Sunday, July 31, 2011 – Redwood National Forest, California – 6:35 PM
So I didn’t update at all yesterday, oh well. :P Let’s see… we did – what again? Oh, right! We drove. A LOT. But we did stop. Several times. First stop: Lava Butte (Bend Oregon). It was pretty cool, but I liked the small hike we did around it the best. It was very pretty. I only use a world like “pretty” when I’m talking cutsey or when I need to save beautiful for something else. Which I’m going to. Crater Lake was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I honestly can’t think of another word to describe it. The lake was so calm, so serene, and the blue hue almost looked fake! Like at first glance, you could think that the color of the water was computer generated. It was beautiful. What we did after that couldn’t compare. Sure, the Plaikni Falls Hike we did was pretty cool, but that was kind of overshadowed by a small worry. I had thought that I LOST MY PHONE. D: We were at the falls and I was sitting on a rock with my phone in my pocket – as per usual – and when I got up, I didn’t notice my pocket was empty. So we were about a quarter of the way back when I checked my pocket and guess what wasn’t there? Paniking, I jogged/ran/sprinted back up the trail asking every person on the way up (which was around 20-30 people) if they had seen a cell phone on their way there/back. No one did. When I got back up to the falls, I looked around franticly, and that’s when it hit me. The pocket with my phone in it was facing the waterfall. Conclusion: My phone dropped into the rock-littered, steep and freezing waterfall run-off river. I just lost it. I ran back to my dad (who had been hiking up behind me along with my brother), told him what happened, and my brother and I plunged our hands into the water to see if my phone had gotten stuck in between some rocks – it didn’t. My brother out of the blue suggested to my dad to check his pockets while we were about an eighth of the way back. He said no. So we began walking back up to the waterfall when my dad checked his back pockets. What did he find? My phone. It was in his wallet pocket so he thought it was his wallet (which was in the car). My panic subsided and I jogged back to the car. Thank goodness for being on the Cross Country team.
I fell asleep during the Rogue River Drive which was alright, for what I remember of it. What was really cool when we got to our hotel (it’s called The Lodge at Grant’s Pass) we happened to arrive just in time for their 50s car rally. I love old cars, so I was thrilled. I saw so many of them! My favorites were the old Corvettes and Camaros (a trait picked up from another of my friends, Bridgette) and any car that was really loud and revved up its engine a lot. :3 I love the loud noise~ I’m now hoping that when I get a car (eventually) that I get either a Jeep, an old car, or the best: An old Jeep. :3 Jeep Wranglers are my favorite! >w<
This morning was blah. We ate dinner at Elmer’s Breakfast – Lunch – Dinner. I had the Oregon Hazelnut Pancakes. DELICIOUS. It was not quite what I expected, but it was good. :3 And the best part? A runner (I think?) named Dustin – who was absolutely adorable – kept coming over to our table to either pick up dishes, or refill coffee, or any excuse he could think of. He also kept offering my mom a refill of coffee even after she said she has one cup a day. X3 I might be just coming to the wrong conclusion, but hey. A girl can dream.
More driving and we reach Jedediah Smith State Park. It was pretty~ :3 The redwoods were AMAZING. They were HUGE!!!!! We followed the old stagecoach trail, and I’ll tell ya, the trees just kept popping up! They were hugging the road and you could really tell that the path was carved around the trees. Twists, turns and lots of braking. There were some rivers where you could fish. My brother and dad did. They said twenty minutes; it turned into at least an hour. -_-;;
Driving, driving, driving and it’s lunch. Finally. We ate at Good Harvest Café. De-lish. Well, I guess it is pretty hard to go wrong with a PB&J. :P I think what I really liked was that there was a small pamphlet with a really funny story in it. :3 It’s called “Atheist in the Woods”. All credit to the original author.
[QUOTE]An atheist was walking through the woods. “What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” He said to himself.
As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charging towards him.
He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him.
He looked his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer.
He tripped and fell on the ground.
He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.
At that instant, the Atheist cried out, “Oh my God!”
Time stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky.
“You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don’t exist and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you a believer?”
The Atheist looked directly into the light, “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR Christian?”
“Very well,” said the voice.
The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head and spoke:
“Lord, bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.”[/QUOTE]
Pretty funny, right? Especially if you’ve seen Dane Cook’s sketch “Sneezing Atheist”. Good stuff~
Fast forward to where we are now: Redwood National Forest/Park. Believe it or not, I haven’t seen many redwoods and I saw a whale. That’s right. On one of the rivers, a whale managed to swim itself upstream. And we thought that it was a bear. XD
- 5:54 PM
Wonderful, really wonderful hike. It was shaded, long, tiring, and filled with battles over who was right about which direction we were going. -_-; At first, we loved it. It was magnificent, and the trees were beautiful, but after a while, we got lost. We took some wrong turns and didn’t finish our loop. I guess it was better than I’m thinking it was right now because I’m frustrated that with all my attempts, we still had some negative energy. =( Like we were playing music to keep away animals, and while my brother was just playing anything on his iPod, I was playing some of the more positive songs I could think of. I played “Protectors of the Earth” by Two Steps From Hell (that was before the fighting), “Far From Home (Remix)” by Vic Mignogna, TobyMac’s “I’m For You” and finally “Roses” by Poets of the Fall. Pretty positive/calming songs, but still… Right now, we’re heading to our hotel called “Pacific Reef Resort” in Gold Beach, Oregon. =) Hoping for things to look up~! One more thing to mention: “Today, we were on a family hike through a thick forest. We were passing a fallen tree, when I noticed somethings inscribed in some moss. What did I see that was MILA worthy? The letters HP with a lightning bolt underneath it. Fellow MLIAers, I daresay we are taking over the world. MLIA”
- 9:48 PM
Asdigneiadsj We saw the whale again!!! *awesomeface.jpg* She was beautiful~! <3 I loved her~! But not enough to run back and forth across a bridge. -_-; I guess it was pretty awesome, since the only way I’d see something like that on the East Coast was in an aquarium. :P Yep… I’m not looking forward to tomorrow morning though. We have to wake up at six. Pacific Time. Hallelujah it’s not East Coast time, or I’d most likely die. It’s for a boat tour. Why we didn’t schedule it for a later time is beyond me.
