The social began for me Aug 4, Friday night at Mikel’s apartment. I wasn’t able to go with the others to the airport because my camp’s horse show was that day and I had to be there. Even so I still had to rush out and abandon them right after the awards so my dad could drive me up to San Francisco and drop me off on his way to the Giants game. At Mikel’s dozed for a few hours in the recliner next to the door while a cute little kitten named Boo dozed on my knee. Then at 10:00 pm we were both scared awake by a group of people bursting into the room, but I was still too groggy to really know what was going on. These were of course the arrivals from the airport. Eventually I worked up to a state of kind of sort of awake and moved to the floor to work on a mystery puzzle with noire and Jat and occasionally Kheltan (though most of the time he was with Master Andra and Bob discussing guns and hunting and other things that made me sick to my stomach). We finally went to sleep whenever it was we finished the puzzle, probably around 3:30am. Well, maybe not sleep but we were lying down at least. The kitten was having fun hitting the curtains and little jingly balls as hard as she could all night.
The next morning was spent packing up and trying to find Jat’s car in the parking garage, then off to Mikel’s house in San Jose to decide what to do. Nothing much happened there other than the guys trying to see how many pretzels they could eat in a minute. We went out to lunch at some Italian place in Milpitas and Mikel and Bob left after that while the rest of us went to the guys’ hotel. Most of the time there was spent looking at maps and by Jat trying unsuccessfully to take interesting pictures of us. I do remember calling my mother from the hotel room and not being able to think of anything suitable to tell her when she asked me where I was (“you don’t know where you are??”). I think she eventually just gave up on me. MA had someone to meet that night so Jat took me, noire, Mori, and Khel to my house to hang out until it was time for the car rallye and she went home. There’s nothing to do at my house so that was very dull. 6:00 pm finally came and my father, Mikel, and Bob arrived and we all headed off to the rallye starting point (Mori and Khel were of course introduced as noire’s friends from college). We stopped at Taco Bell for dinner; I think my dad had a lot of fun explaining how car rallyes work and never seemed to notice the blank looks on everyone’s faces. Anyway Mikel, Bob, and Mori were in one car and noire, Khel, my dad and I were in the other and I think everyone had fun despite the fact noire could never find an open bathroom (she did find a locked one) and that my dad followed us through the park b/c he didn’t think it was safe. The rallye ended at a pizza place around 11:00 pm and everyone headed off their separate ways.
Everyone arrived bright and early Sunday morning at the stable I work at for our horseback ride. MA had Todd, noire had Calgary, Jat had Cody, dk had Copper, Mori had Timmy, Khel had Apollo, Mikel had Liberty, Bob had Socks, Gina had Cowboy, and I had Big Red (those are all the horses’ names btw). I took them on a long, hilly trail and everyone enjoyed it except maybe dk b/c Copper was being lazy that morning. Then again I didn’t enjoy the ride too much since my horse was being stupid and I almost got hit by an idiot mountain biker who came flying down the hill way over the speed limit and on the wrong side of the trail. I hate bikes. Anyway, other than that the ride went well and afterward noire and I headed to her house so she could pack while everyone else went off to dragonkitty’s cafe downtown where we eventually met up with them again. Next we walked through the park where some really horrid “music” (if that’s music then I’m the queen of England) festival was being held and went over to Pizza Chicago for lunch. Then more wandering around downtown and Japan Town. Nothing to see there, so we went to browse a really expensive mall and spent most of the time there looking at puzzles and buying gooey wiggly things (which Mori hates b/c he has to clean them up in his bookstore all the time) in a game store that was going out of business. Oh, and MA and Khel have a bad habit of wandering off together all the time and then can’t be found. The mall wasn’t very interesting, so we spent a few minutes standing around in the parking lot wondering if the shoe on the ground was Mori’s and deciding when and where to meet the next day. That done, we departed and I went home to pack.
Monday morning we met at Jat’s house at some ridiculous time like 8:00 am and sooner or later we all headed off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Jat, noire and I were the only ones who had to stand in line, so once we got inside we had no idea where anyone else was and just went off to look at things by ourselves. I think we went out on the big observation deck outside after that and everyone was standing around there. We wandered around the aquarium some more while dk, her cousin, Mikel, Bob, and Mori apparently spent nearly the whole visit eating in the restaurant. We didn’t know that so for a while Jat, noire, MA, Khel and I all went off in different directions looking for them. Everyone (except Mikel and Bob who were looking at jellyfish) magically reappeared when we had all turned back and given up looking for them. There’s only so much to see at the aquarium itself and pretty soon we went wandering down Cannery Row and stopped at a few places to buy fudge, candy, and lunch (hey that reminds me, I still have a big bag of jelly beans). Very good clam chowder and calamari to be had wherever it was we were (I have no idea what the name of the place was). Next we stopped at some gift shop thing and a photography gallery and looked at all the pictures and read the rules of photography, then we went back to the aquarium to take a few pictures. After that it was time to leave. We stopped by noire’s house on the way so she could get her jacket and we could hold her pet snake, then it was back to Jat’s where we reorganized cars and began the drive up to Oregon. I drove dk’s mother’s BMW with dk and Mori for passengers. I guess dk was tired from driving to the aquarium so she made me drive. This was fine with me except that we had to drive through San Francisco and I hate driving in cities! I get very tense and upset with everyone driving around me, plus dk told me to go the wrong way and we had to double back and catch up to MA’s car, which was waiting for us at the Golden Gate Bridge. We took a small break there and MA and Khel had some odd compulsion to climb to the top of a big section of redwood tree there. I think noire may have tried it too. Then we were off again for a long, windy drive up 101 along the California coast. Did you know BMW’s have GREAT brights? They lit up the whole forest! I love driving in the mountains; I just hate being driven in the mountains, the curves make me carsick unless I’m the one in control. Anyway I had fun even though dk slept most of the way and every ten seconds I could hear Mori snickering at some book he was reading. We made it to our motel in Crescent City about 1:30 am and just collapsed. Then we got this evil call from the guys next door saying they wanted to see Crater Lake and that we’d have to get up frightfully early the next day. Sigh.
Tuesday morning, Aug 8 we did slowly creep out of our room for another day of driving and wound our way through the very pretty scenery of northern California/southern Oregon to Crater Lake. More mountain driving for me, yay! We made it up to the lake, which is the top of a collapsed volcano, and sat there for a long time looking at it and the friendly little squirrels and watching Mori throw pebbles at more pebbles trying to start a rockslide. After what seemed like a few hours noire returned from her phone hunt and we were off again, this time dk driving Freak Leader and me in MA’s car (Freak 1) for a change (by then I was pretty sick of driving). We had to pull over a couple of times to rescue dk from S3 mode and a bee, but other than that the trip up to Astoria went smoothly. Until we got there that is. Once in Astoria we weren’t really sure where we were going and ended up going over a giant bridge into Washington, which we saw about 5 square feet of before turning right around, going back over the bridge and eventually finding Caly’s house around 10 or 11:00 that night. I claimed a space on the couch and we stayed up for a few hours talking. Khel told a very animated story about his brother trying to outrun a deer and Kel gave a really funny speech about the menace to mankind we all know as trees *l*
Wednesday...we went to see the Astoria Column. Now I know why Caly didn’t want to go up to the top. The climb up those stairs is absolute torture! I never knew how out of shape I was until I collapsed against the railing when I finally got to the top. I swear my heart didn’t return to normal for at least half an hour. We stayed up there a long time looking at the view, which was nice; I just didn’t want to have to go down those stairs again. The climb down wasn’t as difficult, but it was much scarier. I’m afraid of heights and I’m especially afraid of going down stairs and escalators b/c I’m afraid of falling, so I want people in front of me to fall on. noire was kind enough to volunteer for that position *l* Khel walked behind me to catch me if need be and we slowly made our way down. I have such nice friends : ) Then we went walking around town and seeing what little there is to see. I wasn’t feeling well so for me the walk was extremely unpleasant. We went to the Shark Rock Café for lunch. The clam chowder I ordered wasn’t very good and I couldn’t eat much of it anyway, so I decided to lay down for a while on a fluffy, bright orange sofa that was nearby. After lunch it was more walking around town. We went to some fish gutting place on the pier and watched the guys working there feed the leftovers to a couple of mangled looking sea lions while the sea gulls stole whatever they could manage. More walking around then, still trying to find some black and white film for dk without any luck, so we finally went back to Caly’s for a little while where Kel and Jar stayed while the rest of us went to the Clark County Fair. Mori and dk wandered off to see whatever while the rest of us went to the Kenny Chesney concert; it was great! It ended earlier than expected though, so the rest of the time we wandered around and got some junk food (everyone stole the whip cream off my funnel cake with their elephant ears) and looked at things to buy (I got a new watch) and MA and Khel when rock climbing (ugh! scary). The fair was closing then so it was back to Caly’s where we watched some anime (Escaflowne and Sailor Stars) then went to sleep.
Thursday...off to Cannon Beach around 4:00 pm (since none of us would get up until about 3:00) which has some big rocks and tide pools. I didn’t want to get wet so I only walked about halfway out on the tide rocks then went back and watched a little kid catch hermit crabs. Everyone came back off the rocks when the tide started coming in; Jar and Caly had disappeared so MA, Khel and I wandered off down the beach looking for them. They had vanished into thin air so we turned around and went back near the rocks. I guess Khel got bored b/c he wrote a great big “Freak Out 2000” sign in the sand with his shoe which looked really neat and we all took lots of pictures of it. Then the guys decided to go sit on more rocks and stack them and smack them together and throw them. Very um…primordial. The most fun was probably watching Mori repeatedly fling dk into the sand. When all the rock piles had been destroyed most of us tried to leave the beach but dk and Kel weren’t cooperating; dk had a huge ball of string in a mess and wouldn’t get up until she untangled it. The rest of us walked back to the cars and waited for what felt like a few hours. Finally the rest of them got off the beach and it was back to Caly’s. MA didn’t want to sit in the traffic being the crazy driver he is (personally I would have rather sat there since it would’ve been easier on my stomach and taken a lot less time). But no, I was outvoted so off MA went (he really is evil) making some gigantic loop through the entire state of Oregon around a ton of hills that I didn’t enjoy one bit since I wasn’t driving. I was so carsick by the time we at last reached Caly’s house in the middle of the night that I couldn’t stand to sit down and went for a walk with MA and Khel to the store. That didn’t help and I felt sick for the rest of the night. We watched Tombstone, which was actually a good movie despite the fact that I don’t like westerns and that Khel was sitting next to me and doing quotes from the movie before they actually happened.
Friday was another lazy day where no one wanted to get up for a long time and most of the day was spent playing video games and watching anime. I finally got to see Mononoke Hime which was very good and not nearly as graphically horrifying as I’d been led to believe. That night we were off to another beach to have a bonfire and roast marshmallows, but first we had to go on a quest for firewood. The first place had apparently locked themselves out of the woodshed, so we continued on to some big Wal-Mart type place Oregon has called Fred Meyer. I never actually saw the inside of it; instead I stayed by the cars in the parking lot along with Caly, Mori, Jar and dk. We got to the beach pretty late at night and it was absolutely FREEZING out there. The wind was awful and there was this horrible sand dune you had to climb down just to get to the stupid place. Building a fire took a while but eventually they got a good one going though it seemed determined to blow all the smoke in my face no matter where I stood. I think everyone roasted marshmallows except me; I don’t like them so I just ate the graham crackers and chocolate. I will admit the beach and water looked really pretty in the moonlight and there was an interesting wrecked ship in the water to look at. But it was still really really cold out there and I didn’t particularly mind when the police told us to get out. So we had to climb back up that damn sand dune (I think this whole trip involved far too much climbing) and it was back to Caly’s where MA and Kel left pretty quickly while the rest of us stayed up answering silly questions from a game called Hot Seat.
Saturday morning we had to leave! It was so sad, the trip was WAY too short. We packed up and said goodbye and left around 9:30 that morning so we (me, dk, noire, and Khel) could follow Jar (with Mori and Kel) into Portland so Kel could catch his train. I slept most of the way there and when I woke up we were lost someplace in Portland and long past the train station, so we missed seeing Kel off. But we did eventually find our way back to the station (which has a huge giant clock tower that says train station on it so I have no idea how we had missed it) and met up with Jar and Mori. Then we followed them (closely this time) to a mall where we bought books at a B. Dalton with Khel’s employee discount and had lunch at the food court (pretty bad Chinese fast food). We stopped by the restroom where noire called Morsayne to see where we could leave a big rock from Cannon Beach we’d all signed for her, then it was back to the parking lot where we took some final pictures and said goodbye to Jar and Mori. We started the long drive home down I-5, stopping at a McDonald’s along the way to drop off the rock and stopping again in Medford to visit dk’s “uncle’s” (he’s really a friend of her family) Italian restaurant. The food there was excellent but unfortunately the portions were so huge none of us even came close to finishing. Luckily dk’s uncle showed up so dinner was free and we sat nodding politely for an eternity while dk and her uncle chatted up a storm. He wanted us to stay but we really wanted to get some more traveling done since we were ahead of schedule, so we finally left and continued on with Khel driving so dk could sleep. I think he was completely obsessed with the BMW once he started *l* We didn’t have any motel reservations for that night and it surprised us that the biggest town along the way (named “Weed” of all things) was completely full, but we did eventually find a nice room at the Cinderella Motel in Red Bluff sometime around midnight.
On Sunday we slept in pretty much until checkout time at 11:00 am then continued on our way. By this time we weren’t very far from the bay area and drove through my college’s town and stopped by noire’s college so she could check her mail. We spent a little time walking around her campus so dk could take some pictures then started off again and got to her house sometime that afternoon/early evening. We watched the rest of Sailor Stars (6 episodes) and played Phase 10 until 10:00 pm when it was time to take Khel to the airport. We said goodbye to noire and dk drove us up to SFO where we said goodbye to Khel then went home. dk dropped me off about 11:45 pm and that was the end of it for me. Sigh. I want to go again! Anyway, it was a really great trip and that’s my side of it.
--velessa