Mile 3102 - More Glacier, Kalispell and Friends, MT

Glacier National Park is one of the most user-friendly parks that we have been to. The Going-to-the-Sun Road may have a far-too-long name, but it offers a fantastic tour of the highlights of the park. And they even offer red jammer tours for those that want their history with a little class or who'd like to look at more than the sharp curves ahead. Their campgrounds are well maintained and they even have a number of fancy lodges to stay at for a more "indoor" outdoors. We did enjoy one night in their campgrounds, but lucky for us, we were also in Montana to visit the Wilkins.

We were pretty excited to see Howard and Karen, to enjoy the historic blue couches, but we had no idea what a treat we were in for!The Wilkins Property brings back memories of an epic New Year's eve trip in high school which was "Sweet-Fun". When we called Karen on our way into Montana, not only were we welcomed, but it just happened that Janice Monkowski and her sister-in-laws were there for a visit.  Now let me give you some context so you can understand the amazingness of this chance meeting.  Two of Aaron's best friends from high school were Adam and Melanie, and now they're married.  Melanie's mom is Karen, who now lives in Montana, so we were expecting to get to see her.  Adam's mom, Janice, lives in Danville CA, and once a year, she gets together with her sisters-in-law, Carol and Annette. This year, that get-together just happened to be hosted by Karen and Howard at the same time that we just happened to be driving through Montana. Now if that doesn't sound crazy awesome, we just haven't written it right. 

Now you may be thinking, "So they hung out with their friends' moms? This was fun?" It was so much fun! All four of these ladies came for some good hikes, and they know what they were doing.  Karen knows Glacier like her own backyard because, well, it kind of is her backyard. She can hike as fast as a normal person can jog. Janice has known Aaron since elementary school and is always good for a long conversation, and when you throw her sisters-in-law into the mix, there's usually four or five conversations happening simultaneously.  

When we arrived in Kalispell, we were sat right down to some warm creamy chicken lasagna, a perfect salad, huckleberry pie, and chocolate bread pudding. Seriously. You can't follow up a day of hiking much better. Oh, wait, we also got our own bedroom and bathroom and in the morning Karen made fresh croissants and blueberry muffins. C'mon; I love going to see the Wilkins.

The next day, we were right back on the trail, and this time it was Sarah, Aaron, Janice, Carol, and Nettie. We were headed up to the Hidden Lake Trail, a hike Sarah and Aaron had foregone since they were avoiding the crowds. The trail starts at a visitor's center which sits at highest point on the park road and has attracted so many people over the years that they built a wooden boardwalk to lessen the crowds ecological impact. The thought of crowds and a boardwalk were deterrents for us, but Karen sold it in style: she pulled out a painting that a local artist had painted for her based on one of her photographs. If all those people want to see what's up there, it must be worth a look-see.

The trail is a three mile round trip boardwalk that gradually gives a better view of the area as the grade inclines. There are plenty of visual appetizers along the way of almost all the best of Montana's wildflowers. You're also bound to run into a surly mountain goat or a marmot going about his business. The view at the end is also quite breathtaking. Glacial water never disappoints. Blue, beautiful view of blue.

Aaron caught up with Janice and Sarah chatted with Carol and Nettie, and we all took pictures. It was a good time. At the top we enjoyed our lunches and watched the nearby animals. Aaron really wanted to get a close-up of the Marmot, and so he hid in the shade of nearby tree. It turns out that the spot belonged to a mountain goat, who came right over when he saw it had been stolen. The mountain goat won. We all hiked a little more, talked a little more, and snapped our little cameras silly.

This chance meeting was bound to end, so the next morning the girls were off to the airport. Thanks for letting us invade your special time, it was really special for us!

Mile 1932 - Wingnut and Big Dog, WA

When Aaron thinks of Seattle, he remembers his ever first cup of coffee at the Pike’s Place Starbucks.  And he thinks about Wingnut. Wingnut is actually Jake, who is a long-time friend from camp, who is married to Fraggle, but that’s too many camp names already.

Jake is a computational astrophysicist who specializes in soft lensing. Yeah…he’s legit.  Prior to learning everything there is to know about space and time, Jake was an integral part of many epic Aaron adventures. There was seatbelt scavaging, saving the world with duct tape, and who could forget peddling for money in downtown Santa Cruz with a garage sale accordion and gorilla suit. We’re talking some seriously good adventures. There was even a recent attempt to calculate the distance to the moon by triangulating it from Chico and Seattle using a sextant.

Unfortunately, space and time has a stronger impact on friendships than it does on galaxies, but it was so fun to be together again. Our highlight was a tour of the universe in Jake's Planetarium (technically it belongs to University of Washington, but Jake runs it). Jake is so good explaining the complicated dynamics of our universe, and his passion for learning is contagious.

There are some people that you feel fortunate to know, because knowing them gives you a glimpse into their passion. It could be an instrument, art, reading, cooking, a certain language, or in Jake's case, the dynamics of the universe. There's something about witnessing a person doing something they love. Before we left, we were lucky enough to be invited to a friend's senior violin recital. In the 60 or so minutes that it took to hear all four pieces, we witnessed the product of a lifetime of her work. This is not her account, but you can imagine she's had moments of intense aggravation, moments when she had to push on to keep trying, days of disinterest, as well as the rush of accomplishment, excitement for the next piece, peers that became allies, and a deep understanding that develops. Her love of music has grown deep, and the music she makes is not just a product for an audience's approval, but it's a fascination that excites something deep within her.

Jake is a person who is driven by fascination, and its made him fascinating to talk to. After our tour of the Universe and the Deep Space Field, we grabbed some spicy Thai food and had more prosaic conversation about careers and road trips and life. It wasn't enough time to catch up completely, but it was enough to really miss those epic adventures, deep conversations about God and love, and late nights at Redwood Camp perfect for just staring up at the stars. Well, at least Aaron was just staring.

  

Mile 1897 - Seattle, WA

Let the games begin!  An intense match of Settler’s of Catan was long overdue.  As was a visit to Seattle to see Kimberly (aka Kimbo) and Josh.  They were married 2 years ago, 1 week after Saaron, and their wedding gift was this addictive game.  We both knew what this visit was about, so we hunkered down at The Pub at Third Place for the long awaited match. The basement level of “the Hobbit hole” is filled with long, wooden tables, which seemed like an appropriate location to do battle.  It was a grueling and close match, many resources were exchanged, roads became longer and longer, but in the end, Josh was the winner with a last minute bonus point from a resource card!  Besides the game, much time was spent enjoying catching up between Kimbo and Sarah, who have been friends since the awkward 7^th grade era.  As well as each getting to know each other’s spouses as the one and only time they’ve met was at each other’s weddings.  If you're familiar with the Seattle area, you may know Josh and Kimbo as the people who live in the famous "Giraffe House".

For those of you concerned about the nerdy level of the group because our love for Settlers, you’re probably not too far off.  But the next day we balanced it out by playing a very high-class game called Hampton Horseshoes.  It’s an east coast lawn game for the highly distinguished.  The point is to knock the opposing team’s bottle off the stick with a Frisbee, as well as prevent them from getting points by catching your own bottle before it hits the ground.  The classy part is that every player must hold a bottle of beer in one hand at all times (or lemonade if your Kimbo and Sarah…beer is gross).  The boys taught their girls how to throw Frisbees straight as they both pretty much sucked and fun times were had by all!  In fact, we can’t even remember who won.

We didn’t just spend our whole time sitting around playing games, Josh and Kimbo also took us out to see some of Seattle’s best treasures.  Any trip to Seattle requires a mandatory visit to the Fremont Troll.  It’s always fun to see, but this time, Aaron searched high and low and found some special treasures.  As the sun was going down, we went up to Queen Ann, which had an amazing view of downtown.  All of Seattle’s photographers came out of the woodwork to get a sunset shot of the Space Needle with Rainer as the backdrop.  We were told that clear days are a rarity in this region, but we’ve yet to see a single rainy day in the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks Epperson’s for an amazing visit!  We look forward to a re-match in the near future.

Josh's pre-game warm-up

Mile 1537 - Portland Friends, OR

Sarah likes to plan ahead.  So when she started medical school, she purposely became close friends with the 3 girls that would eventually end up doing residency and then live in Portland so that visiting them in the future would be an easy task…OK, well maybe she’s not that good at planning ahead, but the above did end up coming true! 

Amanda, Kelsie and Sharon are 3 of the most amazing and fun friends that a person could ask for.  These girls got Sarah through medical school and will forever be part of one of the best chapters in her life.  They are a big reason why a trip to Portland can’t be a quick one.  Mix reminiscing about the good old days with all the Portland restaurants, and you have yourself a deliciously refreshing and fun week!  Thank you my friends!  Until next time…

P.S. And they all have amazing 3-lettered husbands that we love to hang out with. Thanks Joe, Ben and Jon! We had a blast!

Mile 1501 - Battle Ground, WA

So while they don’t actually live in Portland, or Oregon for that matter, a trip to P-town usually involves a visit to Battle Ground, Washington to see the Tedders.  They are related to Sarah as second-cousins-once-removed, or some other non-personal sounding title, but she just calls them her cousins.  

They brought us to the best Thai food that Battle Ground has to offer at Keo Thai and tried thier different dishes in the spice range from 3 to 5.  Props to Cindy even for surviving the number 5! And Danny, if you've forgotten, you really loved the Pad-Kee-Mau.

To cool off, we enjoyed a nice backyard evening over a delicious, homemade blackberry cobbler and icecream with fresh-picked blackberries from their yard!  What a treat! Did you know that the thorns of a blackberry bush are actually called "prickles"? The Tedder's get their berries from a Prickle-less bush, and they're delicious. Thanks for the wonderful evening!  But we missed you, Andrew, Amy and David, Luke and Emily!

Mile 1331 - Portland, OR

Friends, Food and Fishing…could life get any better?  Not for us! And so Portland held us for a whole week in it’s tasty clutches, which will leave you with a few posts.

First stop on our trip was to our friends Dustin and Kristin. The Bailey’s are so great to relax with. When Sarah was in her third year of residency and things were especially crazy, we had a two-day stay-cation with them in Emeryville. It was a perfect day and a half of laughing, gaming, and unwind from the grind. Now they live in Portland, which most of the time is bitter because they’re far away, but for our trip it’s sweet because they make a great destination.

We were expecting hours of hearty conversations sitting by their comfy fireplace, but they had devised a real taste of Portland for us: Flyfishing! While they may have been married in Boring, OR, they are anything but. Dustin, Kristin, and of course Oscar took us out through the hills to his folks’ place and his Dad lent us his gear. This was really nice because he was set up.

Once we found our spot on a pretty little creek, the ladies read and took pictures while Dustin taught Aaron the finesse of the fly. Finesse and Aaron haven’t always gotten along, but Dustin is a really good teacher. There’s dry flies, wet flies, lead line, 10 and 2, but when it comes down to it, you want your hook to fly aroud so the fish thinks its an insect, and you want to land it in the water so that the fish sees your fly and not the line. It was so fun, addictively fun.

At the end of the day, Sarah bagged four chapters of her book, Kristin caught about 100 pictures, and the boys, well, they hooked 5 fish! And let me tell ya, these fish were SO BIG they decided it’d be awfully difficult to bring them home, so back into the water they went. See for yourself:

The Bailey’s place was also where we got a bunch of work taken care of. We finalized getting our health insurance, changed car insurance stuff and spent a whole day and a half trying to figure out XHTML and style sheets for this whole blog thing. While we felt anxious to get out, it was nice to have Oscar and Kristin as our constant companions. We'll miss you guys until next time!

Mile 480 - Julie, CA

The first Rad Trip friend!

You are looking at 25% of the females from Champion’s Graduating Class…go 1999!  And we called Sony so technically this meeting included 38%!  Meeting up with friends and family is one of the things we’re most looking forward to on this adventure and Julie gets to hold the position of the first friend stop.  Congrats Julie!  We spent an hour or so reminiscing of the great times we had in high school and catching up on what we’ve been doing since.  Aaron was thrilled to sit and listen about old teachers, past camping trips and every kind of mischief devised by sheltered high school girls.  

This meeting was a reminder of those first deep friendships made in the most confusing time of life. These continue, just in different form, despite not seeing each other daily in Mr. Morgan’s Biology class. 

Go Mustangs!

Leaving

Goodbyes…they suck.

After months and months of planning, building, packing, re-packing, and getting excited for our adventure, the departure day came and we realized that we were going to have to leave our friends and family for a while. The biggest downside of the trip. Booo. The last week was spent doing the “last” of everything. The last day at work, the last time at church, the last dinner with our Sara(h) dinner club, the last family dinner, Aaron’s last Wednesday morning meeting, the last dinner with the Foster’s, the last Hotsy Totsy’s with Josh and Jen, the last campout with Adam and Mel….last, last, last. And we started to get really sad and considered just living in the truck in California…But wait! We’ll be back someday, probably older, wiser, dirtier and with less money…but we’ll be back.

In all of those conflicted feelings is excitement for this adventure and hope that you all will experience it with us via our blog. So until next time…goodbye.

 P.S. For those of you who are thinking this is all a secret plan to move to another state, we have placed our collateral assurance of return below: