This is a picture of me and my roommates (sometimes we feel the need to release the inner fob). The day after the MCAT was over, we went on a little road trip up north to visit and bring Bo back to Berkeley. This proved to be a very long and tiring ordeal, but resulted in a lot of funny and memorable moments that I will now share with you all.




So our first stop is Portland, OR. The boys meet each other for the first time. They buddy up quickly enough.
This is not before getting pulled over across the Oregon state border twice after several shots of espresso.
Jane & driving did not go well that Saturday. Not at all.
This is also when several holes are created in knitting, and a little after berry picking for the first time.
Blackberries grow like weeds around there.




Next we get to Seattle, WA, where Darlene's family takes us in and we spend some time downtown. We manage to have a terrible time driving again, what with the traffic, and getting lost several times. Thank God for AAA and free maps.
We enter the Experience Music Project (EMP) and take pictures that we're prohibited to take. We look like an ipod ad. We also try to imitate the scary lady with crazy hair poster that is cut-off but above us. We do not succeed.


 

So the next thing we do is walk along the water, waiting for the sun to set and for Dennis to rejoin us.  The boys (Bin & Bo) are sent off to fetch the cars, you can see them trudging off to walk up the hill and five blocks over.
I have to admit that sometimes it's nice being a girl; however, it must kind of suck when girls are scaredy cats and refuse to come out of the car because of a story of a ghost on a bridge. That's why Jane is still pinned in between two girls and can't check out the bridge for herself.
That last shot is of the best breakfast I've ever had that also took place in Seattle along the windy waterfront, next to Pike's Place Market and consisted of crusty bread, smoked salmon, cheese, tomatoes, pate, peaches, pellegrino and good company. It was a very good meal.




So this is the best part of the trip: making our way to Golden Ears National Park in British Columbia.  We have finally gone international at this point, however, being lost/chasing after closed visitor's centers for hours is really not the best way to start it off.
In fact, it is downright frustrating.




We eventually give up when they tell us "soory (in that Canadian way), they will not be open until tomorrow morning."
At this point, the frustration makes us crave only a place to sleep, so we finally try to make it to the campgrounds before dark, but are sad to find that the campground is FULL
Sad and dejected, we try to desperately to call the campsite while hanging out by the bathroom next to this beautiful and quiet lake. We are fortunate and chance upon some other campers and they tell us not to worry, because there is still space!
Hurrah, we are saved, and the cooking/setting up/starting up the fire in the dark begins.




The boys whip up salmon and kebabs. I spend time tending to the soaking of cedar. We also lose some rice in the process, and we don't get to eat until midnight. After the long-awaited meal, we're beat afraid of cold showers, and sleep a bit earlier, underneath the millions of stars that could be seen through Jane's family tent. The others come back from their midnight hike much later/or earlier, when the morning light has creeped back into the day. We miss the sunrise.




The next morning is spent reliving their midnight hike. Apparently, I'm very excited.
We also see here the beginnings of a more-than-friendship. This seems to be a recurring theme of this summer, as is short Taiwanese girls ending up with ridiculously tall boys.


 

This is strip-down for the water number one. The water is purportedly cold. Bo follows suit soon thereafter, but keeps his pants on because he's only got on tighty whities. The girls stay dry. For now.


 

So we continue on this hike and head off to Lower Falls. We have a jolly good time making it to the falls on the "road less traveled." This pretty much meant walking through the rocky creek. A couple of us went down and got pretty dirty during this process. This is Jane up, and then Jane down.




By the time we actually got to the falls, it's kind of late and we were tired of the whole ordeal and figured that the only practical thing to do at this point is to jump into the falls. We all go in. Up there, you can see the other people who were trekking out to the falls. I imagine they thought we were kind of crazy, stripping down behind rocks and jumping in.




It's all about the teamwork. And apparently, I have none. I'm smiling though, and shouting encouraging things. I'm just too cold to make any physical effort to help Namyee up. Jane is such a trooper though, she extends her toe out for Namyee to grab.
What I learned from this experience: rocks are deceptively slippery. And they hurt when you fall.




We figure that we can't have driven all this way for it to end up being only a huge camping trip, so we do a QUICK drive-through of Vancouver, BC.  I really liked the tugboat that we saw while up in Stanley Park. there are some other good pictures but I'm starting to get tired of uploading them, photobucket is really starting to lag on me here. During this time we also manage to drop by a Tim Hortons for some hot soup, and some ridiculously expensive loungey place that took forever to serve us hors d'ouvres. We ended up at Vera's for burgers after that.




We head back down to Oregon after that, and Dennis drives the whole way down.
Bo has a hard time sleeping in the car AND he's got work the next day to boot, that crazy kid, but he really wants to go to the ocean and see the big rock, so after we've slept in all day and he's off working at Intel, we pick him up from work and go to Cannon Beach to see this Big Rock. Third biggest in the country? or the world? Well anyway, you can see in the picture, that's Bo's crotch, Intel Badge, and the big rock behind him. We barely make it in time for one of the most gorgeous sunsets. We also check out some kite stores, and I have to pee really badly in that picture where we're trudging back to the car to relocate to a "fire pit."




This is pretty much the last of our trip. We spend the night on the beach eating yummy Fultano's pizza and dancing in the shore/waves. Jane runs to the rock. The fire is nice and warm. 

After this there's a little bit more of us in Portland, where we visit the biggest bookstore, ever, and I get really excited check out a scale but a funny boy thinks that I'm checking him out. We eat more gelato, drive to the creepy Grotto, and end up eating Pizza Schmizza after attending the end of someone's wedding at the Old Church.

And then we regroup in Hillsboro to make the long drive down.



This was so exhausting. Peace out.