Category Archives: Hiking/Camping

Our Trip

Posted on Tuesday June 2nd, 2009 by | Comments Off on Our Trip

You know, I had started a post a few days ago and it has disappeared….wacky.

Watching WALL-E while doing this.  I love this movie!

I spotted my 1st raccoon in our neighborhood. I heard something up on the neighbor’s roof, thought it was one of the many squirrels, looked up and saw him.  It was hard to see him with losing daylight…..but he would come to the edge of that roof and look towards me as I talked to him.  =)

Today, I was actually able to get my work done after getting bombarded with things needing answering as soon as we got back from the gym.  I actually got time to get some things down around the house and have time to write up a blog. =)

My abs are sore as hell, that is what I get for not doing anything for week.  I can’t even laugh without it hurting.  But because my abs hurt, I’m not feeling the pain in my thighs, that I know is there.  And my new nose piercing isn’t hurting until I do something goofy, like hit it……..lol You don’t realize how much you touch your nose until you can cause pain doing it……grin

For those who missed my tweets (check them out…because I do post pics), I got my nose pierced Sunday and hubby got his other nipple done.  Since we got our anniversary presents early (the iphones in Apr) and we went camping last week for it, I knew we weren’t going to do much on it.  So I wanted to finally get our piercings done on a special day just to break it up especially since I was going to be working late on payroll.

Here is a hint, never have your wedding on a holiday or end/beginning of the month.  Messes up planning, so that is why we plan our celebrations early.

We went camping for the 1st time since our honeymoon….damn, can’t believe it has been that long.  We brought our tent and sleeping bags for our anniversary last year, but with trips and moving, never got to our camping.  So a year later, we finally got to use our stuff.  =)

We went down to the Redwoods in CA.  We took the quick route down, I-5 until we needed to cross over to 101.  Once we got to 101, we got to see some stunning scenery…huge trees and beautiful coastal views.  Once you opened your windows you could smell the forest….I love that smell.

We stayed at Prairie Creek campgrounds.  They have the last herd of Roosevelt Elk that frequents the meadow.  It was so cool to see.  They were just getting their antlers, so those were small and covered in felt.  The meadow was a fern meadow and not very tall at all, but it was amazing how they could easily hid in it.

We got a very nice spot, felt semi-private and tucked away.  We had one of the faucets for water right in front of our site, worked out nicely for washing dishes.  The fire grill was kind of high and big.  So you could sit and get the heat of it very well and with the size, couldn’t get good ashy fire.  The fires that are steady with the burning that makes it easier to cook over.  But we enjoyed anyway and learned a few things.  =)

We got our tent set up pretty quick.  Practicing in the living room really helped that.  =)  What flustered me, was that we try extremely hard to be organized and we couldn’t maintain that at all.  Always having to get our stuff out of the bear box and then forgetting that we had snacks and lotions..and stuff in our travel bags that we needed to put into the box….boy, we need more practice….lol

I know that camping is suppose to be roughing it and that doesn’t bother me, but I’m a female and love having a bathroom with running water.  And that campground had that.  =)  I really wasn’t looking forward to latrines….males have it so much easier for that.  They even had a few coin operated showers, which was great on the 2nd night after hiking…even if it was chilly on the walk back.

On the second day, we went hiking to the Tall Tree Grove.  That was really, really cool to see.  We had to get a permit to use the access road to get to it.

The 2nd night of sleeping was much more comfortable then the 1st night.  Think we were finally getting settled in it.

On the third day, we took the 101 out all the way.  We wanted to drive the Oregon coast. Wow is what I have to say about that.  It was a winding and hilly road, you really had to take care.  But it was stunning.  It was cool to see the sea and mountain air hit to make just beautiful mist.

We stopped at a great diner called Kozy Kitchen in Coos Bay. We had the best Turkey Manhattans ever, of course they were called open faced sandwiches and looked at us as if spoke a different language when we called them that……lol

We were going to drive all up to Cannon Beach, but we were so tired of driving and just wanted to chill.  So we ended up staying at Newport and got a room with a jacuzzi.  It was nice to chill out and check up, because we haven’t had a steady connection since we left home…lol  You don’t get the ATT 3-g network in the Redwoods or 90% of the drive up to Newport…grin

We had decided to head home the next day, but before we did that, we visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.  It is one of the best ones I’ve ever seen.

What was surprising about our trip is that we got totally perfect weather for it!  At this time of the year the Redwoods it is normally rainy.  This time, it was sunny and clear, in the 60s and got to the mid 40s at night….perfect!

Even Portland has had great weather since Memorial Day and they haven’t had a non-rainy Memorial Day since 2005, I believe they said on the news….lol  We are suppose to get some thundershowers in the next day or so, but compared to last June with the constant chilly rain, I’ll take.  We have been having some perfect weather.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself even with the small things that drive you batty.  It was great to be out in nature and have fresh air.  Felt wacky as heck not to have some sort of online access, sadly……..lol…but nice.  I do need to learn how not to do anything again, felt kind of weird doing that.

I know that I should post more, but I spend a lot of my time working online, going to the gym, laughing at our cats, and doing everyday errands.  So I really don’t have much to post about.  Hell, I think most of my tweets are about work………lol  I need to work on that.  No one wants to hear the same thing over, over again.

And I’ve started to use twitter to make my comments on politics most of the time, since they are shorter and not long rants.  Boy, I could do some ranting about what has been going on….grin

I can tell you that our cat Drew loves to “roar” for no reason at all…….grin  He is always touching stuff….I swear he has ADD…..LOL

**I just noticed that my blog design is screwed up.  Looks like I may need to find another one.  =(  I really like this one.

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My visit to the forest moon of Endor

Posted on Monday June 1st, 2009 by | Comments Off on My visit to the forest moon of Endor
The Grand Canyon

Some of you may know it as Redwoods National Park, but geeks will know it as Endor. We left Monday morning around 715 am and made really good time, We was driving down town Grants Pass when the F15’s did a flyover for Memorial Day so we timed that perfectly, but of course had no time to get a camera since it happen so fast.

Driving though Jedediah Smith State Park was fun, we stopped at a rest stop and ran into a family reunion (yeah, at a rest stop) which turned out to be a bunch of bible thumpers and we even had a 10 woman prayer circle in front of our Jeep as we was leaving. They was all in line for lunch (had to be 50+) and I was getting whiffs of the toilets they was next to, so I’m sure god must have told them that is where he wanted them to eat just so he could get a good laugh since he is a sick and sadistic fucker.

We stopped in Crescent City and got some Starbucks which was much needed and wanted and made numerous stops all the way down to our camp site which was called Elk Prairie and it lived up to the name, we saw 12 or so elk the minute we got there. We bought some really expensive firewood and made camp.

Tuesday we drove down to Orick, CA which was smaller than I expected and since Google maps was fucked, they did not have the Starbucks it said they had (which I just edited BTW on Google map) the marker was 40+ miles too far south… fuckers.

We also took a hike down to the Tall Tree Grove which was really cool to see trees that fucking big. What ticked us off was we wanted to get a toy Ewok to have some pictures with but of course we forgot it. I also dropped my shitty telephoto lens, so now it’s even shittyier and won’t work, so at least I have a legit reason to replace it other than “I want a better one” which was a good enough reason anyway.

Wednesday we wanted to drive to Cannon Beach if not all the way home via 101, we made a few stops and was just blown away by the views, but after 6 hours of driving in shitty traffic at times, we realized Newport was as far as we wanted to go and we grabbed a room next to the aquarium and just chilled out for the night.

Thursday we visited the Newport aquarium and we both really liked it, it wasn’t as packed as it could have been, but the kids screaming made up for it, but still it’s a very nice aquarium. Afterwards we took 20 to 34 to I5 and got home around 2 pm.

Pics are ok, my camera skills are ok at best and my lenses are cheap, but from what I’ve seen on video I like what I see.

I am not in the mood to write as I thought I was, so this is the end…

  • Mood: blah

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The Week In Review

Posted on Sunday May 17th, 2009 by | Comments Off on The Week In Review

I’m just totally psyched on how nice it is.  I know that we will be going back to rain, on and off, until July so I’m just really enjoying this.

I know that I should really go for a walk today, but kind of like just enjoying here at home.  The deck goes from cool in the morning/afternoon to very warm in the late afternoon once the sun hits it.  Someday I may post a pic of how private it feels now the trees have their leaves. =)

I’m enjoying it when the birds come out and squirrels.  If you saw my last 2 twitterpics, one of the squirrels got pretty dang close to me.  Which threw me off guard…..lol  They definitely know where the food is coming from….grin

In just over a week, we are leaving for 3-5 days.  We are headed down to the Red Woods in California to camp for a few days to celebrate our 12th anniversary that is actually on the 31st.  But we are going down on Memorial Day.  By the time we get there all the holiday campers will be gone, thankfully.  There is no way we would going camping on that weekend….icks.

We will finally be using the tent and sleeping bags that we got ourselves for our last anniversary…….lol  We have practice setting up the tent in the house….just not outside.

What we are having issues on figuring out is what food to bring with.  Yes, the standard hotdogs and luncheon meat…fruit, but we aren’t going to live off of just that.  We do have a couple of RMEs, thinking of bringing down a steak for one night…..but what is not helping is that we are bored with food in general, so figuring out camping food doesn’t make it any easier.

The good thing is that the bear boxes should be big enough for our cooler.  =)

I’m so hoping for weather like we are having now, but knowing are luck…that isn’t going to happen.  So we are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

This week I did pretty decent at the gym.  I got up to 3.51 mile in 30min. Not getting the lasting soreness that I want, but getting little hits here and there.  For example, move a certain way and I get a slight soreness in my abs…which I’m happy about.  Hoping that it means that I’m getting some where even if my weight doesn’t show it (I think it is due to not eating enough fresh fruits & veggies…which I eat a lot in the summer, just not enough in the fall/winter)

I also switched my abs up.  Right after the treadmill, I use the abdominal machine and I normally going on to some other strength exercises.  Rotating the days between upper and lower body.  Then at the end, I do a bunch of floor abs.  What I did this week, is to work on the majority of my floor abs right after the abdominal machine and do one final set after my strength exercies.  I’m hoping that helps on losing more jiggly around my waist.

Otherwise just been busy with work this week.  I did have payroll to do.  I’m totally loving the new notice setup that our tech put together.  It has totally helped to levitate some of the time pressure stressed and that psychs me up….grin  I’m so easy to make happy at times.  =)

One thing that I really need to get myself together for work, is the online store.  I really need to start spending about an hour a day adding new things to it.  So I’m trying to to think of the best way of how to work that in.  Which part of my work day works the best.    So I need to keep that in my focus for tomorrow.

Unless it is payroll, I avoid doing major work on Saturdays and most of Sundays now.  When I do start playing catch up with everything from Saturday & most of Sunday, it is normally Sunday evening.  We are usually settled in the office watching our Sunday programs and I tackle everything so I don’t have ton waiting for Monday morning.  I may not get everything done Sunday night, but I do make a good dent in it.

I will say that I’m kind of worried about how much work will be piled up when we go camping.  But I know that we will get connection after and before the Red Woods, enough to catch high priority stuff, but I’m going to try to avoid as much as I can and hope that it isn’t overwhelming when I get back.  So the weekend before I’ll be working while getting our stuff packed up.

I have been getting annoyed with what has been going on in politics, nothing unusual….lol  I don’t trust that Pelosi got briefed fully, if it came from someone in the Bush Admin, but at the same time, I just don’t trust her.  I would prefer a different Speaker of the House….at the same time, I don’t want the dems to be hampered by her stupid crap.  And Gingrich…he is such a hypocrite!  He needs to keep his mouth shut….he did more partisan damage under Clinton then Pelosi ever did.  Plus, don’t give me that “moral” shit from him….he has been divorced how many times…had affairs….Limbaugh…he is a hypocritical druggie!

These right-wing extremist….it is ok to impeach Clinton for getting a blowjob, but don’t criticize a President at war (unless he is a dem) and don’t impeach a President and investigate their admin for all the international laws they broke with torture.  Hello!!  We prosecuted the Japanese for that in WWII and can anyone say Inquisition? I just want to waterboard all of them and see how it feels to them….stupid asses.

Then the extremest “pro-lifers”.  They are the biggest hypocrites!!  Oh yes, honor President who executed the most prisoners as governor and started an illegal war, tortured and did nothing to help the poor…but he was against legalized abortion….so that makes him ok?!? I think they need to get their priorities straight on what the sanctity of life truely means.  How about teaching true birth control so when pregnancy happens it is wanted?  What a concept?  Morons….

Well, that is my political rant……lol  The Sunday morning news shows didn’t help….grin

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Getting out of the House

Posted on Tuesday April 7th, 2009 by | Comments Off on Getting out of the House

Well, it has kind of been a weird beginning for the week.

I really took Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday off…kind of.  I still keep an eye on things, put out fires but don’t just focus on it.  But Sunday night, I attacked my work and got a lot more then I thought I would.  Which is a good thing, because Monday was going to be a stunning day and we wanted to get out of the house.  =)

Monday, we decided to hit a few other spots on the Historic Colombia Highway that we haven’t done yet.  We wanted to do some serious hiking, but didn’t get as much as we really wanted.  The spots that we hit quickly got busy with people and it was annoying.  So we’ll have to remember to visit popular spots on cold & overcast days.  We thought Monday during a school week would be enough…but it wasn’t.

Historic Colombia Highway

Historic Colombia Highway

Crown Point Observatory

Crown Point Observatory

Latourell Falls

Latourell Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

Self Portrait at Bridal Veil Falls

Self Portrait at Bridal Veil Falls

We ended up driving all the way to the Dalles, since I haven’t been that far east on 84.  It is still part of the gorge, but a huge difference in vegetation and scenery.  Much more rocky, very few trees.  I don’t know if it was the surroundings or the fact the 84 goes through the industry part of town, but it wasn’t very scenic at all.  I’m very happy with our side of the gorge.  =)

But we did get to see Mt Hood, very unexpectedly, from the Dalles, next to the Dalles Dam.  Other then flying over it, I’ve never seen it from the east side so that was cool.

t Hood from the Dalles (East Side)

Mt Hood from the Dalles (East Side)

We got back at a decent time, that once I got focus, that I got all of my work taken care of while getting time to watch enough of the game to know that MSU was losing.  =(

Today was another stunningly beautiful day, got up into the 70s again.  So it was so hard to work when all I wanted to do was buy flowers and plant them…….lol

But I needed to get my work done.  We are headed up to Canada for the night tomorrow.  Going to visit with some friends of ours, should be back Thursday night….if not, Friday.

Need to finish a few things off for tomorrow.  =)

Here is the link to all the pictures that we took : http://paulineantoinette.com/PNH/nature/2009_Apr_06/index.htm

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First Hike 2009

Posted on Monday April 6th, 2009 by | Comments Off on First Hike 2009
The Grand Canyon

And it wasn’t a good one to be honest.

Our first trail had some trash all over that we picked up, we had perfect sunny weather and incredible view of a water fall, but the trash sort of pissed us off so that ruined the moment and then it got really packed with people all at once, so we just left for another trail and same thing, too many people and screaming kids of all things so we just decided to take a drive to The Dalles since that seemed to be such a nice place my first time there at 11:30 PM when I first moved to the area that I must go back in the day time and see what an incredibly…. shithole that it is.

I mean really, they call a city “The Dalles” which is French for “Flowers” and it’s a shithole? I haven’t been this disappointed with what my expectations of a town was vs the harsh reality of what a town is since I first went to the wild west town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico… look it up and you will understand what I mean when I went expecting “wild west” and got….

We stopped at McDs since it was that or a gas station so I could get some caffeine and decided to try their mochas…. wtf?

What The Fuck?

That had to be the worse drink I have ever had in my life, it tasted like 3 cheap synthetic chemicals blended, but you can still taste all 3. I had to brush my teeth when we got home it was that bad.

To add to the fun for some reason my passenger side door has a rattle that is constant as you drive, so I got to call the dealership that I HATE and asked where my part that was ordered 2.5 weeks ago was and I got “I don’t know, you will have to ask them” when “them” was “him” and “him” has been the only “them” I have dealt with for over a year.

So I explained that fact to him nicely… and then laughed at him and hung up.

So now I’m forced to deal with another division of their dealership which is 20 miles away, but managed to get a appoint tomorrow at 10:15 and should be done in 3 hours so the rattling will not kill me as we drive 6 hours to BC.

So no gym for me this week until Friday which bothers me, but at the same time my legs have been issues and tonight it’s my left hip… don’t ask, I don’t know.

We got some good video of the first trail and we got some sun and we got out of the house, but over all this was a poopy day with less than 4 miles of actual hiking and a rattling 3 hour drive with bad mocha.

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