Howdy. its been a while and I am sorry about that. I know I say this every time, but the past few months have been crazy. After I broke my leg I had to deal with so much stuff regarding the dorms, school, and life. I don't walk to talk about the bad stuff, so.... I can walk now! I can go down stairs mostly normal now! And I am making so much progress and hopefully soon I can run and ski!!!

I want to talk more about this semester and how awesome it is!! But I forgot to blog about a few trips from last semester. I forgot to talk about probably my favorite trip. I took a Sea Kayaking Class that drove all the way to the bay area! One of the ORL students from last year, his dad owns a Sea Kayaking Business in Sausalito. So we worked with "Sea Trek" to get the equipment and two previous ORL students helped lead the trip. Our major works in a cycle, and that is one thing I love. We have a network and Rick totally uses that network to make things more sustainable. I wrote about this trip in my journal and that was back when it was fresh in my memory. So what I am going to do, is type it for you can you can read that!

October 15, 2009
Today was an awesomeday, I started off having major problems with my roommates. Then I took a five hour van-drive from Beautiful little Quincy, to San Fransisco, or well Sausalito. We ate our lunch, got our gear and learned about parts of the boat, a few basic techniques... yadiya. Then we started Kayaking in Richardson Bay. We got a tour of the boat houses, then we crossed Raccoon straight to get to Angels Island. I forget how many miles in total but a few. It was easy Peasy. We set up camp on Angels island, ate some grub, then we decided to take a night hike to the peak! It was a five mile hike, really mellow, easy-going hike. We decided no lights, so we spent the hike just talking and hanging out. The view from the top was absolutely amazing. I will never forget it. The peak Mount Livermore, was the tallest point on the island, so we could see the entire bay area illuminated by their own lights. I have a hard time seeing beauty in places like San Fransisco, but this was beautiful. The Golden gate had this looming fog underneath it, and even if we did bring a camera that was capable of taking night pictures, it couldn't capture this completely surrounding view. This is a sea kayaking class, not a hiking class, but we have that freedom, which I love. When we were driving down, it was raining and foggy, and it has been storming for the past couple days. Right when we got here, it cleared up. It couldnt be more perfect. I feel really lucky to be able to take trips like this, because I was beyond stressed out back in Quincy. It hasnt even been a full day, and it's already been a great break. Another cool thing, is that the people who help teach this class are previous ORL students. That's what's great about this major, it is all connected some how.


October 16, 2009
Today we circumnavigated angels island, and learned rescuing and rolling techniques. What started off as a eerie and foggy day, ended up in a sunny, beautiful, happy day! We stopped at a beach and ate lunch. On our break we started to explore the island. It was creepy because people used to live there, and there was so much energy, but it was completely deserted. We plan on doing a night paddling trip. City lights and head lamps illuminating our way!!!


End.

So I didn't write about that night or the next day. That night just four of us walked over to the battery fields, lied down and watch the fog roll in from underneath the golden gate, and slowly take over the bay. It was a beautiful sight seeing San Fransisco slowly disappear. Then we went back to the camp and played for a long time extreme spoons. Where it was played like regular spoons, but instead of stealth-fully try to get the spoon, we hid the spoons and had to wrestle in the tent for them... haha it was pretty ridiculous. The next day we kayaked underneath the Golden Gate and then back to Sausalito. A beautiful and Amazzzing trip!

This Semester I dont have as many outdoor trips, but its been fun in a different way because I can focus more on other things I like to do. I have taken a few hikes and got some good pictures so, hopefully I can stop being so bad at this and write more. I hope all is well!
Happy Trails.