A Week with the Bro

This is going to be mostly pictures :)

Day 1, August 9:

So there we are, Stephanie and I, sitting in her car at the airport looking for my brother when some weird dude starts making eye contact with me and walking towards us. I'm about to be all, "Excuse me, sir, but you need to stop" when I realize this weird dude is, in fact, Johnny!.....He Has a Beard?!?!?! So that was hilarious. Then we all drove down to Eugene (the half-way point to Florence) and met up with my Aunt Laura and Uncle David for an early dinner before saying goodbye to Stephanie, who left to begin her journey back to Texas. That night Johnny and I took the car and went to get ice-cream downtown at the marina where we walked around and caught up.

Day 2, Aug 10:

Johnny sandboarding

Johnny and I after swimming and kayaking

Johnny making homemade caramel sauce

Day 3, August 11:

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Johnny Looking at a Peregrine Falcon Nest/ Momma Bird

Starfish need hugs, too

Sea Lions just chillin while we drink our tea

These two are really adorable together

The beach!

 

Reflective sand (because its wet)

Day 4, August 12:

Coos Bay

Garden at Coos Bay

Kitten getting belly rubs

Johnny's delicious and 100% healthy peach cobbler

Day 5, August 13:

The Lake we took a swim at/ jumped off a bridge

Day 6, August 14:

Only in Portlandia....

Voodoo donuts

The Tex-ass burger...haha

Day 7, August 15:

Walking by the River

All the Canada Geese!

To the Mountains! .... Just Kidding, They're on Fire

As planned, Stephanie and I left Aunt Laura's house to go explore the wonderful city of Portlandia. We started the trip off with an 8 mile hike around Silver Falls(without packs!) that took us to 10 different waterfalls. So needless to say, it was awesome. The next night we stayed closer to Portland, went out for a drink and got up early the next day to explore the city. We walked around and bought a few things from the Saturday farmers market and craft show then made our way to a park where we discovered The World Forestry Center! This place is great and has all kinds of interactive activities including practicing being a firefighter jumping from an airplane.

Behind a waterfall at Silver Springs

I taught this stuff!

So many colors at the Farmer's Market

After our Portland adventures we took off towards the town of Ashland. The plan was this: Leave Stephanie's car in Ashland, OR, and hitch down to the town of Etna, CA. There we would go on a 120 mile (12 day)  hike back up to the city of Ashland where Stephanie would pick up her car and leave for LA whilst Aunt Laura came to get me and bring me back to Florence to see Johnny (my little not-so-little Brother who was flying up from Texas).

All went well, we got two very easy hitches into Etna and then stopped by the hostel there to see if anyone was giving rides to the trailhead, and they were. So before 2 pm Steph and I were on our way to twelve glorious days of walking.  The weather was perfect save for some lightning storms off in the distance and the views were some of my favorite so far. Not to mention I was testing out using a Hennessy Hammock as a new shelter, so I was feeling rather spoiled not having to sleep on hard ground.

One of our favorite campsites

Then the trail took a change. Remember those lightning storms I just mentioned? Well, they started a forest fire. A small one at first, of course, but over the next couple of days it spread significantly. By the time we reached Siead Valley (our resupply stop), which was about 3 days after we initially saw smoke, the sky was a great smokey haze raining ash.We found out that the portion of the trail we had just hiked was mostly on fire and had been closed. Then we found out that another large fire was spreading down from the north and that the fire department was very likely to shut down the next portion of the trail as well. If we had wanted to, we could have made it to the trailhead before any official closure (as some hikers did), but Steph and I decided that hiking up mountains while inhaling ash/ risking death by fire wasn't the route we wanted to take.So instead we got a ride back to Etna from The Animal and his girlfriend so we could hitch up the freeway back to Ashland. It was fun, we spent that night at karaoke bar where we met a trail angel who gave us a real bed to sleep in (we had been sleeping in the back of Stephanie's car mostly). We also went and saw the movie Lucy, which I do not recommend unless you are looking at it a bit more as some type of weird humor movie. They tried though.

The sun dimmed by the smoke, it was like this in every direction.

The Animal, his girlfriend and their friend

Steph and I at the Karaoke Bar

So we were safe from the fires, but now what? Finding a place to hike that was the right distance for our specific time slot is not as easy as one might think. So we decided, instead of hiking the PCT, we would go hike for a couple days around the Columbia River Gorge. And thus we made our second trip up to Portland. As a bonus we found out that the Portland Slam Poetry Team was performing at an open mic in downtown, so naturally we stopped in to see them before actually making the one hour drive out to the gorge. Worth it!

The next morning we bought a map of the gorge and mapped out a 60 mile, 6 day hike. It was absolutely gorgeous and Stephanie talked about how it reminded her of The Green Tunnel (aka the Appalachian Trail). There were waterfalls everywhere and the mosquitoes were shockingly not too bad. As we hiked, we came across some stunning views of Mt. Saint Helens, Mt .Hood and Mt. Rainier (I think that's right) all at once over the gorge. It was phenomenal.

Multnomah Falls, OR

Mt. Hood...I think

And then pride bit us in the butt, as it often does. We chose a trail labeled as 'Difficult' (the highest rating) because we thought this would be the closest thing to a challenge we could find.  First day: we make it to our planned campsite, everything is fine. Second day: We make it to the halfway point and decided to take an early day, everything is still pretty good. Third day: MOUNTAIN OF DEATH. I'm not even sure what we were on constitutes as a trail. First we went almost vertically down for over a mile, then had to climb practically vertically up for 2 or 3 miles (the maps didn't show distance on the trails) with quite literally NO downhill or even flat planes. Not to mention at several points the trail had fallen off. Yes, fallen off. So we were scooching along the sides holding on to roots and things. At another point we had to climb a wall of about 8 feet high made exclusively out of loose dirt. It fell away like sand. I almost fell to my death. Okay death is an exaggeration, but it wasn't fun. 

Needless to say we were very thankful to reach the top, which had lake full of salamanders! In fact, we were so happy to be there, we decided to stay an entire extra day....and take a shortcut out of the gorge to make up for lost time. And that is how Stephanie and I cut our 60 mile, 6 day hike into a 30 mile, 6 day hike. . . haha.

A water source Stephanie and I had to forge a trail to because, despite whatever the trail map said, there was no longer a path out to it.

That time the tree ate our trail sign

Spotted and Osprey feather!

The State of Oregon = A Fernery

The Columbia River Gorge

So the next day we managed to walk out to the highway and hitch a ride back to the car, which was awesome. I should also mention that we ran into quite a few black-berry vines on the way, which were amazing and prompted us to say very silly things such as, "Look at us gorging along this gorgeous gorge!" Because we're dorks. Then we made our way, once again, to Portlandia, so we could pick up Johnny at the airport in the morning. Not before stopping for some Cold Stone Creamery ice cream on the way though.

Bishop, the second visit

And so it was, we made our second appearance at the Bishop Hostel. Which was in its own way hilarious because they were all joking that we would be back before we left the first time, to which we had assured them we would not. And naturally, since I hadn't been able to eat due to nausea for the past three days, I immediately went to get myself this absolutely delicious smoothie sold by a coffee shop just around the corner. Unfortunately, it didn't quite go down as easily as I had hoped. This was my first hint that something wasn't right.
And it wasn't. Things got worse really fast. Every time I ate something I had immediate and intense searing pain that left me incapable of standing up without almost blacking out. And it only kept getting worse. So I decided to go to the hospital...which long story short did not turn out to be very helpful. And so things continued to get worse. And so I went back to the hospital. Once again, not helpful. They didn't diagnose me with anything and sent me home. Three days later I literally couldn't handle eating anything but crackers and water. One bite of cracker, followed by three gulps of water to help the pain. Trying to eat other things, like refried beans for example, would result in me being instantly on the floor feeling like someone was driving a knife through my chest; often tears were involved.
And then I discovered I could handle protein drinks, like Ensure. No kidding, I cried I was so happy. For the past week I had been able to get less than 500 calories in me a day which included absolutely no vitamins, fats or proteins. Within one day of drinking several Ensures and Muscle Milks I was on the mend. And now I am 100% back to normal! Yay!

But, backing up a bit. I'm leaving out the adventure aspect.
If you recall from an earlier blog, Nick and I had two friends who were renting a cabin at lake Tahoe for a week. This was definitely still happening. Also, my friend Stephanie had decided to drive up to see me. Stephanie and Amanda are two of my close friends from college who were hiking the Appalachian Trail (aka the AT). They had recently decided to get off the AT due to many factors and complications, and were both going to drive from the east coast to the west coast to come see me. But then Amanda decided she was going to be lame and go back to Texas. However, Stephanie decided to still be awesome and drive over! So she did, and she got to me the day after I got down the mountain. At this point Snake Charmer was still around (concerned I wasn't showing signs of getting better). But upon Stephanie's arrival he decided I was in good hands and that he wanted to get back on the trail. So the next day Nick, Snake Charmer, Stephanie and myself all piled in to Stephanie's new car and drove up to Mammoth (to drop Snake Charmer off) and then up to lake Tahoe to our friends cabin.

The cabin was huge and awesome, complete with a hot tub! Our friends Tess, Teal, Gizmo, Dirtnap and two new people were all there! As well as Tess and Teal's two adorable dogs Pearl and Luke (and another one named Gruff). Unfortunately I was pretty much at the peak of my misery. I could only down crackers and water and therefore did not have enough energy to walk for more than ten minutes much less go for a swim. Despite this, Stephanie and I did still walk out to the lake and chill in her hammock for a bit....until it started to rain on us haha.

But despite my disappointment about not being able to fulfill my dreams of being happily aquatic for a week, I was surrounded by wonderful friends who were taking excellent care of me and having a great time. How can you not be happy when hanging out with such good company?And eventually, as mentioned earlier, I figured out I could drink things like Ensure, and that made life considerably better. But, the time came when we had to go. And after making some arrangements, Stephanie and I drove up to Oregon to go stay with my Aunt Laura until I was 100% better.
The drive up was wonderful. Stephanie and I stopped in at the Capitol building and also at a beautiful sea-side dock on the way up. Oh! And we got to see those giant statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe.

"What happened to Nick?" you may be asking. Excellent question.
Shorty before I got Sick, Nick had started talking to me about wanting to get off the trail for a while. He has family in San Fransisco and a friend in Northern California that he wants to go visit. So we had talked about it and decided to go have a great time at Lake Tahoe and then go our separate ways. And that's precisely what we did. Therefore Nick is currently in San Fran and Stephanie and I are in Oregon.

And Oregon in awesome. We have been to the beach several times and done a lot of sand boarding. Tomorrow we plan to go kayaking and if it rains we'll detour over to the aquarium and museum (heck, we might do that anyways). 

On Thursday we are going to leave my Aunt's house to go spend three days exploring Portland and tackling an eight mile day hike that takes us to an array of gorgeous waterfalls. And then I'm going to get back on the trail. I don't know precisely where yet, but definitely after lake Tahoe and past all the highest peaks. I truly never want to experience AMS ever again. And certainly not whatever mysterious thing I just went through after where I couldn't eat anything.