Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Because we've been doing a bit of traveling, and good driving music normally accompanies long trips, I decided to compile a list from our iPod of the top 10 songs played while driving (thanks for the inspiration, LG)

"Maybe Sparrow" Neko Case

"Morse" Nightmares on Wax

"Campus" Vampire Weekend

"Absinthe Party and the Fly Honey Warehouse" Minus the Bear"

"No Sunlight" Death Cab For Cutie

"Another Night" Heavens

"Good People" Jack Johnson
"Fever" Bonobo

"Back in your Head" Tegan and Sara (Thanks, Graham, for gettin' us hooked!)

"Trees" Pulp

Anyway, we've been getting pretty stoked for Lindsay's next assignment in Eugene, OR. If asked why, it's probably because it's nothing like Tacoma. I should do a compare contrast of the two locales, but I'll save that for a later post...one where I'll have more time and have pent up a week or so's worth of sarcasm to spice it up a bit. But for now, we'll simply say that it's going to be nice to see green again, and be amongst (or closer to) some like-minded folks.

Last weekend/week was spent in Bend with our transplant crew of once-upon-a-time East Coasters. The Lord and Jedi were as hospitable as ever, inviting the dingy climbing crew back to their eclectic little farm in Alfalfa for some impromptu gardening, grilling, and hot-tubbin' fun. On our first day there, Mabel jumped the fence and waited for us in their driveway until we got home...she knew she was bad.

We cranked for multiple days at Smith Rock, and the temps ranged from scorched-Earth-hot to jacket and hat weather. We climbed hard, played hard, and then slept pretty hard too. Unfortunately, Lindsay's sleep pattern was a bit warped the first evening there, as she had just gotten off a 3-night, 12 hour/day, work week, and was firing on about 4 hours of sleep. A few adult beverages helped soothe teh loopy beast inside, though.

Now that we're back in Aromaland (aka Tacoma), we are focusing our attention on young Mabel. Today, she is spending her time at the Hound Hangout in town. In about an hour I'll be hearing from them to see if she successfully passed the initial "meet and greet" to gain her access to frequent visits. I have a sneaky suspicion she behaved.

To The East and Back Again!

Sorry for the delay, folks, but Lindsay and I haven't been very stationary over the past few weeks.
August 1st we spent some time over in Leavenworth climbing with our friend Emily who was out here for a few days.

The weekend of August 8th, we were back in VT for a great wedding. Our friends, Ted and Kristine, got hitched. The stay was all too brief, and the rain was all to present, but we did get to see a lot of friends which is always a treat. A couple of highlights from the trip: Our connecting flight from Philadelphia to Burlington was overbooked, so we offered up our seats in exchange for 2 free roundtrip tickets anywhere in the contigious US. We also stayed with Auntie Nicole, our great neighbor and dear friend in VT. Pizza at "Good Times", and sandwiches from the "Paisley Hippo" punctuated the eating side of things, and a return flight that was delayed for 3 hours in Philadelphia (again!). The wife became quite grumpy as a result...and I don't blame her one bit. We think that city and airport has it out for us.

This past weekend (August 15th-17th), we spent rafting up the Deschutes River in Oregon with our friends, Shea and Annie and some of folks we had met at their wedding, as well as some couples we had never met prior to this trip. (Link to photos from rafting trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/chrisduca34/RaftingOnTheDeschutesRiverAugust2008 )

Mabel stayed at the Cascade Pet Camp in Hood River for the few days that we were away, and according to her doggie report card (yes, each dog gets a report card upon their departure from camp!), she didn't like her stay one bit (we think she was a little homesick). Prior to her going to camp, she paid a little visit to her private pedicurist, Annie, where she hasd her nails examined and trimmed...a dogs life is quite rough.

The few days we spent on the river, the temperatures reached well into 100 degrees fahrenheit. I believe Saturday's temps topped out a whopping 110 degrees, with a breeze that was so warm it felt like a hair dryer was pointing at you from above. Needless-to-say, much time was spent hanging off the raft, or floating beside it in the river as we were swept down river by the strong current. Our campsite was pretty sweet, and I think had we floated further up the river, we probably wouldn't have found a site as large and as accomodating (an outhouse was there!). We were freaked out a couple of times while camping. First, Shea's sister-in-law spotted 2 black widow spiders in the outhouse, and then Annie decided to follow a deer path down river without telling anyone she was leaving. We thought was abducted, but she was just being curious.

In other news, there are some updates as to our next assignment, but I won't spoil any surprises until we are sure that we'll be there.

We're off in a few hours for a couple of days of rock climbing along the Tieton River in Eastern Washington...we'll post some pictures of that when we get back.

The countdown has begun...we only have 4 weeks left in Tacoma!

Olympic National Forest Slideshow

Click on the link below for the Olympic National Forest slideshow.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chrisduca34/OlympicNationalForest

"...and sometimes we go hiking."

We don't only busy ourselves with rock climbing; in fact, sometimes we even seek out hiking as our weekend activity.

Over this past weekend (our weekend actually began on Thursday), Lindsay, Mabes and I drove 2 hours out to the Olympic National Forest for a few days of sunny weather, high altitude, hot springs and hiking. Our first foray into the wilderness of the Olympics found us atop Mount Townsend after 4 hours and 10.5 miles of steady uphillin' it. Graced with 360 degree vistas of Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, Seattle and the Olympics, but bothered by hunger and heat, we hurriedly raced down the loose switchbacks in half the time in search of food.

That night, we camped out in quiet campground about a 5 miles within the National Forest boundary. Mabel was out like a light, but Lindsay and I seemed to be a little restless due to the gravel surface we were sleeping on, the heat Mabel was generating inside the tent, and the residual energy from the days hike.

The following day, we opted for a much shorter hike (5 miles) out an old logging road to the Olympic Hot springs. Before we knew it, our bodies were soaking in a 126 degree sulfur pool perched at the zenith of an old landslide. We ran into some nice folks that gave us the lowdown on the hot springs, fed us smoked gouda and oranges, as well as sharing the beta on the mother of all hot springs located in Death Valley.

Mabel, unfortunately, had to wait in the car for the few hours we were gone, which we feared would turn into a catastrophe. Nothing was eaten or ruined in the car when we got back, though...whew!

On Saturday, we did go rock climbing at a local spot called Amazonia. Covered by the canopy of the thick, old growth forest on the southern side of Mount Washington, this gently over-hanging crag was the perfect choice for a quiet day in the woods. By mid afternoon, we were getting hungry, so we safely sped back to town, got changed, and hit a local Irish pub for some shepherds pie and cornbeef sandwiches.

Check out the slideshow from the Olympics and check for updates this week! Ciao for now.

Granite Playground

Over the past weekend, Lindsay, Mabel and I took trip up to British Columbia to a small town called Squamish with a big chunk of granite lording over it like big brother. The granite wall is named the Stawamus Chief, and it's the 2nd largest granite monolith in the world (the first being Yosemite's El Capitan). This was our first trip to BC with Mabel, so we weren't sure how the border crossing was going to go with a pet in tow. Everything ended up occuring without a hitch, or kink in the plans. As it turned out, last weekend was the Squamish Mountain Festival, so the little town, that is normally turned on end during peak seasons, was especially busy. Fortunately, we arrived Thursday evening, prior to the hippie masses (we'll get to that in a bit!) arrival.

One thing I continually have to remind myself is that a good nights sleep is few and far between when camping--you take what you can get. Our first night was pretty quiet, aside from the cackling crow that awoke us at the godforesaken hour of 5am! I got up, threw a rock at it, then promptly went back to bed.

That day, we got our first taste of Squamish rock. Our climbing started out at a small and sunny crag right off a nice bike trail. It was aptly named Penny Lane. Nice. We climbed a few routes up there, then moved over to another area and sampled some of the finer and harder crack lines. Our day had dwindled past, we had run out of water, and were getting pretty hungry. We bagged climbing for the day after climbing 7 routes, went back to camp and made fajitas. That evening, we saw the only other car with Vermont plates on it. A couple from Brandon, Vermont had been traveling across the country for the past month and took an Alaskan, then Canadian detour. While Lindsay and I finished off our meal with the requisite S'mores, we imbided in some adult beverages and spoke to the other VTers. They were nice enough, and for about 1/2 hour we shared some laughs and stories about New England and Vermont.

The following day our plan was to get up pretty early, hit the Grand Wall Base Area and bang off a couple of the classic routes we knew would be swarming with people later in the morning. We got there, dispensed with Exasperator Crack and Peasants' Route, then left before we saw anyone.

After deciding to head out for dinner to a local brewery, we returned to our campsite that evening (Saturday to witness what was the beginning of the hippie invasion of Squamish. Our campground was swarming with the smell of campfires (nice), cooking food (even nicer), and the sound of...bongos and guitars (not so nice). Showers then to bed by 9pm, only to be awoken at 3:30am by bongos, guitars, and drunken laughter. What the hell?! Lindsay boiled over, got uo, and marched over to the very receptive drunken partyers, to relay a very polite, but curt message to please cease ansd desist. They did, and subsequently, we slept in later than anticipated the following morning.

Driving home on Sunday lasted longer than expected due to a 50 minute delay at the US border crossing. Lindsay and Mabel napped, I festered.

After thinking it through and talking about it for a while, we decided Mabel had a pretty decent weekend despite all of the hooplah and action at the campground (no growling, barking, or snarling; only one lunge at a bunny that seemed to get a little too close, the unwarranted killing of a small mole at the base of the Grand Wall Saturday morning, and the nipping of a sheepdog's rear end that resulted in Mabel having a mouthful of white sheepdog fur).

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Now that we are back in Tacoma, we've come to the conclusion that for Lindsay's next assignment (and probably everyone thereafter), she's going to focus more on the quality of the town she choses, and not so much on the quality of the hospital. Sounds a little backwards, but the point of this trip was to enjoy ourselves in places we want to be. More later...

The Most Stressful City

Good afternoon all. Another glorious day in Washington State. I just got back from a long bike ride, and was thinking about the size of Tacoma. It's a hard place to figure out because it is so spread out, there are so many dang automobiles, and it is so close to Seattle. TO help your mind quantify the size of the city here are some interesting (and not so intersting) facts and comparisons about our current place of residence.

The city of Tacoma, WA isn't as large as you'd think. Spread out over an area roughly 15 miles in diameter, and split nearly down the middle by the South Puget Sound, Tacoma pales in comparison to its neighbor to the north, Seattle. However, what the estimated 196,000 people that live in Tacoma might not know is that their relatively small city is actually the size of at least one Africa country, French Guiana. To further connect Tacoma's population to other things of planetary significance near or at the same number is easy. For example: October of 1918, our nation suffered the deadliest month in its history. Due to the outbreak of Influenza, a record 195,000 people fell victim to the deadly disease. Also, Reno, Nevada, dubbed "The Biggest Little City in America" has a population of 195,000. Another quirky fact about Reno is that during the '20s and '30s, many women escaped to Reno looking for a Reno-vation of their life. Unlike many other states in the nation at during that time, they could get a divorce after the short 6 weeks period it took to gain residency.

New York City is comprised of five burroughs: The Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. According to a 2001 census, the south section of the the Bronx alone has 195,000 people. (Now if that doesn't make Tacoma feel small?!) And finally, because of Tacoma's not so big-not so small population, it suffers from middle child syndrome. Yes. Recently (2004), Tacoma was ranked our nation's most stressful city to live in. Why? Apparently, Tacoma has an extremely high number of suicides, unemployed residents, homeless people, and gloomy days. To boot, John Muhammad, the Washington, D.C. sniper from a few years back (remember him?!) was from here.

And that's all I have to offer your brain today.

"Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!!"

Those were the last words spoken by David Johnston right before Mt. St. Helens erupted in May of 1980. The eruption's reverberation was felt as far away as Portland, OR, and the ash, smoke, and soot released from St. Helens darkened the spring sky for the remainder of the day. Thousands of acres of wilderness and miles of rivers were wiped out and smoothed over by mudslides that buried 3-story houses.

This past weekend, Lindsay and I, along with Jim and Jessi from Bend, met in Portland, OR for a weekend of music, hiking, good food, and adult beverages.

Friday saw us witnessing one of the best concerts ever-- The Police. We traveled down to see them play at the Clark County Ampitheater in Ridgefield, WA. Their set was amazing, playing everythingyou'd expect, as well as some more obscure tunes from Ghost in the Machine and Zenyatta Mondatta. We were seated in the general admission section; however, that did not disuade Lindsay from hoppin' the fence and making a bee-line for the rows of seats 100 yards away. For roughly 10 minutes, I was certain that she had been caught and escorted out of the venue, leaving myself, Jim and Jessi wondering about her whereabouts. Luckily, she made, as did the rest of us...yes, the rest of us. If it weren't for the complete stranger standing next to us, egging us on, I think we all would've chickened out. And I'm not going to lie and say a liquid courage didn't help...because it did. (A slideshow of concert pictures is in the making.)

Saturday morning we awoke early and groggy. We camped out about 30 miles from Mt. St. Helens in an RV campground. Surrounded by Winebagos and other large campers, we felt like sardines. Nevertheless, we got a good, albeit short, night of sleep. That morning we ate a greasy breakfast then drove to the National Monument where we did the touron thing for a few hours. We were all pretty tired from the previous night of debauchery, so we kept it pretty low key.

Just a couple of other random updates: Lindsay and I have been rock climbing a lot at this amazing collection of cliffs called Index. Beautiful granite walls with some of the best crack lines we've ever climbed. Mabel's adjustment to big city living has been pretty seemless thanks to the help of the dozen or so dogs that have quickly befriended her, and helped with her doggie socialization. She still suffers from some serious separation anxiety, though. Just last Thursday she showed us just how much she missed us by chewing one of our backseat seatbelts in half! Yes, thanks Mabel for that. (This is a picture of Mabes in the headrest stockade!)