I must confess...

See how happy I am to be wearing pants?

 I don't really think I understand "hiking." To me, all our "hikes" have really just been walks on running trails. Maybe that's just because all of our hikes thus far have been on trails I know and used to/still do run on. Or, maybe, it's because when I think of hiking in my head I see crazy fit, slightly unkempt people with bandanas and zip off shorts trekking through the underbrush, while we hike in running clothes and tennis shoes on trails after work so we're all made up and pretty when we start. Wikipedia defines hiking as "walking outdoors on a trail for recreational purposes." I suppose we fit this. The silly depiction in my head has a much cooler name, at least in the UK. Bushwhacking! That sounds so intense.  Wikipedia has too many hiking names. Dog hiking- that's a hard one to figure out. Hill walking- hiking uphill. Duh. Llama hiking- I think I prefer burros. Waterfalling- no, this time it is not a drinking game term, it's hiking to actual waterfalls. Ultralight hiking- I'm not sure how cutting the tags out of your clothes really reduces that much weight. (Sarcasm there, the ultralight thing is actually really interesting and sounds pretty beneficial.) There's also freehiking. You can google that yourself. Doesn't sounds very fun to me; I like wearing pants. 

 Anyhow, last Tuesday Jenna was unable to hike, and then she left for the weekend, so a typical Saturday hike was also out of the question. I did go hiking with a couple friends though and had a lovely two-hour hike up Dimple Hill again, this time without a detour to Horse Trail like when Jenna and I went last time!

My friends weren't particularly used to going uphill for an hour, but were good sports, nonetheless. I'm pretty sure they thought we would never get to the top of the hill and that I had gotten them lost in the woods and we would be stuck out there forever, especially once it started getting dark, but hey, they should have walked faster. I'm afraid of the dark so I was booking it down that hill. They had to call out my name several times to wait up for them.

     

Oregon is an amazing place. It was cloudy and gross all day in the valley, so I was kinda hoping we might see the sun at the top of the hill. As you can tell from the title picture here, I got to see a little sun! However, a slight turn to the east would reveal a thunderhead over Corvallis. They aren't terribly common around here, more-so in Central Oregon, so I found it interesting.

Sean was just thrilled with our hike, as you can tell. We had to take him to the store to buy shoes to hike in since apparently he only has two pairs! Who does that?? Anyhow, I promise he enjoyed it more than you think. He just doesn't like pictures. 

I must have terrible walking mechanics. Look how many times I hit the other leg when taking steps! Maybe this has something to do with my bad knees. I should investigate.  

"Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts."  -John Muir

When the husband's away, the wife will be lazy...

My husband Lee shipped off to Dickinson, North Dakota for a month-long engineering internship (Dickinson is about an hour and a half west of Bismarck, ND) Saturday morning. We stayed up Friday night getting the rest of his supplies he'd need, packing and getting ready -- and by "we," I mean, he. I, on the other hand, kept getting distracted and/or falling asleep on the floor instead of folding shirts like I was supposed to. We got into bed around midnight, but I didn't fall asleep until more like 0130. Two hours later, my alarm went off. There is quite possibly nothing worse than having only a nap's worth of sleep before a big day. I had plans for the remainder of the day after dropping him off at the airport, so I managed to take half an hour to figure out what I was going to wear, all the while making Lee pace nervously back and forth. We finally got out the door at 0405 and headed toward PDX. By the time I dropped him off, it was only 0530 in the morning, so I had some time to kill before meeting my friend in Beaverton. I drove around and found a coffee shop to get ready at. Yes, I was the creeper in the corner applying her make up and brushing her teeth. By the way, it's a good thing the coffee girl was cute, because she was dumber than a box of rocks and she made a horrible Americano. 

Finally around 0700, I headed to pick up my friend, as we had planned to get breakfast together and meet up with a few other friends later that afternoon for a movie. Problem was, it was still dark outside and the movie wasn't until the late afternoon. After breakfast, we decided to kill some time at the Washington Square Mall, but it wasn't even open yet. Once the doors opened, we joined the other senior citizens wearing their jogging suits walking around the perimeters of the mall, as only a few department stores were open but the rest of the mall was still closed. Who knew mall walking was such an intense sport? I mean, I haven't seen so many decorated waists (weight belts, fanny packs, etc.) in one building before; it was its own form of magnificent.

Our day started at the ass-crack of dawn (seriously, I thought day light would have happened a lot sooner than it did), and ended just a couple hours before it was technically Sunday. What do two people do for 15 hours? Basically, a lot of walking and a lot of eating. We scoured every inch of that mall and did a trust exercise at H&M -- and by "trust exercise," I mean letting me dress you up like a rag doll. I was on the hunt for red tennis shoes for work, and I found out just how colorblind my friend is. I don't know why, but this gave me great pleasure quickly throwing things in his face asking him what colors they were. Between the two of us, we found a few items to purchase and then took a break at a nearby pub to watch football (or was it basketball??) and have lunch. Killed a few more hours with that stone, then drove south (toward where we were meeting up for the movie) and stopped by the outlet malls in Woodburn. We got to know his mall real intimately as well, as we walked to every corner of this center. Killed some time while he was basically being molested by sales associates in a men's dress store, and then we got high off of smelling every Yankee candle that store had in stock. P.S. Most of those candles are falsely advertising their products, so don't see words you like and slam your nose into it thinking it's going to be heaven; it will result in you gagging and making a strange noise that the sales associates don't appreciate. We finally made our way to Salem; I got us lost a few times, then met up for the movie, followed by dinner at the Roadhouse, where there were far too many birthdays being celebrated in one facility.

I finally got back to my house in Corvallis a few minutes before midnight, and my bed has never looked so good. Oddly enough, I still needed to watch a little TV to unwind (though my day was incredibly simple) and by the time I got to sleep, I had officially just finished a 22-hour day.

Thus kicking off sickness and laziness, I wasn't feeling great, so I decided to take Sunday to just "relax" (as if the day before was such hard work), and popped in a few different movies. As some of you know, I am trying to watch all of the movies off of the Top 250 list from IMDB. If you don't know what IMDB is, immediately go educate yourself on the greatest internet network of all time. Well, inadvertently I did watch a few movies that came off of that list, but they were movies I'd already seen anyway. I watched Warrior for the second time, and proceeded to cry at the end just as hard as I did the first time. I don't know why the hell that movie gets to me so badly, but there's nothing that can send me into a blubbering fit like the last five minutes of that film. Then, because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to watch Away We Go and cry some more. P.S., There is probably no other movie that describes my sense of humor to a tee than John Krasinski's character. I ended the evening with Snatch just to add a movie where I knew I wouldn't cry, because let's face it, it's exhausting watching movies alone trying to hold back tears. 

Monday, I was plagued with not feeling well, so I took the day off from work and proceeded to lie in bed for about four hours after I had woken up. I worked a bit from home, and somehow managed to piss an entire day away. What went on all day, I still can't tell you. A lot of cat naps. Enter Tuesday, and you'll get basically the same schedule, except for I started the TV show Workaholics, which by far is one of the funniest sitcoms I've ever seen. 

So, while there are some perks of being sick and home alone: I get to buy the groceries/food I like without regard to if my husband likes them or not, I can listen to my music that he hates as loudly as I wish (not that his presence generally stops me to begin with), etc., I also have no one around to see how lazy I've been all day, thereby alleviating any guilt I may (or may not have) have felt.

Movies watched since Sunday (an * indicates it satisfies a requirement from the Top 250 list)

Bad Teacher

Horrible Bosses

In the Land of Women

Warrior*

Snatch*

Away We Go

Way of the Gun

Dear Lord, I need to start feeling better so I can get back on the trails. 

"If you guys see anything ninja-related, tell me. 'Cause I’m back on my ninja kick." - Workaholics

We've only just begun (having our fun)...

We're about six weeks into our journey of training for our summer hike, so I figured an update was in order. With the exception of this last week, we have managed to stick to hiking at least once a week (sometimes twice), camped overnight in the pouring rain, and most importantly, we've learned a lot more about ourselves to become more prepared for the trip.

As you could guess, one of the greatest things we've discovered is just how much we need to learn before July. For one, I need to get way better at my sense of direction. Each and every trip we've taken thus far, has resulted in me getting us, at the very least, off track. The problem stems from A) the lack of proper planning beforehand (looking at a map once would be ideal), and B) my morbid curiosity with seeing where a different path will take us, and C) I tend to just follow my dogs whichever pathway they take. Fortunately, we're in good shape, so we've been able to run the trails to make up for lost time. 

On our most recent adventure, once we realized we were pretty lost -- lost is a loose word, as we knew where we were, but also knew it was nowhere near where we wanted to be to get back to our car -- I came up with the idea to text our friend Carl to come pick us up at the lip of the trail that we were on. Why Carl? Well, first of all, I knew he was off work that day and available to come get us. Secondly, I know he's been lost on those same trails before, so he wouldn't give us too much crap. Though, this really wasn't the greatest advertisement for getting him to join us on the PCT this summer. The problem was, I didn't know his phone number by heart, and I had left my cell phone in the car. This is when it dawned on us that we need to start learning phone numbers for real -- add that to the list. I came up with the plan to text a different friend, whose number I thought I remembered by heart due to seeing it time and time again in his signature line at the bottom of all of our email conversations back and forth. I knew he had Carl's number and could text it to us. I used Kaity's phone to shoot him a text referring to the code name I gave him a couple years ago so he would know it was me texting him from a random number. I didn't want to use our names in the text just in case it wasn't him. Looking back, I should have also added in a "The fish flies at midnight," just to be extra mysterious and code-like, but decided to refrain until I got a response back. But alas, no answer. At this point I realize that I most likely got the number wrong, and have now officially instigated a conversation with a complete stranger, who thinks I know someone named Louise Ramone. By the way, if you don't already, you should code-name all your friends. It just makes life more fun. 

About an hour later, we managed to find a trail that led back to where we wanted to be. Fortunately the PCT is a through trail that doesn't require us to end back where we started, since that seems to be the most difficult part of our hiking. So thus far, we have been successful in practicing some of the things on our brown paper bag, like making in the woods, and then of course, hiking our asses off. We've researched more information about the trail, and have started a collective list (more formal than the brown paper bag) of items we still need to purchase before summer. 

Turns out, the phone number I texted was wrong, but only off by one digit. A few mental notes we made after this trip besides the phone number deal were that a half of a turkey sandwich beforehand does not equal enough food for a two-hour hike, a dead blackberry patch is not the appropriate place to take a dump, dogs will lead you astray if you roll all your dice on them, and sometimes the view from the top of your hike isn't worth the hike in itself. 

"In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks." - John Muir.

And even the best laid plans go awry... But a bottle of wine and some magazines help!

The other week Jenna and I decided to go on our first real solo adventure and took off to the south for an overnight hike/camp/hike trip.
How it was supposed to go:
We figured we would pack our backpacks (mine literally being a school backpack with my sleeping bag strapped to it with a Princess Cruises luggage strap), then hike in, camp and hike out. Of course, "hike in" really meant go on a short hike then come back to the car where we could chicken out in the middle of the night and leave or at the very least turn on the heater and avoid becoming human icicles.  We would eat MREs, boil water on a fire we built ourselves. Basically, we would become the badasses we strive to be, overnight.

How it really went:
The plan to meet up and head out at 11 ended up just a tad late, about a half hour (which is REALLY good for us!) After picking up the camping necessaries — hot dogs, s'mores ingredients (minus the crackers, which neither of us likes), candy and an assortment of girly magazines — we hit the trail! Figuratively speaking... if I5 can be referred to as such. I think it can, in this instance. Two hours later we reached Oakridge, Ore., and decided we needed one last meal before heading into the wilderness. Two yummy grilled sandwiches and raspberry wheat beers later from a cute little pub and we were set. We also scouted out the hostel at this point, just in case. Having never been to Salmon Creek Falls campground, I was content to let Jenna navigate and mostly not pay attention to anything. Then... NAP! A full tummy and a warm doggie on my lap led to a short doze, which I guess was more like 45ish minutes of Jenna driving aimlessly looking for the road she knew we needed to be on. I only woke up because the little spit of a road we were on was definitely not meant for a little passenger car. Time to turn back and get our bearings! We headed back to town (cell phone service) where I could google where we wanted to be. We were so close! Just needed a left instead of a right. Oh well! A sweet four miles later we found the campground... closed. As in locked and barred and devoid of any sign of life. In all actuality, we could have camped there after abandoning the car somewhere down the road so we wouldn't get caught, but we're good kids, so we drove a little further and found this great little campsite back off a tiny road with giant potholes. Campsite might be too demeaning of a word. This was more like the Central Park of campsites. You probably could fit four or five full size motorhomes in there. If you could get in the little driveway.
Anyhow, time to hike! Right? No. It was starting to rain, so we set up our tent next to the fire pit, then set to work making fire. Besides, we didn't even know where the trailhead was and ran out of cell phone service a ways back. Oh well, we'd do that tomorrow!
After successfully making fire (so what if it was tiny and took like 20 minutes) I did some scavenging for firewood since I didn't think I packed enough, and found two sticks that were maybe dry enough. Maybe. Jenna set to chopping with a hatchet while I took pictures and tried to stand on the end of it to hold it still.
Dinner time! The fire was merrily burning away a bit later and we had boiling water, hot dog sticks, a Mountain Home meal to try, and it was only sprinkling! MMM hot dogs.
Our secret guilty pleasure food.
We share a lot of funny idiosyncrasies, I'm sure you'll learn more about this later. But for two fitness and nutrition majors, you'd think hot dogs were a no-no. They are. Except when they're available. And when camping.

After hot dogs, we were too full for s'mores, and totally forgot about the Mountain Home. Oops.
We sat around the fire for a while giggling and such, then decided it was cold, and it was late, so why not crawl in bed and be warm there, with wine and magazines :)

Our ditzy convo went something like this: "I'm so tired, it must be late! Like eight!" "OMG, guess what time it is!" "We didn't even make it to eight??" "No! Guess!" "7:30?" *shows phone* "5:30!?!"
Yes, we are getting old. Aged 22 and 26.3 (ish. This is the third time I've changed her age and gotten it wrong), we go to bed at 5:30 without external stimulus. The saddest part? Both of us were ready to sleep! We poured some fancy wine direct from Italy — courtesy of a friend of Jenna's — looked through a few pages of magazine, then were out.
We both woke up a few times during the night for extended periods of time, but apparently neither knew the other was awake, or it would have been party time No.2, but eventually made it to morning without incident, as well as staying fairly dry considering the downpour that raged all night.

Time to hike! Or at least make breakfast! Fire's out. Let's bail. Breakfast in town. We'll hike back in Corvallis.
At the tiny diner, we were total outcasts, given poor service (except for practically being force-fed coffee), and got many stares. It was obvious we weren't from around there in the 20-person max capacity establishment. We were obliged to leave tips anyhow after paying at the counter while the lady watched us. Boo. Good French toast though.
Once again, we hit the road, this time slightly colder, a bit more sore, and yet somehow satisfied with our first solo adventure to survive in the woods.

We never did go on that hike when we got home. We only failed at packing everything we needed in  our packs and actually hiking. Maybe if Carl had come like he was supposed to (and we presume he regretted) we would have been more motivated to be tough. We were tough. We slept outside. We made fire. We didn't get eaten by bears. The John Muir Trail can't be worse than late-November camping in Oregon! 'Cept for you know, the hiking.

Our guard dog :)

Mary's Got A Peak...

Marys Peak
 

Besides hiking a few hilltops in Corvallis, like Dan's Trail at Dimple Hill every week, we decided to include the only actual "mountain" within the immediate area in our hiking ventures. It's a 40-minute drive outside of where we live; in fact, it may be a shorter drive, but I, of course, got us lost on the drive up there. Our friend Carl came with us on this trip, and though he denies this as an indication that he'll be coming on the JMT with us (he's the one we're trying to convince to come), we feel it's only a matter of time before he gives in.




Marys peak is 4,097 feet and somehow, we managed to end up at the top of the peak rather than at the base of it. Instead of continuing to drive around like idiots (thereby proving we have no clue what we're doing yet), we decided we'd just hike down the mountain, then back up to finish her off, just to get it done and out of the way for that day. I was carrying a hiking backpack filled with our changes of clothing, water bottles and snacks as just a small blip of what carrying weight would actually feel like on the JMT. I weighed it later, and it was only 20 pounds, which is about half of my goal weight for my pack for the trail, but way too much weight for a three-hour trip -- yeah, we don't have the efficient packing tricks down yet. About half mile down the hill, we come across a "foot print." This has been debated among the three of us since this day as to whether it is a bear paw print (Kaity's thought), a Big Foot print (Carl's theory --I would like to think he was kidding, but he does watch that Finding Big Foot TV show), or a combination of a dog print and shoe print stepped on top of each other (my thought). The two of them swear it was something supernatural, but there was only one print... why would a bear be walking around on only one foot? And don't get me started on the Big Foot theory in general; that's Carl's baby to feed.



So, we manage to leave the print alone and keep making our way down. Our conversations tended to stick to one topic -- that being poop. I don't even know how it got started, so don't ask, but one story led into another. Just to clarify, we were not talking about our own (well, sometimes we were), but rather stories that involve poop pranks, revenge poop, etc. It's really quite fascinating how many poop tales one can have on deck to share with a small group of people. I'd like to keep it simple and say "halfway down," but let's be honest, we were only like a mile and a half into descending the mountain when, yep, you guessed it, I stepped on a rock wrong, folded my ankle in half and went down along with the extra weight of my pack. Kaity and I sat there for about five minutes assessing it and trying to will my foot to move, when Carl finally appeared to the scene.  Now, before you think he is just a big nonchivalrous jerk, he was taking a potty break (he will also kill me for using his name and "potty break" in the same sentence), and when he finally arrived to the scene, the three of us hashed out whether to continue down the hill, knowing we'd have to come back up. Being exercise science majors (all three of us), we of course knew the smart and logical thing was to return back to the car and try again next time, but being a stubborn-ass hypocrite, I talked them into letting us finish as planned. I figure, when we're on the actual trail, I will most likely do something stupid to myself then, too, and won't be able to just turn around and leave, so what a better time to practice this madness.

 



We made it to the bottom, then proceeded to come back up. Now listen, ending a hike by ascending it sucks. I mean, my opinion was slightly jaded because I was in pain, but handling all the switchbacks as you're three miles from being finished is really just like getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth: a little obnoxious and causes a very dry-mouth feeling. Despite all of this, we managed to complete the entire 8 miles in right at two hours (apparently, we like to haul ass up hilltops), even with our stops to analyze mud prints (yep, had to check it out again on our way back) and ankles.

We eventually made our way back down the mountain and found a place to eat. Originally, we had planned on going and seeing Argo after eating dinner, but we all realized we were too old and tired to sit through a movie afterward; not to mention the fact that I had no clue what it was about, and by this time, the pain of my ankle was finally settling in. By the time I got home, my ankle looked like the top of a femur bone and I started calling it "my chubby," which yes, I know what that also means; get over it.

 

So that was our Marys Peak journey. A breakdown of what we learned: Don't mess with Carl if you're ever his roommate (he has very interesting revenge poop stories), chubby ankles are no reason to quit, map out your route before you go, carry less stuff, and any food tastes good when you get done hiking.

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” - John Muir





...It started with a brown paper bag...

To kick off this blog, I suppose the most rational thing to do would be to talk about its conception and purpose. If you haven't already, check out the tabs above which will give you a snap shot of who we are and why we're here. 

So the birth of this bucket list item started about a month ago while talking with an adventurous friend of mine who is hiking the Appalachian Trail. I was slightly mortified when I came to the realization that I have never really done anything big like that with my life that was just for me. Sure, I have those achievements that I thought would be "it." I've ran marathon distances, even ran across states in relays, graduated from college, bagged me a man, etc., but meanwhile, I still feel like I have nothing under my belt except for very expensive jeans.  So thus came the idea that I should hike my own trail, and do it before I can talk myself out of it. I settled on 300 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail in California. I can't tell you why exactly I thought that one would be better than say, 300 miles of the PCT here in Oregon, but I think some of it has to do with the fact that the John Muir Trail is in California, it includes scaling Mount Whitney (the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States), and quite frankly, have you ever researched that guy? His words are beautiful and I like his beard. That's good enough for me.

A few days later, I suckered my friend Kaity into joining me. We met up for a beer the next evening and hashed out some details. Meanwhile, we got too excited to contain our thoughts (this happens a lot with us), so I got out the only thing I had to write on in my purse, which was a brown paper bag from my lunch, and we signed and dated it, then started adding all the random thoughts we had to prepare for this trip. Some are logical and smart, like saying we need to research and start hiking at least once a week; others are more representative of our personalities, since I'm just now noticing on the photo below that we think we should "buy a little dog, Rudy." 

All in all, the course of this journey has just begun and is continually playing out. We've managed to get in at least one hike a week (some weeks, we get in two or more), as well as changing our workouts to cater toward a month-long hike like this. We're also boning up on our anatomy (pun intended) and care for injuries, so you know, we can feel a little more competent putting our degrees to use. Currently, we're in the process of trying to sucker another one of our good friends into joining us, as he has been hiking most of our day trips with us so far.

But until then, it's just the two of us setting out to do something that nobody thinks we'll actually do; doing things that we never thought we'd actually do.

"If you never leave home, never let go, you'll never make it to the great unknown..." - Needtobreathe