What have YOU done?
01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it09. Hugged a tree10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris12. Watched a lightning storm at sea13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars20. Changed a baby’s diaper21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower23. Gotten drunk on champagne24. Given more than you can afford to charity25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment27. Had a food fight28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can32. Held a lamb33. Seen a total eclipse34. Ridden a roller coaster35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk.42. Had amazing friends43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe.
47. Taken a road-trip48. Gone rock climbing49. Midnight walk on the beach50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow56. Alphabetized your CDs57. Pretended to be a superhero58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day60. Played touch football61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud64. Played in the rain65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch78. Won first prize in a costume contest79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason84. Performed on stage85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray110. Broken someone’s heart111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse119. Had major surgery120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi128. Had your picture in the newspaper129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about130. Gone back to school131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach133. Eaten fried green tomatoes134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident150. Saved someone’s life
From
Amy
the solution
You, dear reader, are the solution to the template glitches. Just don't use Internet Explorer. Make the switch over to Firefox and all will be as it should. Then I can stop sitting in front of this computer screen, struggling to understand HTML and CSS, and move on with my life.
template glitches
They are gone. Kate is a bit more meticulous than I- I was ready to quit. But, check out the fun new additions as well.
potable water
I feel like posting and the most exciting thing that happened to me today is that I forgot to bring my purse to school I was so brain dead this morning. Therefore, I will return to my trip. Plus, its freezing cold here and I'd rather think about summer.
So, we were waiting out a rain storm in a visitors center in the Tetons. We had seen just about everything we wanted to see and so we decided to head to a campground in the National Forest on the eastern border of the National Park. We knew we had a long day of driving ahead of us to get across Wyoming to Devil's Tower, so why not get a jump on things. We headed to the "Hatchet" campsite in the National Forest. Upon arrival, Kate got out to read the literature, find out the procedure, etc, while I stayed in the car and observed our surroundings. There was NO ONE else there. The place was totally deserted except for an abundance of biting bugs. Two girls alone in Wyoming, lots of bugs, no one else around... we decided to keep driving.
On the way to wherever it was we were going, we passed a black bear cub frolicing through a field. After we'd passed it going east, Kate made me turn around to see if we could catch another glimpse of it. Sadly, we did not see it on either pass.
As it neared dusk, we reached another campground in Shosone National Forest. Upon inspection, this campground had a campground host and other campers, not to mention a waterfall. So we set up camp in view of an RV and went to look for water. There were spigots and pumps galore, but none of them were functioning. Mildly problematic as we had not bothered to fill out water jugs, water having been in abundance everywhere for the last week. A kind older couple in an RV offered to share theirs with us if need be. So, it was pork and beans for dinner again to conserve water.
Reading the signage more closely, we realized it was a campground without potable water. But why tease us with the pumps?!?!
We took a walk in the dark to the waterfall. I was, again, terrified of bears, as we were in The Middle of Nowhere, Bear Country. With only a pit toilet and limited water, it was not like we had washed our dishes all that well either.
Thankfully, we made it through the night without being mauled by bears and awoke to beautiful scenery in the middle of Wyoming. And of course, our first stop was the closest gas station to properly brush our teeth and refill the water bottles. Who knew how gorgeous Wyoming is? Who knew that road construction in Wyoming is worse than in Atlanta? In Wyoming, they tear up the ENTIRE interstate in order to repave. Gravel I-90?
Labels: travel
the silver screen
Twice since moving to L5P, I have come home to find pieces of paper taped to our front door indicating that film production crews will be in the neighborhood and taking up our parking in the coming weeks. The first time was about some random movie I don't expect to make it into the theater, from some company I've never heard of- something about a phone call. It really didn't have any impact on my life- I hardly saw it except for one day when Amy and I took a walk and saw all the production trailers.
Today I came home to find out that a remake of
Revenge of the Nerds is being filmed less than a block away. A little more exciting. Not that anyone I've ever heard of is in the cast, but still. I'm not positive, but from the address they listed, knowing their probably looking for something like a frat house, I'm thinking its probably the Callan Castle.
Tacky Day
So it's tacky day at school today. I'm all decked out to show my school spirit. Purple gingham blouse over a red and pink striped t-shirt, black skirt with yellow, blue, and pink diagonal stripes, grey tights, and green Danskos. I look awful.
And, at some point in the middle of the day today, I realized how many errands I have to run after school, with no change of clothes...
The Grand Tetons
The night we spent in the
Tetons, we went to a ranger program on beavers. Kate was fascinated with beavers and it was a very informative time. We walked to the park from our campsite at dusk- we walked through the RV campground. RV camping (can you even call it camping?) is very different from tent camping- rugs on the ground outside, Christmas lights strung up- a little much to take in.We were a little early to the talk, so we took a walk along the edge of a lake- a gorgeous and relaxing time. On the way back, we had a hard time finding the trail back to our campsite. The rangers had told us to be on high alert for bears- they had had to kill a bear the week before because it had gotten so many "food rewards" from campers that year, and there was another bear lingering around that had also gotten a number of food rewards. So, it was dark, there were bears around and we were mildly lost. Ergo, I was terrified. Talking it over with Kate later, we just laughed at each other- she had been terrified of bears as we had walked around the lake earlier and afraid to say anything, as I had been later in the dark.
The Tetons are the most beautiful place I have ever been. First thing the next morning, we drove to the top of Signal Mountain, to get a full view of the Tetons.
From there, we took a hike around Jenny Lake, up into the mountains themselves. By far my favorite hike that we took. We hiked up to Hidden Falls, where we dipped our feet into the freezing river, and then to Inspiration Point. At Inspiration Point, we spent a few good minutes people watching- a lot of diversity up there- little kids with their parents, older couples I was so impressed with, and the single man who seemed like he wanted to attach himself to us... Inspiration Point seemed to be the place where most people turned around, but we kept going into Cascade Canyon.
The canyon loop trail is a 3-day backpack that I really want to go back and hike. Taking that extra half mile past Inspiration Point was a good choice- beautiful flora, and no one else around to see it! That extra half mile also took us much farther up into the mountains than I expected.
On the way back, Kate stopped to watch the chipmunks fight and we stopped to cool off in the lake. Cooling off wasn't that necessary as shortly there after it began to rain and we began to run. There were others running too- a teenager and his father were running the 2 miles around the lake, trying to beat mom and sister who had taken the ferry back to the dock. The guys won. Thankfully, most of the rain held off until we were able to hide out in the visitor center. After our 5+ hour hike, we were happy to sit and wait out the rain.
Labels: travel
Day 2 for real
Having seen more unique geological and hydrothermal features than I ever imagined existed the first day, we decided to take a hike the second. We stopped by the south Visitor Center on the way to our hike and learned all about the
wildfires during the summer of 1988. It was fascinating!
We then took a short hike to Riddle Lake. The hike was in a bear management area, and the trail had only opened for the season about a week before we were there, so we had high hopes of seeing some wildlife. Alas, all we saw was a deer. But we still had a good time and a nice, stormless picnic by the lake, and spent sometime skipping rocks. I was very out of practice. They mostly sank.
After our hike, we headed south to the Tetons. On the short stretch of road between the two parks, I had to slam on the brakes to narrowly avert hitting a deer. I have never come so close to hitting an animal- literally within inches of it. About 30 feet farther down the road, we passed a sign warning us to watch out for wildlife crossing the road. Yeah, thanks.
In the Tetons, we first stopped at Ox-Bow Bend and walked along the Snake River. We wanted to go farther than the path allowed, which did not work out so well. My legs were covered in mud and itchy from all the plants scraping them. Thankfully, we were by the river and I could wash off. As we walked, we saw a moose coming down to the river to feed. I had earlier told Kate the one thing I wanted to see (aside from a bear, of course), was a moose feeding in the river. My desires were granted- it was the coolest thing!!!
Labels: travel
Yellowstone Day 2
Now isn't that the most creative title ever?
I realize however, that I did not fully cover day one. After seeing all of the unique geological features and napping in a meadow, we decided to go see the falls on Yellowstone River. The lower falls were too far away for us to really get to see them, but the overlook for the Upper Falls is literarly over the falls, and they were rushing! A storm seemed abrewing, so we didn't stay too long.
Shortly thereafter, we couldn't decide what to do and we were getting hungry. It was too early to drive back to our campground for the evening and our campground was too far away to drive back to and then leave again. So we started driving
toward it. On the way, we crossed over Yellowstone Lake. There were a number of scenic overlooks, so we decided to stop and have dinner at a picnic table there, a lovely lakeside picnic of hotdogs and baked beans. The horizon was beautiful- sunny where we were, boats out on the lake, with the faroff mountains shrouded in clouds with the approaching storm. We figured we'd have more than enough time to eat before it neared.
WRONG. Just as everything was heated and we were ready to eat, the storm came agalloping over the lake, almost out of nowhere. The ranger boat went out to bring all other boats in, and the serene lake surface turned into a mass of whitecaps. The wind was blowing everything everywhere, stirring up sand that bit into our legs- my hat went into the lake, even full Nalgene bottles were blown over. We hurriedly broke everything down and climbed in the car to sit and eat, a mess. Later, having eaten and driving back to our campground, we even had to move a fallen tree out of the road so that we could continue. And yet, somehow, we never saw more than a few raindrops.
Later, reading in the YNP literature about the lake, we found something to the effect of "Yellowstone Lake may appear calm and serene, but storms come up over her quickly, turning her even surface into a writhing mass of whitecaps." No kidding.
When we at last neared our campground that evening, we had the opportunity to be the people that caused everyone else to stop at the side of the road and wonder what we were looking at. A herd of elk, including at least 3 fawns that still had their spots, crossed the road and ate in the thicket just on the far side. We stopped to watch for about 15 minutes before they moved on through the woods- it was amazing.
Next time I will actually get to day two.
Labels: travel
sending
So Kate just showed me how to post from my email. I'm trying it out.
I've also discovered something fairly significant about myself... I am a much nicer person when I have had enough sleep. Went to bed last night a little after 9, was ready to go for the day at 5:30 this morning, and I've felt better today than in weeks!
--
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken... The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." ~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
geology
Yellowstone, Day 2, Sunday, July 23
Kate had told me before we went to sleep to wake her up when I woke up so we could get an early start on our day. So, at about 6:45, I did. Somehow, it still took us almost 2 hours to break camp and get moving. Our first stop was to be Old Faithful. It took 45 minutes to drive there from our campsite, long enough to tip our hat's to the Lord's Day and listen to a Tim Keller sermon from Proverbs. We got there about 5 minutes before Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt. Perfect timing.
From there, we went to see Beehive Geyser erupt. It erupts once a day and we got there just before it erupted as well. Its called Beehive because the cone it erupts from at its base resembles a beehive.
From there, we walked the geyser trail, but didn't get to see any others erupt for quite awhile. We just missed "Giant" which was rather disappointing. There is another geyser, "Grand" that had not erupted in many years (50+? I don't rightly remember), until 2005 when it erupted twice. Since May 2006, it had been erupting about every 9 days, and we were there on Day 9 since its last eruption. As we walked past, it was spewing water and seemed like it might erupt, but it did not. It had however attracted a number of "geyser groupies" who sat and waited on it to erupt for days on end. I never found out whether or not it erupted that day. My favorite geyser was "Spiteful." It bubbled and bubbled and bubbled as if it were about to erupt and never did. We got to see one more regular-erupting geyser, Daisy, erupt before we left and had another encounter with a bison.
By then, it was noon, and we were HUNGRY. And tired. We drove and saw some mudpots, mineral springs, paint pots and various other geological structures before having to take a nap in a meadow in order to keep on trekking.
My favorite was the steaming waterfall. I'm really fascinated by all of these geological oddities. Did you know that Yellowstone National Park sits atop a volcano that has not erupted in something like 300 million years and all of these steaming things are the remnants of that?
Labels: travel
picture pages
Last night, Laura said that she needed some "adult conversation." After processing through this for a moment, we realized that actually, we needed some time to NOT have to act like adults. I spend 60+ hours a week being an adult, I need some time to cut loose. Hence the Nickelodeon title allusion. So to finish up posting about this trip that I returned from 2 months ago, I'm just gonna post some pictures and comment on them. Hopefully, it will suffice. I believe we had made it as far as Idaho...
We spent the next day driving through Montana, making brief stops in Butte (which I like to call "butt") and Bozeman. We hit the mineral museum of Montana at Montana Tech in Butte. Really we went there only because I was driving Kate's stick shift and am incompetent, so kept driving to the top of the hill, arriving at the museum. In Bozeman, we stopped at the Bean and Leaf Cafe, which Erin's friend Kate from UNC owns and had a lovely cup o' joe. Kate wouldn't let us take her picture.
A few hours later, we drove in to Yellowstone at the Roosevelt Arch. They told us it would take an hour or so to drive to our campsite. It took us about four. We stopped to see everything along the way. These are the first mineral hot something or others we saw.
This valley is renowned for the amount of wildlife you can see. Of course, I am stupid and did not bring my binoculars with me. A kind soul did take pity on us though and we were able to see a couple of grizzly bears and a grey wolf.
The sunset that night was beautiful, but we quickly forgot about it because we were stampeded by bison. For real, stampeded. We were driving down the road and people were stopped in both directions. We had not yet learned that random stoppings in the road means wildlife to be seen. So we stop too, the first in line headed the way we were going. And we see bison, grazing on the side of the road. And then, the bison start running straight at us. Of course, I screamed. And then they stopped running and we were safe.
We also stopped to view another of the remnants of the dormant volcano that Yellowstone sits atop of... Boiling sulfur springs. Really cool to look at. Really nasty to smell.
That's all for now. Day 2 in Yellowstone is up next.
8 Comments:
these are kind of random - i'm guessing pretty much everyone has played touch football, but who's touched an iceberg? - but fun. i think i had about 39.
That was pretty fun. Many were random as Ken said, but I ended up with 59. Can touching a glacier count as the iceberg? If so, make that 60.
59?
i feel so totally experience-deprived. i hope 140 isn't one of them, nathan.
for what it's worth, i'm up to 41 after a recount, and would go to 42 if glaciers do indeed count. i would say no. i think icebergs have to be floating in water.
i've eaten iceberg lettuce, though.
62 for me! I want to know what everyone has done.
Um, updated my blog?
I'm at 81. Does that mean I'm cool?
I was about to just list off a couple I had done, I didn't think to count. I have been on two African safaris but people reading this will probably kill me b/c I'm not a big photo person so I didn't take many. My fave pic is on my blog now. I have been to Ireland, and I have biked in Sweden although it wasn't too exotic. It was quite the tour. Especially in the rain with the sun setting at 10:45 at night.
No Paul, it doesn't make you cool, but it could indicate a resurgence of "FP."
Next on my list is adopting an accent for an entire day...
Post a Comment
<< Home