Set...

I ended up running around Portland yesterday taking care of the errands I needed to do before hitting the trail tomorrow. I decided that since I had never been to the Olympic National Forest area I would go see what that was all about :) he he
The drive was breathtaking! You are going along and then all of a sudden there is a gap in the trees and the Olympics pop up, really spectacular. I made camp last night in the national forest and had a salad I picked up at Trader Joes earlier with rosemary ham, the rest of the fresh blueberries and an IPA that came from a Eugene brewery. I chilled by the fire and hit the hay about 10...It was a really nice night!


I am currently in the town that has the Evergreen College I had looked at so very long ago...then I am headed to the Seattle area today to meet up with Gayla who is staying at her friend Maury's house. We are off tomorrow for the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainer.

later gater, rob

ready...

I felt like driving yesterday and made it to just outside Portland before crashing at an interstate hwy...not very interesting, I know.
I stopped off at a Target this morn and stocked up with treats for both Dani and Garrett and I am going to hit the post office today. I drove into Portland and immediately hunted out Ken's bakery since I had heard it was pretty good. Pretty good is really not a way to describe this place...freakin' awesome is more like it! I had a cup of Jo and a croissant that had a little bit of hazelnut shmoo in it and then topped off with Oregon blue and marionberries.
I walked around Nob Hill for awhile and now I need to run a few errands and I am going to hunt down the local bike trails.

I am going to hang around Portland today and then head for Seattle and my friend Gayla manana. We hit the trail early Wednesday morning.


later gater, rob

an aside postal note...

When the parents were being orientated yesterday, the importance of mail was stressed over and over again. The work is hard and very demanding. The kids are away from home a long time, many it is the longest they have ever been away. The breaks they do get are still very removed from movies, malls, friends, cell phones, etc. I wanted to give anyone interested the Gman's mailing address this summer. A card, a letter, anything you can jot down I know will be soooo appreciated! The kids get mail once a week and mail that get's to Eugene by Thursday will be delivered to the kids on Friday.

You can send it to:

Garrett Cantor-Cox
TNT 2
Northwest Youth Corps
2621 Augusta Street
Eugene, OR 97403

thanks!!!

And then there was one...

Yesterday was a big day for us. First, the G-man was heading off on his 4 week adventure with NYC and second, I was heading off on my adventure. Orientation at NYC was 10 am and we got there a tad early and sat in the car listening to The Chosen. At 10 we headed inside the building and the parents got oriented while the kids went outside and began the process of forming groups, checking gear and moving through the teaching stations. After gear check Garrett and I said our goodbyes (I fully admit to balling my eyes out here) and I split for town. It felt way weird to be without him. Despite the pain in the neck teenage attitude he was so incredibly sweet that morning as if he knew that is just what I needed.


I headed into town and hit REI then the local bike shop, Pauls. There the local bike dude gave me several excellent tips on where to ride, where to camp that night and where to stock up on local brew and provisions. I headed off to the Kings Castle trail off hwy 126. Now I have to tell you the way the bike guy described the trail was something like 'it followed the forest trail for a while so you could warm up your legs and then climbed a bit until near the top when it became rocky and would be hard to ride except for the really experienced. The top had great views and the return trip was all downhill'.
Okay, first off, the 'warm up' was about 100 meters long and the uphill was brutal for this flat lander! Maybe I should have mentioned I suck on a bike and I am from Texas! But I was determined. One of the reasons I wanted to spend time up here after dropping Garrett off was to help get ready for The Desert Winds Expedition Race as well as Nationals in Moab. I had to start somewhere. Aftre a couple of hours of riding, climbing, pushing and whining I made it to the top of Castle Rock. The views were incredible and so worth the pain. The downhill took all of 45 minutes and I had a shit eating grin on my face when I was done. I packed up the bike and headed to the camp that was recommended.


The camping spot was down the road a bit and I found it easily with bike dudes directions. Located right next to the Mckenzie River, a free lovely spot in the national forest equiped with a flat tent area and fire ring I was in heaven! I set up camp, built a fire and had some of the local fare I had picked up earlier; queso fresco, polenta bread, homegrown tomatoes and blueberries and salsa and chips. I washed the whole thing down with a brewski from Eugene.
I read a little before bed and fell asleep listening to the river gurgling.


I am in Bend today and am aiming for Phil's Trail and maybe a dip in the Deschutes.
later gater, rob

City of Lost Angels

We made it to L.A. Tuesday eve around dinner time. Dave and Jan had supper ready and of course some local Cali brew for yours truly! We took a nice long walk after wards to a park that strangely enough had a gazillion people there but no restrooms open?

Wednesday morn we hopped on the subway and headed downtown to the Grammy museum! We stopped off first at The Pantry for brunch and Dave showed me the joys of Four Square on my smart phone. The museum was AWESOME and I could have spent the rest of the day plus some perusing all the very cool interactive exhibits. After, we headed over to the ESPN building and loitered around the ESPY awards for awhile, then had a very surreal experience at the arcade with a group of hassidic young women and ended up at Trader Vics for some drinks with naked tribal men that were on fire in them...he he


We headed back on the subway after a short shopping spree at Macy's (the gman busted his flip flops and was limping around like a deranged vagrant person). A short TA at the Sloan residence and we were off to see Emma in "Neverland".

Dave was kind enough after the show to take the kids to In and Out and Jan and I headed to Umamis. Now I would like to take a short moment here to try and share what kind of experience I had at Umamis. First off, I cried when I bit into my burger. That's right, real tears! I was instantly transported back 30 years to my childhood and I was in my Mother's kitchen eating a burger she had lovingly prepared for me. This burger at Umami tasted like real meat. Yeah I know, what do I call the meat I eat right now? I am not sure what I call it aftre this burger! The Umami burger is ground steak that is hand formed and cooked medium. It was as close to perfect as any food I have ever had. That's all I can say about it without starting to tear up again :)
In my quest for the Clunker badge on four square Jan took me to several more stops that night and I earned my new badges.

The next morn we packed up and hit the Buttermilk Truck on our way out of town. L.A.'s newest food rage are all these mobile food trucks fashioned after the trucks that hit the construction sites. We had crazy good red velvet pancakes, french toast sticks and chicken and waffles. We said goodbye to our bestest westest coastest friends and took off for northern California. We stayed at a KOA near Mount Shasta last night and had a yummy breakfast this morn at a BBQ joint. A not too terribly long drive got us to Eugene by 1 today. We did laundry, took showers and had a yummy birthday dinner for the Gman at a local hangout followed by an even yummier desert stop. Now we are going to watch a movie and hit the hay. The Gman starts his 4 week program tomorrow with the Northwest Youth Corps and I head out for my own adventure.

until later gater, rob

Green hot chili peppers

The G man and myself took off this morn for the great Northwest. He needs to be in Eugene on Saturday to start the Northwest Youth Corps. We got a later than anticipated start this morn and then of course the multiple stops near Fredricksberg that included peach ice cream, fresh picked peaches and gas :)
Aside from the peach soft serve the highlight of the day came off of I-10! We had been driving for hours and saw an exit for Balmorhea State Park, a favorite swimming hole for us on our Big Bend spring breaks. We kinda looked at each other like ....can it be?? Because not only do we enjoy the swimming but there is a gas station there that has the best freakin' green chili burritos on the planet. Whenever we are in the neighborhood during spring break we usually stock the cooler up with dozens of assorted burritos and savor them lovingly when we get back home. Sure enough we were a mere 2 miles from the heaven-on-earth burritorama and we pulled in and scored dinner!
We drove past Las Cruces tonight and are holed up in a cheap motel eating burritos and peaches :)
Tomorrow we aim for the Sloans and LA...
rob

She'll be coming 'round the mountain...

It's been a whirlwind of fun since my cousin left. I spent much of the day before we were scheduled to leave for North Carolina getting ready for both the family trip to NC and then G-man and I's trip out west. Packed, laundered and shipped Gayla and my food drop to Mount Rainer.


We were 'scheduled to head out on July 3rd for NC but when we got to the airport we found out our flight had been canceled due to tropical storm Alex and we were re booked on a flight for Sunday. We ended up at the farmer's market and Kirby Lane for p-cakes instead...
We had an uneventful flight on Sunday and Scott picked us up at the airport. Chris and Ray were also at the house when we got there and they cooked a fabulous dinner for us! The kids put on a small 4th of July pageant show and we ended the evening with fireworks by Zeta, Beta and Gamma :)

Monday was spent trying to find the Narrows hike...let me say we are very familiar with hwy 107 now :) We eventually found the Iron Bridge and the hike after visiting slippery rock and silver falls, both beautiful sights.

It's worth mentioning that on the Narrow's hike Tony just happened to find a geocache. Now our history of geocaching is not what one would call..."successful". We historically have spent hours wandering around in the woods never to find a single cache. So it is definitely noteworthy that Tony merely looked down at the right time at the right place and found the cache. He also found a heart shaped rock that day...go figure!

Tuesday we did a gorgeous hike on the Bartram Trail followed by a yummy lunch at the roadhouse grill and then an afternoon swim at Bust Your Butt Falls (seriously). We did our yearly scary-as-shit cliff jumping and I am glad to say that is over. My goal next year is to try and do it slightly more gracefully. The G-man jumped 5 times this year which is 5 times more than he did last year :) Tony had dinner waiting when we got home and we spent the evening in a wii tournament imbibing.


Wednesday was a low key day. We went in to Highlands and with our renewed hope of becoming the world's expert geocachers we decided to try and find a multi step geocache on main street. It was a very cool scavenger hunt that sent us to 10 historic places along main street gathering clues that were eventually turned into the coordinates for the cache.
We picked up excellent pizza in town for dinner and played games that evening.


Thursday we headed to South Carolina to do a bit of zippin'! There are zipline courses all over the area and we talked Dani into trying it this year. I have to say she was pretty scared at first but quickly warmed up to the adventure and became the expert zipper amongst us. Our guide told us she was the best young kid she had ever had in a group-wahoo! We rushed home after the ziplining to make the opening of "Sylvia" at the Highlands Playhouse. Scott is president of the board this year and it was a real treat to see him in action.


Friday was Dani's 9th birthday! We went into town, we found another geocache at Sunset Rock, we went gem mining, we went back to bust your butt falls and Cathy did the cliff jump for the first time :) For dinner we had grilled steaks, eggplant, cake and drinks...oh, a few presents too! And the entire day was wrapped up with another wii tournament and fashion show!

Scott drove us to the airport on Saturday after breakfast and the feeding of the new koi that came for the pond. We had some time to kill and Scott had heard the botanical gardens in Asheville were beautiful. We hit the gardens and they were quite impressive. The bonzai gardens were really amazing. The flight home was uneventful again and we were truly sad the week had gone by so fast. Our yearly visit with the 'Uncles' is something we look forward to and we are so grateful to have them in our lives!!! Next year? Falls well the Hamster balls, Yellow Mountain, the Deliverance River and who knows what else!