the odyssey: part 3 (continued)

here is some video documentation of leah's and my thoughts throughout the escapade of trying to reach the redwoods. we definitely took the road less traveled. enjoy....hope you get some laughs out of these...just click on the links!

redwoods video #1

redwoods video #2

redwoods video #3

redwoods video #4

anddddd.....that's all for now.

phew. that took a long time.

the odyssey: part 3

next stop: redwood state park.
now, this stop may just have the best story to go along with it...but you'll have to be the judge of that. i guess it depends on how well i tell the story. here goes.
leah and i had spent the night at a friend's place in cottonwood, ca (close to redding)- a beautiful little farming town. our friend's dad made us breakfast and we had a nice chat with him before we headed off. we were supposed to arrive at the park in just a few hours. leah punched in the address of the park to the GPS and we were off. it was a drizzly, cloudy day, but we were enjoying our trip (i was enjoying a nap), entertaining ourselves with music and "the question game" (leah's favorite game), when the GPS began directing us off of the main roads and highways we had been traveling on. i could sense the rising levels of alterness in both us, thinking "we must be getting closer!" we continued to turn off of roads onto seemingly more insignificant, less populated ones, until we were on a gravel road, literally called "unpaved road" by the GPS. hmm. but we continued on, confidently. about a half hour later, while manuevering the many, many switchbacks and potholes on "unpaved road," i realized i had not seen any sign of civilization in quite a while. but the GPS said we were but miles from our destination. so we continued on, perhaps a little less confidently (at least on my end). 15 minutes later- during which time we had barely traveled a few miles due to the rough road- leah and i looked at each other and just started laughing. "where in the world are we????" "this doesn't really....look.....right..." "should we turn around?" my favorite response of leah's- "i think this is just a back entrance to the park or something" so, yes, we're a bit ashamed to admit it now, but we still did continue on. a bit later, as levels of concern and confusion had started to rise, i tried to call someone and ask them to look up an address. after we had established leah and i were basically lost, my cell phone lost service. ok. great. but then, the unthinkable happened- we encountered other life forms- yes, people! in a white work truck. they were coming toward us, and came to a slow stop at our window. "are you guys as lost as we are?" they asked. why, yes, yes, in fact, i believe we are lost! they informed us that they went a few miles further than the point we were at and the road was the same....they then asked where we were going. i let leah do the talking- "well, umm, i'm kind of embarrassed to say it, but- redwood national park....?" the men in the truck- "isn't that off of the 101 freeway?" (at this point, we are a great distance from the 101). leah- "ohhh, yeah...um, yeah i think i maybe got the....wrong...address." they told us they had given up on the road, and strongly suggested we turn around too. they left, and- i'm not kidding you- leah still was not quite convinced that we should turn around. however, my resolve had strengthened, and she agreed. so....we turned around!! good for us- better late than never, right? anyway, we go down the road a ways, and see the white truck pulled off to the side. we pass them, and notice them pull out behind us. leah and i realized they had been waiting for us. after finally getting back to to the main road and enduring the same potholes and switchbacks in the rain that continued to pour down, the white truck pulled up next to us to turn the opposite way onto the highway. we wave to the kind fellows, and one hops out of the truck. he comes over to our car and says "ok, do you know where you're going now?" and proceeds to give us directions to the 101. we thank him, a bit mortified at the idiots we had portrayed ourselves to be, and we parted ways. we will never forget those kind men in the white truck.
so, much later than we had hoped, we finally arrived at one of the many redwood state parks. we were immediately mesmerized by the greatness of these trees. we traipsed around the forest, barely noticing the rain falling steadily upon us. i do believe i fell in love that day. there was something so powerful, so wise and so comforting about those trees- those trees that had seen so much in their hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of life. they reached up to the sky, and my arms could barely encircle even one side of the trunk. but their vastness was not intimidating- rather, i felt protected. even the earth beneath our feet felt softer. this was sacred land. and leah and i were in the midst of it.

the odyssey: part 2

next stop- san francisco. san francisco is a delightfully colorful place...that's in reference to the people, the culture, the buildings, the everything...there is a definite energy to that city. it is alive, and people and things are always moving, but not so much that it exhausted me. it seemed to be just enough- just enough to make me feel alive, too. following the advice of our hosts the night before, we made sure to stop and eat at "mama's cafe"- a local restaurant totally worth the 1/2 hour (at least..) wait. we walked around chinatown, coit tower, lombard street, the golden gate bridge and found ourselves with much too little time for all the places we wanted to experience. i'm not sure if leah would say driving down the one-block-long, strangely curvy lombard street was totally worth the immense effort it took to get there....but now we can look at a postcard of it and say- "hey, i have been there!" when we stopped at the lookout point for the golden gate bridge, we were doing the usual- taking entirely too many pictures of what is really just a bridge (don't get me wrong- i do think it's a beautiful one), but somehow makes you think you must try to capture it at every angle, when a kind fellow offered to take our picture. now, this man did not take one or two pictures, but several pictures- even showing us how to place our hand a certain way so it looked as though we are holding up the bridge (unfortunately leah has those, otherwise i'd put them up). turns out he was not a tourist, but a proud resident of san francisco. he told leah and i he loved to just come down to that point and meet tourists, tell them the hot spots in town, and of course, take their picture with the bridge. he seemed to be a very happy, fufilled man. of course, a few hours in san francisco is not nearly enough time, but it was enough to recognize the familiar feeling that i felt the first time that i went to san francisco....i like this city. i feel comfortable in this city. someday, i will return.

the odyssey: part 1

alright, as you can see, i'm doing some catch up here....trying to finally upload those pictures many of you have kindly requested...many times. so, here i begin the road trip series. for those who don't know (but i think you all do...), my roommate, leah, and i road-tripped from azusa, ca to madison, wi at the end of may. leah's trusty hyundai santa fe- commonly known as "norah"- carried us and our obscene amount of belongings up north to washington state, and then east over to wisconsin. we traveled through yosemite, san francisco, cottonwood, ca, redwood national park, portland, or, seattle, wa, bozeman, mt, yellowstone national park, buffalo, wy, and clear lake, ia, landing us home in madison, wi after a little over a week. as you can imagine, there are so very many pictures from this trip, and i want to be able to share each and every one of them (worth looking at) with you. however, i don't want to bore you out of your minds. so i will begin with the first stop- yosemite!

i'm not exactly sure how to make the mosaic larger, or i would...
yosemite, as you can see, was simply beautiful. leah and i hiked and stood in awe of these massive trees and waterfalls and the green world around us, trying desperately to capture the beauty with a camera lens, but i'm not sure if that's even possible. on the way to vernal falls, we found ourselves considerably soaked by the mist from the waterfall which was at its fullest point during our visit. i literally looked like i had taken a shower with my clothes on. waterfalls are astonishing....
after dragging ourselves away from the vast yet-to-be explored territory of yosemite (at least by us), we passed by a delightful "tie dye jerky" stand on the side of the road. naturally, we had to stop...here we met the amazing woman named pam who runs the stand. she told leah and i that she used to be a lawyer in san francisco and was making tons of money, but then one day realized that she was making money to buy clothes for her job, cars for her job and an apartment for her job, etc. and just decided she had had enough of it. i loved her free spirit. and here ends part 1. come back soon for the next installment of the odyssey....

going back in time....

ok, let's rewind a few months (was it really just a few months ago?) to the very beginning of may....when all the changes that were about to happen were just starting to hit me....the catapult, we could call it...in other words- graduation. for the many people i love that weren't able to be there....here is a little photo documentation to give you an idea of what it was like...click on the link to see:
graduation slideshow
enjoy!