5 Mountain Days

So, the JRP was... somewhat successful. I don't think I truly resolved my disdain for the month of January, but I did have a few 5 Mountain days, so I'm going to go ahead and consider that a win.

Many of you know that one of the great loves of my life is nature. If you didn't, then let me elucidate. I get giddy butterflies in my stomach whenever I see a glimpse of mountain, come across a remarkably large, moss covered tree, smell a freshly bloomed magnolia tree or lilac bush, or see creeping ivy covering a rock face. Pure, wide-eyed, gooey-centered love. On clear days my commute to work alone is often enough to make my day, as I get great views of the Olympics and Mt. Rainier. Because of this weird, child-like obsession with beautiful earth things, I've adopted a new rating system into my life.

Here's how it goes:

Lora's Mountain-based Rating Scale, or LMRS (lemurs) for short

0 Mountain Day- a.k.a. NOMO Day. NOMO days are the GD worst. It's the kind of day where there's too much fog and clouds and rain in life to see any mountains. These days are worth noting, because they make any positive numeric mountain days seem like a gem in comparison.  Take a look back at "What a Bad Week Looks Like"  for more on NOMO days.

1 Mountain Day- A day kind of day where maybe a part of the mountain is visible, if only a little bit. Usually a day where one event was particularly good, and acted as a silver lining for the rest of this crap-ful day.

2 Mountain Day- aka "Small Victories Day" - Like a 1 mountain day, there is a silver lining, but there's also some active appreciation and love for lesser moments or more subtle victories.

Ex:"Today, I am wearing matching socks shoes." BAM. 2 mountain day, right there. Maybe it will even become a...

3 Mountain Day-  This is a solid day. 3MO days are actually my most typical days. Enough happiness and joy that life just seems good, despite the everyday stressors.

4 Mountain Day- Wee! Now we're having fun. On a day like today, maybe I got some good news. Maybe I indulged myself with something awesome because I'm awesome. Either way, I feel pretty damn good.

5 Mountain Day- This is pretty much the best day. 5 mountain days are more common (and better) with friends. Also, I've found that they are nearly impossible on work days, so maybe that's a sign of something I should pay attention to. Anyway you cut this day, I am on top of the world.

BONUS: The most rare, elusive and wonderful kind of day:
6 Mountain Day- Is this real life? The universe is saying "You're going to break the game your so good!" I don't know how it happens, but a 6MO day feels like seeing Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helen's, Mt. Rainier, the Cascades, the Olympics, and Mount Baker all at once. Probably while the sun is rising, or setting. And you maybe have a lake in the foreground, and are sitting against an old growth tree on a patch of comfy moss. Yes, this is real life.

So you know, if you are a crazy ass nature freak like I am, feel free to use LMRS as well. I'm sure it'll pop back up in this blog regularly from now on.

I have a ton of pictures to post, dating back Christmastime, but unfortunately I have misplaced my phone, without doing a ton of backup (womp womp, lesson I NEVER learn). I'm also feeling a little nostalgic and sort of want to go through my pictures from 2014 and do a Favorites of 2014 list. So, that's what I'm going to do. Deal with it.

Favorite Adventures of 2014, in no particular order:

Capilano Suspension Bridge
Mom came to visit early in 2014 to help keep my head above water. When she was here, we decided we'd go to Vancouver, BC. It was a short trip, but the suspension bridge was a huge highlight of my year. Mom and I did a suspension bridge together in Ireland in 2012, so it seemed fitting to do another together. The Capilano is a big one in a beautiful forested area. Here's my first and second favorite picture from that day, since I can.

The Palouse
This was just a great weekend in general. I went out to Spokane to visit my two favorite Eastern Washingtonians, Katie and Matt. We spent some time down at the riverfront, and I got very eager for some Manchester, NH times- all the brick, old mills and the river just felt so familiar. It's beautiful out there. Then we took a mini road trip to South Central Washington to go to Palouse falls. I'm sure I've mentioned (read: BRAGGED) that Washington state is one of the most geographically diverse places in the US packed into one reasonably sized state (that's right California, you may be diverse but you are also very large). Being mostly over in the forested, mountain-and-lake, salt water areas of Washington, it was really interesting to see the geography and experience the climate of the Palouse area. I totally got a sunburn in May which is not something my fair New England born and raised skin is used to. Here's my favorite picture of that day.

Palouse Falls

North Cascades
The first weekend in August, with my new car Dove (RIP Ladyhawke), I went out for a wicked long day trip. No, really. I drove for 12 hours. I went up to Deception Pass, walked the length of the bridge twice, then decided I wanted to drive the North Cascades Highway. This brings you through a ton of tiny towns, like Concrete, WA, and has some incredible sites. Lake Diablo and the surrounding mountains are breathtaking. It was beautiful until I got to the eastern part of the highway, where smoke from the forest fires chased me back home.

The Bridge at Deception Pass

North Cascades Highway

Glacier National Park
So I realized I never blogged about this (or my birthday road trip to the Redwoods) so I'm going to do it now in short form. I have wanted to go to Glacier since I found out about it in my teenage years. I'm guessing most people feel the same way, and that's a pretty solid way to feel. I only had a three day weekend to spare, so Zach and I made the most of if by powering through all the sites in about 40 hours. We were incredibly lucky- about 2 weeks before they had been hit with a snow storm, but by the time we got there it had all disappeared. Unfortunately, snow and the coming of winter means less wildlife, so we were not so lucky in our pursuits of mammalian viewing, large and small. It really didn't matter. Montana is beautiful country and it might be one of the most special weekends of my life for so many reasons. We stayed at Lake McDonald, only a few hundred feet from the water. The next day we drove the Going to the Sun Road out to East Glacier and Two medicine. Two things: The pictures I have HARDLY capture the beauty of this place. Honestly I was so in awe of the natural beauty that I kept forgetting to even take pictures. If you go here, I guarantee you that most of those pictures are pretty spot-on accurate to how it looks in real life. So, here are the few snapshots a managed to collect over those 3 days.

Lake McDonald, the night we arrived.

Grainy as hell, but a waterfall cascading down by a bridge on the Going to the Sun Road

By far and away my favorite viewpoint, St. Mary Lake. Yes, I took this. With my smart phone.

Crystal clear waters with vibrant colored rocks

The California Redwoods and San Francisco Bday Roadtrip EXTRAVAGANZA
I have been waiting for a trip like this my entire life. Since I can remember. I saw something about the giant Redwoods and Sequoia's of California when I was probably about 7, and since then have had this complete fascination with seeing these giants. What better time then when I'm already on the West Coast? Not to mention, my golden birthday! You know, the one where you turn the same age as your birthdate? I was 28 on September 28, 2014. So, in just about a week, Justin and I drove from Seattle, down the coast of Washington and Oregon, and into the Redwoods. We also continued down for a brief stop in San Francisco, just for the hell  beer  fun of it. Here's a selection of pictures from that trip!

We weren't really sure about this chair hoisted up on a post on the side of the highway. Art? Garbage? Blair Witch?

Bear Festival?!?? I WANT TO GO!

This. So disappoint.

Glassy Beach on Oregon Coast 

Just follow Justin, he know's the way

Happy that the sun is slowly coming out!

Ah, there it is!!!

I'm not even sure which one of us took this?

!!!

Caribou! Elk! I don't care! They were so cute!

YES MY FIRST REDWOOD!

I want to live here forevers.

I totally drove through this tree.

My new studio Apartment.

Nature! Wondrous!

Failed attempt at a panorama while sitting in Redwood I climbed up into

Not super sure why I'm so psyched about this stump. Other than it's HUGE!

Shout out to my siblings, Paul and Babe style!

Man, that's my JAM!

Hmmm...

What is with these business signs?

Russian River! Love me some Pliny :)

"Let's try ALL the beers!"

Cheers my friend!

  

Another great beer stop.

My first ever In-N-Out Burger! It was decent. I still like Dick's better.

Aaand beer in the hotel! 

There she is!

Really cool old city ruins at Land's End

 

Because houses.

Golden Gate Park Flower palace place!

<3

Sleep and Sauce?!?! WHY DIDN'T WE STAY HERE??

Yes, we went there. Mostly just to say we did. It wasn't really a highlight.

Wine country sunset.

Holy picture dump, Batman!  Hopefully you get the gist by now- 2014 was a killer year. I spent the first half in a bit of a depressive stupor, but I will still love every bit of this year when I look back on it in the future.


A few other Incredible experiences of 2014!
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, Jumping off the Ramps to Nowhere, Hiking to Big 4 Ice Caves, going to Mt. Rainier... so many awesome times.


It's easy to lose sight of how great life can be when there are days, weeks or months of stress or sadness. One of my goals this year is to experience changes as adventures and failures as challenges (that I will overcome, obvs). Thank you for reading and laughing and living along with me through it. So much love to you.

Dear Fit Girl

Dear Fit Girl (a.k.a. every thin, in shape, smaller lady-person I've ever met),

I've dreaded this moment for much of my life: where I come head to head with "the enemy." I believed that I would be here in a balls-out-hair pulling-winner-takes-all competition to finally prove to you that I was more than my pounds. I'd be some sort of righteous, confident Adele-esque Super Hero. Freddie once called me Dynamite with a Laser Beam, and I'd blast skinny people off their pedestal with my cunning wit and "passion for equality".

A deep cringe feels like the most appropriate reaction to that right now.

I have to come clean. I really fucked this one up.

Somehow over my years, I lost sight of who or what I was fighting. I've come to see you as the enemy, or rather, the anti-me. I began to judge you, avoid and worst of all, sometimes purposefully alienate you. 

I've disliked you simply based on your appearance.

Please. Let me just sit with that one. Just for a moment.

"Oh, hey injustice and prejudice I've abhorred and fought against all my life! Fancy meeting you here, as a part of my own value system!"

Holy. Fuck. Shit. I am not only a hypocritical nitwit, I've also been a real dick.

To those I've judged, I'm truly sorry. You deserved better. To those I have yet to meet, I can't promise we'll be besties. I mean, if you are a serial murderer, it's probably going to be a check "no" on that note you passed to me. But I can promise you that I will not discredit, dislike or discard your potential friendship based on your body. 

Unless it is coming at mine with an ax attached to it. Then, Crazy, it's on.

With Respect,

Fat Girl

The JRP

Happy New Year, all!  I've made some important decisions in the past few days, and one of them is to write out a sort of journal entry here that may help me start the new year right. This time of year is always a good time to take time out, look at where you are, where you came from and where you want to go. And this year, I have a lot of big goals.

Last May when I made the decision that I would give myself one more year in Seattle before I moved on to the next part of my life, I could never have imagined that it would be one of the best and most meaningful years in my life thus far. This year has been magical, a little heartbreaking, challenging and above all, rewarding. I started the year battling with major depression, which lead to ending up in the darkest place I've ever been. I made the decision to keep living, and even more decided that i never want to be in that place again. I've spent some of the past 12 months finding out why I felt that way and searching for solutions, giving myself love and the asking myself some very tough questions, I've made some difficult decisions and been brave more than once. I've realized that things I thought were my weaknesses are actually strengths, and vice-versa, and I'm working on healing the parts of me that need it.

Aside from the psychological work I've done, I've truly been enjoying my time in Washington State. I've had adventures, overcome fears, and found love and happiness in unexpected places. I've traveled to 8 different states and 5 national parks, I've had visitors, been a visitor and consumed a shit ton of beer. Overall, it's been a great fucking year.

But now, I am faced with a new year. New challenges and opportunities? New resolutions and motivation?? That's a nice way to look at it, right??? Sure.....

My inner demon is saying "yeah, right." A good start to the year has not been my experience in the past. I am a full-fledged new year hater. I have playlists dedicated to how much January tortures me, and I find myself stressing and afraid, trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to make it through this month without ending up back where I was last year. It is of no help that January is the start of the worst weather. In Seattle, it's rain and cold, for the next 5 months. In NH, it's bitter cold, and the wind makes your lips raw and burns your eyes on contact. Also, the holiday high is over. I'm back to the grind and the past few years I've left my family behind after Christmas, without plans to see them again. There are no other holidays to look forward to in the near future. To top off the list of shitty new year trends, almost all of the relationship deaths I've had in my life or witnessed happen between the end of December and the beginning of March. And while that is usually a product of people feeling empowered to change their lives, it also starts the year in a place of grief.

With all of these things, you can see why historically, I fucking hate January. In complaining to my lovely sister last night about how January is the worst, we were talking about solutions. Starting a petition to remove it from the calendar year wouldn't really do any good, as another month would pull forward and be just as miserable. Then, Kate made a suggestion that really stuck with me. Why don't I reclaim January?

So, without further ado, Introducing! The January Reclamation Project, or JRP for short.

Reclamation is a term usually used with regards to ecology and land action. It means to take an area that isn't what it could be and make it into something with greater purpose. Well, Endless Sea of Sorrows otherwise known as January, I'm about to land fill your ass.

That's right. I'd going to make you one of my more successful months of the year. Mentally, emotionally and physically. I'm not one for new year's resolutions. Long term planning big goals which there is no end in sight are overwhelming, and based on my previous experience, a way to set myself up for ultimate failure. So instead, my only goal is to change my frame of mind and perspective with the goal to make some big changes and some small changes that will ultimately end in big results.
I'm going to spend less time focused on other people's lives and how other people see my life, and more just on living my own life, everyday, exactly how I want it lived, which includes traveling,  improving my health and finding happiness in myself.  

Thank you for reading and continuing to check up on me. This blog has turned from a travel blog, to a humor blog, to a self-discovery blog, and it remain to be all three of those things at once (and probably more), which is good for me. I hope you have a healthy happy new year, and stay tuned for more!

All the love.

Ice Caves!

So, I have a backlog of 2 or 3 posts from the late summer and my birthday that are still to be posted. They need some work. But, instead of working on those, I wanted to do a quick and easy and beautiful update about going to some ICE CAVES!!! 

I posted a picture on the Book, and quite a few people enjoyed it. Would you like to see some more?? Awesome! Me too! Over and over again.

I was getting a little wanderlust-y again (a month is too long without an adventure!) and luckily I have an awesome dude friend who was open and excited to go on a little excursion. Actually, Zach was the one who told me about the ice caves, so it worked out nicely we were able to go together. Let start off with some pictures from the trail, where we were treated to a variety of interesting fungus.

Tyneee baaabee musharooms, soo ka-yoooot!

I've seen human tissue that looks like this so frequently that it automatically makes me smell Nystatin powder and steroid creams. Thanks, nursing career!

This one felt slimy and wet. It suspect it is Mother Nature's weird combination love child of a tangerine jelly bean, brains and larvae. Or maybe it's just some fungus.

Polar opposite of one the above!

Picture credits on the shroomie ones above go to Zach. So glad he came because, you see, he is such. A. Fun...gi. 

(collective sigh...)

Aww come on, no love for the 10th grade bio joke? (copyright 2002, Mr. Heifetz)

The taming of the Tree-a-Saurus.
Zach is the only person I know tall enough to look dapper sitting astride on a brontosaurus tree.

Now, down to the serious cave bidniz. I had been reading up on the ice caves over the past few weeks. Out of the more than 500,000 visitors in the past 10 years, there have only been two injuries which were fatal. Because of that, every website containing info on the "Big 4 Ice Caves" has warnings. Many even have diatribes berating hikers they've seen exploring the caves. Honestly? If you are a relatively intelligent adult who is used to nature and has some common sense, it's unlikely anything will happen. 

If you aren't that, then follow these simple steps:

WHAT NOT TO DO IN ICE CAVES

1. Stand under the very edge where the water is pouring off. Standing on the very outskirts of the cave where ice is thinning may sound less scary than going deep into a dark, cold cavern, but I'll take my chances on being stuck inside vs. being instantly crushed to death at the entrance. 

2. Avoid areas with large amount of ice debris. Take an effing hint. Where do you think those ice chunks came from? 

3. Don't play the "echo" game. You know, where you shout something like "ECHO!" or "HELLO!" and wait until an invisible you yells it back over and over? Also, don't: play Marco Polo or let your children scream, and if you have a barking dog, keep it outside and away.

4. Don't try to scale the outside, you dumb, dumb idiot. You will fall, fall through, or cause an avalanche on the people inside the cave. If you want to go mountaineering, go get some crampons and eff off down a crevasse. This is not the place for that. 

Danger: Awesome ahead

First glimpses of the caves, with Zach in the foreground.

Just for a bit of size perspective. See those tiny, tiny little specks to the left of the ice caves? Those are hoomans. 

From just inside the left cave opening

Check out that teal colored icy  action! Waaa sooo neat!

A picture of me, taking a picture, from inside the cave.

Looking toward the back of the cave to the waterfall, with no one in the shot! Zach! How did you get this?? We certainly weren't alone in there!

Zach's a god damn cave-melion. 

The waterfall and cenote-like opening at the back of the cave

And we make our way back towards the entrance, struggling over rocks and boulders for a few hundred feet and taking in the last of the undulating, dripping walls and dark, damp air.

To finish up our day, we took a nice ride to Chuckanut brewery and ejoyed some delicious libations. Overall, a great, successful adventure Saturday, and I'm so glad I was able to go! I'm going to be moving back East next summer, and I'm happy to add this to the list of things I've seen and done out here on the West Coast. Special thanks to Zach for being an awesome adventure companion. More to come soon!