Lounging

Question: what does an international man of leisure do when he needs to recharge? Answer: he spends the summer back at home. I can't say that my life plans ever included being jobless and living at my parents' house at age 27, but that's just the way things go sometimes. And you know what? I'm extremely happy with the way things have turned out so far. I've mentioned it before, but Seattle is still one of my favorite places in the world. The only real downside is that a summer in Seattle hasn't been the most exciting summer ever, so I haven't had much of an excuse to blog. Well that and the fact that we've had the rainiest August ever...

Anyway, fall is quickly approaching, which means it's time to dust off my traveling boots and see where the gods of travel take me. After my adventures last year I promised myself that this year I'd (a) leave the country at least once and (b) voluntarily make myself fear for my life.

You're probably wondering why, oh why would I want to make myself fear for my life? The answer is that I'm not entirely sure, but I know that I feared for my life last year when I went bungee jumping and sky diving. Now they stand as two highlights from 2006 and I'm sure that's not a fluke. But there's only one way to find out for sure.

I'm happy to report that I've got plans plans achieve both resolutions this fall. And, as one would expect, exciting adventures means that I'll have exciting stories to tell, which means I'll have a reason to start telling you all about it.

So ready or not, here we go!

And We're Back!

It's been nearly a month since my last post; the blog break has been nice. I'm finally back in Seattle; I arrived last Thursday at 3:30am. The last month has been great. I'm not sure there's anything worth mentioning, but I'll give a quick run down of everything that I've been up to.

The drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas was pretty easy. There must be some sort of Airforce base in northern Arizona because I saw a ton of military aircrafts. That helped keep the drive interesting. I also made a stop at the Hoover Dam (and took a couple pictures). As expected, the dam was huge, impressive, and definitely worth the stop. But you wouldn't believe how many people I met in Las Vegas who said they wish they could visit the dam. Do they not realize it's a 40 minute shuttle ride out there? If you really want to see it, then go see it! :)

Anyway, the weekend in Las Vegas was fantastic. It's the first time I'd seen Jordan in well over a year. Parties, sun, weddings, losing money... all the essentials. No pictures, though. :) Actually, I put my camera away after the Hoover dam and haven't pulled it back out since. Guess that means my road trip was officially over at that point.

After Vegas I spent some time in the bay area, which is still one of the greatest places in the world. And you always learn something new there. I mean, did you know that America now celebrates "Indigenous People's Day"? I didn't know that either, but it's a valid holiday for parking meters. It turns out that Indigenous People's Day is actually the politically correct version of Columbus Day. How much money do you think they spent changing all the parking meters?

And finally it was time to come home. Having done the 13 hour trek from Seattle to San Francisco once before I had sworn to never, ever attempt a one day drive again. But I ended up hanging out in SF one day too long and was forced to pull a 2:00pm to 3:00am drive to Seattle. But I was in good form. I feel like the whole road trip was all preparation and this last drive was my final test. I passed with flying colors. Well it was actually a terrifying drive. I picked up a couple more boxes of stuff in SF which meant that my car was absolutely packed to the gills. It was, in my opinion, an impressive engineering to repack my car with those two additional boxes. My car was so packed, in fact, that I couldn't see anything out the right side. Couldn't see the blind spot, couldn't use my mirror, couldn't even look out the passenger window. Merging to the right felt like a game of Russian Roulette. I'd put my indicator on, wait for a few seconds, then slowly merge over, listening for the sound of a horn. Fortunately there were no accidents (that I know of, at least!)...

And now I'm back in Seattle. Jordan's wedding last weekend was definitely worth the drive up for; it was beautiful. And the weather over the weekend was probably 4 of the nicest days I've ever seen in Seattle. It was one of the best weekends I've had in a while and I'm now in a bit of a post-wedding funk. Well, post-road trip funk actually. Jordan's wedding was the last thing on my calendar and now I'm just ... free. A year ago I think I would have been terrified to be in this position, but I'm very okay with it now.

I don't know how long I can stay like this; when I'll break down rejoin the real world, but I'm happily planning out my next fantasy trip. I may not be all over the world right now, but I'll be back there soon enough. And I'm confident that my life will still be an adventure. And as long as I've got adventures to live, I've got stories to share. So this blog isn't going anywhere quite yet.

The Greatest Snow On Earth





And we're back! I realize I've probably lost pretty much anyone who may be reading this, but I've enjoyed my little vacation at home. For those of you who haven't been following the news in the great northwest, we're currently enjoying the wettest month in the Seattle's history. We're up to like 16 inches of rain and counting, with rain forecast for the remainder of the month. Of course, all this rain means that we've got a lot of snow, too. The mountains opened last Thursday and I was able to kick off my second consecutive winter up at Mt. Baker last Friday.

Which brings me to the second season of my endless winter. Starting December 11th I'll be a snowboard instructor at the Park City Mountain Resort in Park City, Utah. I've never been to Utah before, but I'll be spending the next five months enjoying the self-proclaimed "greatest snow on Earth." I've really enjoyed relaxing in Seattle, but now that snow is falling, I can't wait to get out to Utah. And one reason I can't wait to get out there is because you will be out there too. Yes, you. I'm going to have a one bedroom apartment to myself for the next five months, and I'm more than happy to offer up a place to crash, entertainment, and free snowboard lessons to anyone who is interested. Park City is only 45 minutes from Salt Lake City, so I'll even play the role of chauffeur. So you let me know what I need to do to get you out to Utah and I'll make it happen. Deal?

My journey actually starts early tomorrow morning with a 12 hour drive down to San Francisco. I'll be hanging out down there for a week or so before continuing with another 12 hours over to Utah. Should be a lot of fun, or -- failing that -- a lot of driving. And now that I'm back in "travel mode" I'll try to keep this area a little more active.

Until then, happy Thanksgiving!

Birthday Bungy!





My sister really enjoyed my bungy videos from New Zealand and was convinced that she would do it some day, too. I decided that "some day" would be sooner than she expected and, as a birthday present, told her it was time for her to put her money where her mouth was. We gathered up six fellow victims and headed down to southern Washington to jump off the "highest bungy bridge in America."

Being the birthday girl, Kelsey was nominated as the first jumper. It's set up so you do two jumps in a row. You dive off the first time, get pulled back up, and then you immediately jump off backwards for your second jump. I was a little concerned when they started strapping my sister in, she didn't look like she really wanted to do this. And I was even more concerned when they pulled her up after the first jump, it looked like she was to start crying. Thanksfully, she was very happy afterwards and is already ready to go again.

Note: if you watch the video of her jumping, you'll her a lot of screaming. Kelsey is responsible for the first, short, high-pitched scream you hear. After that everything is drowned out by the two girls who were standing next to me. There were absolutely terrified for Kelsey. I really should have panned over to them instead of trying to follow Kelsey, they were quite a site. I think one of them (I won't name any names) might have peed a little during that jump. Good times all around.

There are a few more pictures online, but nothing too special. We've got some professional pictures being sent over, they should be much better.

Oh, and of course my sister videoed my jumps as well. Since I was the "seasoned veteran," I was nominated to go last. I managed to keep things in control for the most part. The first jump was great, but the second jump (jumping backwards) scared the hell out of me. If you listen to the two videos (below) carefully, you'll notice a subtle, but distinct, change in scream. The scream in my first jump is a "I'm the man, this is awesome!" scream. Jump two starts off the same way but quickly changes to an "Oh my god I'm going to die!" scream. I think you can hear the jump master making fun of me on that one as well.

Seattle: metronatural





The city of Seattle just unveiled a new tourism slogan, "metronatural." After stomaching the initial shocking stats (16 months in development and with a $200,000 budget) and trying to figure out exactly why metronatural sounds so... well just wrong, I've decided that while the slogan is horrible, it was really close to be good. I don't know what good is, but Seattle really is a city in touch with nature. How many cities do you know have this view? And it was definitely time to replace the old slogan, which looked something like: @L (that's supposed to be an eyeball before the @ symbol).

And speaking of Costa Rica, I've decided I don't really want to sit around and write about it. Always look forward, never backward. And I got to tell my favorite story already, everything else is the same old beautiful wildlife and exotic animals. I should have some new trips lined up soon. In the mean time I'll see how much fun I can stumble into during my break back up in the northwest. For example, I'm taking my sister bungy jumping this weekend! That will certainly be interesting...

Seattle: On Vacation





Now that I'm "home" everyone keeps asking, "what's been your most favorite place to visit so far?" My standard answer has been New Zealand, which was truly beautiful. I keep telling everyone how much it reminds me of Washington: green, mountainous, lush forests... All that good stuff. But being back in Seattle (after being away for over two years) I realize that yes, New Zealand is beautiful, but it's got nothing on Seattle. I've always loved Seattle (as everyone from California already knows, I act as an unofficial Seattle ambassador down there), but had forgotten about the small details that make this area special. Like today, an unexpectedly warm, sunny day with clear blue skies in the middle of October. Sadly my vocabulary won't do it justice, it's really something you need to experience first hand.

So Seattle and New Zealand are now running neck and neck for the "#1 place I've been in the last three months." Of course, if anyone asks me I'll still say New Zealand. If nothing else, it's a better conversation started. And now back to Costa Rica.

¿Habla Inglés?

Having just spent two months in New Zealand and Australia, I felt pretty confident that I'd be able to handle a short trip to Costa Rica with ease. Landing in San Jose, Costa Rica I (belatedly) realized there was one detail I had completely overlooked: I don't speak Spanish. I'm obviously not the first person to run into this problem, but after two months of traveling I was expecting to feel like I was back in my element. But it's been a long since I've been surrounded by an entirely foreign language. Fortunately Costa Rica is tourist friendly and it's pretty easy to get around with just a couple key phrases.

After a few days in the country I found myself picking things up a little more quickly. It's strange how much you can glean from a conversation even if you can't understand the language. Based on where people are standing, who they're talking to, body language, and the occasional familiar sounding word I was able to get a good idea of what other people were talking about.

Unfortunately that understanding didn't translate so well when it came time to respond. As soon as someone started speaking at me, my brain would immediately freeze up. Sometimes I would understand their question, but wouldn't be able to formulate a coherent response (even if that response involved correctly choosing between "si" or "gracias"). Other times each word sounded familiar, but the question didn't quite add up for some reason. The vocal highlight came late one night on our way back from a turtle beach walk (more on that later). Everyone was saying thanks and good night to each other. Happy to blend into the chorus I called out "buonas nachos!" It's so close to "buonas noches", and yet oh so far away. I had already started walking away as I was speaking, so I really didn't have time to correct myself. I keep telling myself that no one else heard me, but I've got a feeling that I was on the receiving end of many, many jokes later that night.

Home (Again)!

Well I've successfully survived another vacation. Costa Rica was beautiful and, as promised, I didn't have any time (or desire) to write any stories while I was down there. But I'm back with a few good stories and a few pictures. Actually a "few" pictures seems generous, I didn't really use my camera at all. If you take a look through my measly collection I'm sure you'll agree I should have been a little more trigger happy. But I was too busy enjoying my vacation to try and take pictures of it. Anyway, I said I've got a few stories to tell, so I'll get on with that.

Perma-Vacation!





So when does returning home actually feel like a vacation? When "home" is a temporary stop between two other vacations. :) I've just spent a week in Seattle and, although I've been busy, it's been vacation-busy, not a back-home-busy. Hanging out with friends, playing golf and tennis, and generally unwinding is not how I'm usually greeted after a vacation. I mean the only reason I even ended up unpacking was so that I could start packing back up for Costa Rica (and I use "unpacking" in a very loose sense here -- everything is in a heap in my room).

But as much as I've enjoyed Seattle, it's time to get back on a plane. I'm spending a little over a week down in Costa Rica and it's going to be busy. If things go according to plan I'll be seeing San Jose, the Arenal Volcano, the Monteverde Cloud Forest, and the Osa peninsula, a remote location on the Pacific coast. It's the middle of the green season so it's going to be wet, hot and humid, but I can't wait. Plus I've got my sister's handy Costa Rican Spanish phrase book from her trip here a few years ago so I should pretty much just blend in with the locals. :)

I have no idea if I'll be able to upload pictures and stories while I'm down there. I won't have as much leisure time as I did in New Zealand and I don't want to waste it on the Internet (well maybe just a little bit...). But fun will be had, pictures will be taken, and legends will be born (in my mind at least). And it'll all make it's way back up here at some point.

Next stop: San Jose, Costa Rica!