking, it makes sense but damn. That’s almost exactly 3 vertical miles. In just 9 days. 

This trip was so good. We went so many places and a lot of them were entirely unplanned. The end goal was always Sedona, Arizona but the stops along the way and after were entirely up in the air and whatever was close and sounded like something we wanted to do. Most of the hikes were unplanned too: we just kind of went on AllTrails and picked some things and got suggestions from locals and other people spending the week. We ended up going to:

Capitol Reef National Park 

Bryce Canyon National Park 

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument 

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (Horseshoe Bend)

Lake Powell, Arizona

Antelope Canyon (Navajo land)

Tuzigoot National Monument 

Montezuma’s Castle National Monument 

Red-Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness (Coconino National Forest) 

Mesa Verde National Park 

Arches National Park 

We camped in 3 different places and stayed in one cute cozy motel room. We visited 3 different states: Utah, Arizona, and somewhere in Colorado we’d never been before (Mesa Verde). We climbed mountains, saw cliff dwellings, slept on a beach, walked through a slot canyon, stood in a vortex, stood inside of an arch, hiked primitive trails, and once went almost 5 days without a shower. We drove 2,261 miles and for 47 hours. And still managed to walk over 100 miles. How incredible is that? 

I always say this, but this is one hell of a trip to remember. Thanks for following along for all of it, y’all, it was a wild ride of a week.

[edukaition]

Colorado Trip Recap, Part 3: Hike n’ Crisis (RMNP Day 2)

Despite our best intentions to get up early and start the day (especially with the time change working in our favor), by the time we had breakfast (and enjoyed the antics of a magpie at our site) and got ourselves ready for the day’s hike, we were met with a full parking lot at the trailhead we had wanted to start from. This meant a shuttle bus ride through the park, which allowed for some lengthy conversations with a few other groups of Midwesterners.

Once we got to the trailhead, it was a whirlwind of a day from there. Our loop took us to five glacial lakes and a waterfall before dumping us out at another shuttle stop (which was the unexpected benefit of not driving ourselves) for a total of about 10 miles.

The first stretch of trail was pretty heavily populated, much like the trails we had encountered right off of the Trail Ridge Road the day before. This was our first time going to a National Park in the fall as opposed to the summer, and the biggest difference we found was that we encountered way less children/families to pass and many more retirees, whether they were solo, in couples, or small groups that clumped up the trail. For the most part, this was a more positive experience since they tended to be decently well-equipped and aware hikers compared to the more touristy families or young couples (though we weren’t completely immune to those either).

We hit Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake all in fairly quick succession at the start. There’s a reason this hike was so popular - you get a lot of bang for your buck without too strenuous of a hike. Nymph Lake was covered in lily pads, Dream Lake was beautifully clear and gave us our first sight of glaciers for the day, but Emerald Lake was my favorite in that first half of the day. Climbing up to a bluff above the lake, you got a full view of Hallett Peak and Flattop Mountain.

After stopping for lunch (where Nick had pikas running across his lap!) and exchanging photo ops with another younger couple sitting on the top of the bluff (the key to so many nice photos together from this trip was reliant entirely on taking advantage of other couples who were awkwardly trying to take a selfie by offering to take their picture and then ask them to return the favor), we backtracked slightly back toward Dream Lake to begin the second half of our day.

Turning off from Dream Lake toward Lake Haiyaha instead of back to the trailhead, the change in vibe on the trail was almost immediate. We saw very few people on our more strenuous stretch toward the higher glacial lake. A group of hikers around our age whose speed must have reflected less issue with altitude than we seemed to be having, a couple more haggard older couples with gear that reflected their experience, and hardly another soul. There was quite a bit of elevation gain and I was having to stop quite a bit, so I grateful we weren’t holding anyone else up as I paused regularly to catch my breath.

We were both pretty tired by the time we reached Lake Haiyaha and upon arriving, it didn’t really seem all that impressive. We stood up on some rocks and looked down a tiny “lake” while the younger group we saw before did some parkour-like activities on the rocks nearby. It took another group arriving for Nick to realize we weren’t actually at the lake yet - it was just another 100 yards or so across the boulder field, obscured by some high altitude-pines. While many of the earlier lakes were clear or brighter blue, Lake Haiyaha was a much darker, deep teal and more unassuming with a less dramatic backdrop. Still, I’m glad we didn’t turn back around oblivious to the hidden lake behind the trees.

The way back down was much easier, but all this did was prepare us for another challenging switchback up to the Loch, the last glacial lake we would visit that day. However, the Loch ranks up with Emerald Lake as my other favorite sight of the day. You could take in Andrews Glacier just beyond it (which I had to dissuade Nick from wanting to hike out to as well - we just didn’t have time, unfortunately) and the sun was shining and hitting it in just a really magical way.

The last stretch down from the Loch and through to Alberta Falls was beautiful and full of Aspens. This section of the hike was actually probably one of the more visually stunning, but because of fatigue setting in by this point, I don’t think we appreciated it as much as we should have, as we were rushing to finish. I had mistakenly thought the shuttle bus stopped much earlier than it did (I got the times mixed up with the shuttle for something else later in the trip), but once we realized we didn’t have to rush back, we were still pretty tired and wanting to be done for the day.

Alberta Falls was pretty, but after having been to Niagara Falls, Tahquamenon Falls, and Chapel Falls all within the past couple years together, I think it just didn’t seem super impressive in the way those did. It was also very crowded, as we reentered tourist territory on the other end (a lot of people were hiking from the opposite trailhead up to the falls and back). What was quite cool was seeing the cut-out canyon along the trail and all of the other water connecting from the Loch down to the falls.

Finally, we were back at the trailhead and after not too long of a wait, got on a very crowded bus. We spent the bus ride back, holding on for our dear lives and talking about how excited we were to change our clothes, use baby wipes to “shower,” cook something delicious, walk down to watch the elk again, and then make a fire and wait for the stars to come out since the sky was looking so clear.

We came back and walked over the bluff from our car to the campsite, to find…..our tent collapsed, with a broken fiberglass pole that had ripped through the rainfly on its way down. Nick, who had been being overly cautious with our food in the bear locker, etc. immediately was nervous it was from a bear, but our neighbors confirmed that it was from a strong gust of wind, the same type we had been feeling all night before while we slept.

Gone went all of our plans as we tried to salvage the situation. We got out the tent repair kit, but because of the way the fiberglass had shattered, it just wasn’t realistic to think we could make amends. Another neighbor came over and gave us some advice, as well as a wooden piece he thought we might be able to reinforce with. Our duct tape failed us. After a half hour or so of attempting to fix it, we realized it was futile. After talking with our neighbors (who all really stepped up and were super helpful in our moment of crisis), we decided the best course of action was to drive the hour back to Boulder and try to make it to the REI before it closed. Because it was already quite late, we also made the decision to stay the night there instead of trying to come back. It was our last night in RMNP anyway.

It was sad to say goodbye to that awesome campsite so soon, but we had a lot more nights we needed a tent for this trip, and since the tent was under REI warranty, we knew they would replace it. So we packed up, giving our extra firewood to the new neighbors (also from Michigan!) who were unloading their car and we loaded up ours. I quickly found us a hotel (a little more “budget” than I intended to, but we survived and learned our lesson) and we were in and out of REI in less than 15 minutes, which was a relief since we arrived less than a half an hour before it closed. They replaced the tent and we only had to pay the difference in sales tax. The only other tragedy was in our haste to pack up the tent, I left my camping blanket (just an old, queen-sized fleece) inside and wouldn’t realize until the following night when we were hours away.

But there were a few perks to this disaster - showers after a long day of hiking, some Wifi/cell service, and the opportunity to grab a beer and have a heartier dinner that wasn’t cooked over a camp stove. We had only been out of civilization for two days, but after the day we had, it was much needed and I crashed hard that night, ready to hit the road early the next morning for the next section of our adventure. We both acknowledged how proud we were of both ourselves and of each other for how we handled the very stressful situation, and how easily we were able to come to a decision of how to fix it and act fast to make it happen. In the past, we haven’t always handled these quite so gracefully and communicatively together, so it felt like an important milestone for us. Silly maybe, but certainly nothing to scoff at.

[martintmedina]

Asian Sensations

I'm writing this post flying in a plane back from Asia where I spent the last two months of my summer working in Hong Kong. After a couple weeks in Miami going to a lot of different shows, working on music, skating, and chilling with homies I flew halfway around the world for the adventures that awaited for me.

From the second I got on the plane I was excited and ready to go. Throughout my whole time in Asia, it was an extremely eye opening experience for me. Although I've already spent time in Asia and I mainly went to work for 8 weeks doing an internship, this trip was so much more than work.

Work wise, I got a lot of work done. I worked two jobs and worked well over 60hrs per week. Through this experience, I learned so much and helped develop a platform for a new non-profit organization to match donors with charities in need of donations. I developed new skills and pushed my comfort zone as I designed and built this website.

Apart from work I learned so much and grew as a person as well. I experienced new things, traveled to new places I'd always dreamed of visiting. I stayed on my music grind and spent many nights in crowded basements listening to techno well into the early hours of the morning. During the day I would work at the office and at night I'd either skate, work on music, or just chill with my roommate viben. On weekends I'd spend most of my time relaxing and meditating at various temples, working on music, skating, traveling and in various underground clubs.

I met a ton of people and made so many friends. I'd like to once again thank all my homies for your hospitality and going out of your way to help me and make me feel welcome.

Prior to my arrival in Asia, I had a rough couple of months with school and several other things leaving me stressed and confused. My mind was honestly all over the place so it was good to get away and reset for a couple of months. This kind of trip was exactly what I needed and I'm so glad I took the opportunity to go to Hong Kong.

I'm coming back to America focused and ready for whatever challenges lie ahead. I'm excited for what's to come and trust me there are big things I'm working on. I've been putting in work and steadily been grinding. Hopefully, it will all pay off in a big way. Bring on senior year, let's get it.