Out West

Lee and I went out west with his parents. The trip was wonderful.  We crammed several sites into less than a week.  Our journey took us from Denver,CO to Grand Junction,CO to Cortez,CO to Page,AZ to Bryce Canyon City, UT and finally to Las Vegas, NV.

In the span of six days we went from snowing mountains, to canyons and overlooks, to the famous lights and shows of Las Vegas.  This trip deserved a blog of its own - so it got one.  Check it out at: http://www.alysiagoeswest.blogspot.com/

Raccoon Mountain Caving

As a young adult event, Lee and I planned a caving trip.  Originally, there was going to be ten of us, but due to the instability of college kids there was just five.  We met at the church early in the morning to drive to Raccoon Mountain in Chattanooga.

Once we arrived at our caving area, we paid and got our gear on.  We made sure to pick a cave that would be a little more adventurous than walking on a nice paved path the whole time. Many of our previous trips have been that way and it was less than exciting.

We met our guide and headed down the path to the cave.  The cave started out open with handrails and lights, but we quickly went off the beaten path.  It didn't seem bad at all in the beginning, it was actually really fun.

Then we got to the first tight spot.  Goodness, I started crawling through and got in the tight spot and almost started panicking.  It was a long crawl and I couldn't see the opening.  Tiffany was in the same situation I was and started panicking a little as well.

As a leader of the group, her panicking helped me calm down as I calmed her down.  We worked our way through and made it out the other side.  Our tour guide was pretty awesome.  Instead of being really strict, he pretty much took us wherever we felt like going.  One of our favorite spots was where we were basically sliding down a really steep spot that had a small creek flowing below.  As we were climbing down, our guide told us "Don't step in the water, I want to show you something."  The words were barely out of his mouth when we all hear "Splash! Splash! Splash!". Nick slipped and splashed all through the water.  It stirred up all the mid and we missed the creature our guide was going to point out.  We were all like "Thanks, Nick....".  But, it's okay. It was a really tough spot to get down and he was the first to go.

Our guide told us about a spot called the "birth canal" and asked if we wanted to go.  I was not thrilled with the idea of that, but everyone else wanted to go and I didn't want to be alone so I went along.  That name was definitely fitting.  Tiffany and I went first.  It was a long, extremely narrow spot we had to climb through.

The thing was, I couldn't crawl at all.  I just had to lift myself up on my toes and pull myself forward with my hands.  There wasn't enough room to actually crawl.  I couldn't even lift my head up to look forward because there wasn't enough room for that with the helmet.

The aggravating thing with that was that some of the guys were too big to get through and had to go around.  I could have gone around!  The next place we encountered was the 10 cent squeeze.  It was a small hole that had a turn at the bottom.  You couldn't go straight through.

That was a rough spot because you had to put one arm straight forward and push with the other arm.  Lee tried to get through this one - his shoulders were too broad.  He had to go around this one as well.

We had to climb around all over the place, but our last "attraction" was a slide.  It was scary from the top, but it was fun going down.  The guide caught our feet as we got to the bottom so we didn't keep going right off the edge.  We all went down pretty smoothly except Adam.  I don't know what he was doing, but he flew down that slide.  It was hilarious.  He was fine, and we found our way back to the group path and headed out.  It was a long trip and we ended up being completely covered in mud, but it was lots of fun.  We made our way to the bathrooms to change and wash off some and went to find some food.  We found a Thai place in Chattanooga and Adam of course go the spiciest level offered.  I believe this is the only Thai place that has beat Adam with spiciness.  He couldn't finish his meal.  He still wants to go back to conquer it.  We were worn out and headed back to the church.  It was a quiet trip back.  I'd highly recommend the trip, but I probably won't go again.  Those tight crawls were a bit much for me.  Overall, I really enjoyed it and I'm glad we went.

Beautiful Oregon

Seals on the beach in Lincoln City

Lee and I got back from our Oregon vacation a few months ago. It was wonderful!  The trip out there was long and I was surprised at how hard the jet lag hit me.  It's only a two hour time difference, but it threw me off completely.

Glass Blowing

We started our vacation in Lincoln City on the beach.  The beach was much different than any beach I've been on.  The beach was covered in washed up trees.  There were several spots where people had set up campfires with the logs that has washed up. Also, there were seals on the beach!

While we were at the beach, Adam and Lee decided to jump in.  After all, you can't visit the west coast and not swim in the Pacific.  I didn't.  That water is freezing!  On our way back from the beach, Adam and Lee tried to warm up and we took our time looking at the small, local shops.  

When we got back, we had dinner and hung out in Aunt Sis's cool backyard.  It's awesomely decorated in a luau theme.  We had smores and played horseshoes and then headed to bed.  The next morning we got ready and went to the art studio to blow glass.  I knew a glass-blowing major in college and I thought it was really neat.

Glass blowing was an interesting experience. Margot volunteered to go first.  While heating and turning her glass, she dropped a big blob.  We learned pretty quick that it's extremely important to keep turning the glass.  When it was my turn, I chose red and creme as my colors.  The heat was intense.  I burnt my fingers at one point and we had to put my pole under water to cool it down.  It was a pretty neat thing to try out.  We left our glass floats at the studio to cool.  The rest of the day was spent heading to Newport and hitting a few stops along the way.

The views of the coast were breathtaking.  It was really awesome to see a different type of beach.  While at the Devil's Punchbowl, we saw several squirrels running around.  There were peanut shells all over the ground, so Adam picked one up.  A squirrel came running up to get it.  He was disappointed when Adam just gave him the shell.  We wanted to play with the squirrels some more, but we didn't have any food and we wanted to make it to Newport before dark.  

We kept on our way to Newport and made it with plenty of daylight left.  We parked next to the pier and stopped to take pictures of all the boats.  We walked along the sidewalk and tried to cover our noses as we passed all the fish in the big bins.  Also, we had to try to not step in the flowing fish-nastiness water. The whole time we were walking, we could hear seals making all kinds of noise.  We walked out on the dock and saw the platforms below that the seals had swam up on. 

Apparently these seals just lay around all day on those docks and people just walk around and take pictures.  Seals always seemed cute in pictures and videos.  They were actually pretty gross in real life.  They were really neat to see, but I probably wouldn't hang out with them everyday.

We walked around the small town some more and visited the small, local shops. The shops were cute.  We took our time looking around, but didn't take too long.  These small shops didn't stay open very late.  We made it to the end of the small strip of town and Lee got to take pictures of the bridge.  He got to take pictures and he also got to drive over the bridge soon after.  We headed back to Aunt Sis's to crash for the night.  We planned our next day and then went to bed.

Because Lee and Adam wanted to hike and see some wildlife, Aunt Sis told us a place to go.  She said just around the corner on the beach, there was a place to climb on rocks and see creatures.  So we headed out to find the rocks and creatures.

The rocks that were just around the corner ended up being two miles away.  Two miles isn't bad.  Two miles in the sand is.  We finally got to the rocks and there was a big creek to jump over.  I was nervous about jumping, so I was handing my camera to Lee and it dropped right in the water.  We took the battery and memory card out and tried to dry it as much as possible.

It was very sad.  We climbed around on the rocks, and it was pretty cool.  We saw starfish, anemones, and muscles.  If you touched the muscles, they spit at you.  The starfish were not nearly as easy to pick up as I thought (they were pretty firmly stuck), and the anemones closed tightly if you touched them.  I'm sure I was acting like a little kid exploring, but it was fun.  After we were thoroughly satisfied with our exploration, we headed back.

  Other fun things while in Lincoln City included eating Thai and walking the streets to check out the local shops.  Adam's goal was to find some good taffy, and he found plenty.  It was a nice, little city.  We headed to Oregon City to hang out with the rest of the family.  We had fun with the family and our first big event in Oregon City followed the next morning. I'm upset I don't have any pictures from this event, but I didn't have a waterproof camera.  My family has their own rafts, so we went down to the Clackamus River and rafted.  

It was a really beautiful river - as I'm sure most of the rivers in Oregon are.  The whole group of us headed down the river, paddled through a few rough spots, and stopped to swim.  I enjoyed getting to do something fun like that with family I hadn't spent time with in a really long time.  After packing up, we headed out to get food.  We were starving after spending 4 hours on the water.  We stopped at a little place that had great burgers and a really neat atmosphere.The next morning we decided to go up to Mount Hood.  On the way up, we stopped at an alpine slide.  It was actually really hot that day.

We tried to stay in the shade while a few in our group went to ride the slide.  My family was getting a kick out of the place because they hadn't seen it without snow.  Our next stop was a lake - Trillium Lake.  The lake was beautiful.  As it was the only hot week of the year, the lake was packed with people.  We actually weren't going to be allowed in because there were no more parking spots, but we talked the people into just letting us drive back to see it.  There were tons of people scattered across the lake in small rafts.  I could have spent all day there - I love the water. Our last stop was the Timberline lodge - popularly known as the hotel where "The Shining" was filmed.  

It's really interesting though, the lodge looks like the one from the movie from the outside, but the inside is completely different.  In the movie, it's big and open.  In real life, it looks more like a lodge - all logs.  It was wonderful on the inside. I wouldn't mind staying there at all. It really was a timberline lodge, too.  The trees just stopped at that level.  Once we were done touring the place, we headed back down to get something to eat.  We stopped at a little place called Skyway.  I saw barbecue on the menu and it sounded really good, so I ordered it.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I should have known not to order barbecue from somewhere that wasn't in the south.  It was terrible!  I definitely won't do that again.  That was the last big day of our trip.  We played games with the family.  It was fun because I definitely come from a creative family.  The next morning, mom showed us where she grew up before she took us to the airport.  I could put a picture to the stories now.  The flight back was long of course and we were ready to crash when we got back around midnight.  Overall, it was a really fun trip and I'm really glad I got to spend time with my family.  I only wish the trip would have been longer!