Around The Globe – Page 2

Santa Cruz Island

Happy new year everyone!

So the new year was pretty boring for me, I sat at home, drank a bottle of champagne and had a boy come over. Fun stuff, no? I was in bed by 10pm! Woot, go me!

The next day I got up and went out and did some shopping and stuff, nothing to exciting, Nick got here at like 5ish and convinced me to go out and buy a Nikon D90. Hence the previous update about Best Buy sucking.

Friday morning we got up early and drove up to pick up JoEric and then off to Ventura for the weekend in Santa Cruz Island! When we first got to Ventura the weather SUCKED. It was overcast, cold, almost rainy feeling and it STUNK. We loaded up the boat with some other HOT boys and off we went to the Island. It took about 2 hours to get out there because we kept stopping for dolphins and whales and stuff. I really enjoyed seeing them, but we could have spent less time doing that.

So we got there and setup camp and then headed out on a quick trip over to Smugglers Cove. It was a pretty easy 6 mile round trip hike and the cove was very pretty. We hung out there for a while, did some hand stands, and just exploring the area. On the trip up we found some HUGE piles of rocks and were wondering what they are. Nick and I both guessed rock piles from clearing fields, but we didn’t think that was the right answer, so we came up with some more stories about aliens and what not. Very entertaining. Sadly on the way up there, I kept feeling like something was STABING my big toe. I found out once we got back to camp that I had two HUGE blisters on my toe already! NOT a good way to start the weekend!

Got back to camp and we made a delicious dinner and then hung out, played cards, talked and then went to bed!

Saturday morning we got up and putzed around the camp for a while then headed out to Manonon Peak. It was a pretty easy hike up, but with my blisters it sure was painful! We got up there around 1 or 2 because we had really taken our time and stopped a few places to enjoy the scenery. The day was much better then previous because the clouds had blown off and it was sunny! At the peak we met a Ranger and talked to her for a while about the foxes and bald eagles on the island, really learned a lot! Also found a GeoCache and signed it.

Hung out there for a while learning the Rubrix secrets and then headed down a ways, got to a nice grassy area and stopped to play frisbee for about an hour. Once the sun had set behind the mountain we headed the rest of the way down. Got back to camp around 6ish and made dinner, played some more cards and then went to bed!

Sunday was a really lazy day, we did a short hike to Potato Cove, watched the water and then went back to camp, napped, packed and then waited for the boat!

Overall it was a GREAT weekend!

Thanksgiving, San Jacinto and Joshua Tree!

Wow, what a weekend, went from the wonderful Beach, to Winter wonderland, to the desert and back to a very foggy and overcast beach! Only in LA can you do such a thing!

So, Thursday I headed down to Laguna beach to meet up with Nick and Dustin. We hung out in Laguna for a while and watched the sunset which was amazing. After that we headed over to some of Nick’s friends house for thanksgiving dinner. That was a HUGE mess, but tons of fun! Lots of people, tons of delicious food, and a great time was had by all. There was this one old guy though who kept STARING at me the WHOLE time we were there though. Very annoying! lol

Got done with that and headed home. Nick and I went through the plans for the next day and reviewed what we were packing then crashed in bed. Got up at 5am Friday morning and drove out to Palm Springs and got the second tram of the day up to the top. Got there and there was 3-4 inches of snow on the gound at the tram station which is about 8,200 feet. Started out hiking and got lost a few times because the trail was not marked at all. So we were trying to find our way up!

It was absolutely gorgeous getting up there. We reached the Peak which was about 6 miles up at around 1pm, so it took us about 4 hours to do that. Got up there and hung out in this emergency shelter cabin to eat lunch and warm up a little bit. On the peak there was around a foot of snow up there. We hung out and checked out the wonderful views and then started heading the 2 miles to our camp site. The snow seemed much deeper on this side of the mountian, we were going downhill and we were blazing the trail.

I decided after a while that it was just too much, my feet were soaking wet, my toes frozen solid so we turned around and went back. Made the 6 mile trek back in a little over 2 hours. So 12 miles and 7 hours later with a 35 pound pack we were back where we started. Spent some time in the tram station and had some hot tea and then headed to the bottom. Stopped at KFC for dinner and saw this HUGE fat guy in there eating a boat load and I was disgusted and wanted to yell at him. After that we headed out to Joshua tree to meet up with Travis and gang.

We got there and met a bunch of new people and then we crashed in bed. I was sooo tired! Saturday we got up and went climbing for the whole day. Pretty much from sunrise to sunset! It was amazing. Although I was sooooo tired and my back was killing me, so I only did 4 climbs that day. 🙁 Tons of hot guys were out climbing as well! Yum! It was a really great group and hopefully I can start doing some climbing/adventures with them some more!

Went back to the camp site that night and they had another GREAT thanksgiving dinner and then this other couple made delicious chicken tacos! We had so much fucking food around the camp site. Plus people were smoking pot and drinking tons of alc. It was very entertaining! I went to bed probably around 9ish and laid and watched the stars for a little bit. Sooo pretty.

So Sunday we got up, packed up and then headed out to breakfast with Travis, Jafey, Nick and I. Had good chat then back to LA! The drive was great, no traffic or anything but the weather at the beach SUCKED! It was overcast and nasty! I would rather have the snow! Lol

Overall it was a GREAT weekend!

Download the Google Earth file of the hike here:
2008-11-30-mt-san-jacinto

Here’s a movie:

San Diego and Climbing!

Ugh. I can’t believe that it’s already Oct 20th! Where is this year going!??!

This weekend was another busy busy weekend! Friday night was a dinner party. Our first one in a while. It was just Steve, Jason and I for a while, then these two girls showed up. The one girl was fun, the other was scary and smoked. Gross. We had lots of fun though and it was good to catch up with Steve again. Ended up playing Phase 10 till like midnight and then went home.

Saturday morning I got up early and ran some errands then met up with Jason and Vince for breakfast then drove down to Santa Ana. Met up with this guy Dustin and then carpooled down to Solana Beach to this delicious pizza place called Pizza Port. I’ve been there a few times before and Love that place! 🙂 From there we drove through the beach cities and headed into San Diego. Went to Balboa park and walked around a bit, had a few drinks and then saw this play called “The Women” which was hilarious! After that we went to some huge Hotel and had more drinks then tried to make the 6:30 train back but JUST missed it so we ended up having dinner down there and then catching the 8:30 train back. Which was hilarious! The woman kept yelling at us and being all bitchy.

Sunday morning I got up and headed out climbing. It was just Jerry and I and he didn’t even climb at all. So I did 3 hours of climbing. I was EXHAUSTED by the time I got home and my fingers are still hurting from all of it. Got home about noon and did some stuff around the house and then called Kris, he and I went shopping at the Thirft stores for his halloween costume then hit up the Apple store where I orgasmed all over the new MacBook Pros. From there we went to Fry’s and I was expecting to just buy a new external hard drive because mine was filled up, but they had a 1TB Terastation for sale $350! So I bought that because I’ve been wanting one FOREVER! Brought that home and then went grocery shopping and made dinner for Kris and I and then watched some scary movie.

So that was basically the weekend. Lots of crazyness and lots of fun!

Road Closed, Record Lows, Plan D!

20 miles, 9 hours, 4,000 foot elevation gain, 24 hours of NO PEOPLE, roads closed, snow, record lows, having to go with Plan D! All Priceless! 🙂

Wow, what a weekend. It all started on Thursday night when we decided to have a last minute Pumpkin Pie party. So Sirin, Kris, and Jason all came over to my house and we baked a pumpkin pie, sat around talking and drinking wine! What a great night! It was Sirin’s last weekend in her apartment! :'(

Friday I got up early and headed to work got a TON of stuff done before everyone else showed up and then headed out to Santa Monica for a meeting. Had a great meeting there with a new contractor and then changed and off to Fresno to pick up Nick. Got there about 2:30ish and off to Yosemite. We get to the main gate at 4:20 and the wilderness office in Wawona closed at 4:30, so we booked it down there and get there just as they were about to close, thankfully Nick knew the girls in the office so they were very very helpful, sadly they JUST closed Tioga road up to the Meadows a few minutes before we got there! We ask them to give us a permit for that area anyways and we’ll just hope that they open the road in the morning.

On our way down to the valley it starts snowing pretty good and we stop a few times, pick up some supplies because Nick forgot all his food at home, found the Backpackers campground, setup camp and then headed to the Lodge for dinner. My hottie desk clerk was still working there from this spring! Yum! I got to talk to him this time too! 🙂 After dinner we headed back to the campsite, made a fire and sat around talking for a few hours.

Saturday morning we get up, pack up and head to the Wilderness office, find out that Tioga road was STILL closed and they weren’t expecting it to open till after 1 or 2pm. Glacier road was closed as well, but they were expecting it to open around 10am. So we get a new wilderness permit for some hiking along glacier. We were just going to hike along the rim of the valley and camp up there. So we putz around the valley some more and then head up to Glacier road. Get there right at 10 and the road is still closed. We talk to the ranger at the gate and he said he wasn’t expecting it to open till 1 or 2 now. We didn’t want to wait around just to find out it won’t open at all, etc. So we dig out the map and start looking for alternatives. Finally decide to head out to Hetch Hetchy.

On the drive up there we stop at Tioga road just to check and it was STILL closed, we ran into a guy that we had met at the wilderness office and talk to him for a couple minutes then continue our drive up to Hetch Hetchy. Get there and get a new wilderness permit for the trail we had decided on up to Miguel Meadows. The rangers were very helpful and told us that even though EVERYONE was coming up to that area now that the other two were closed we were the ONLY people getting permits for our trail. GREAT news! So we finally get hiking about 1pm and it was just wonderful out there. By 2pm we were up the trail pretty good and we saw the last of the people we’d see for the next 24 hours! It was wonderful! We get up to the top of the ridge and come across this sign that says we’d already gone 4 miles! Crazy! We really booked it up the first part. So we slowed down from there as we hiked through the meadows.

About 4 we came across an abandoned ranger cabin and decided to put down camp there for the night. We dropped off our gear and explored the area a little bit then headed a few more miles into the park to get to Lake Eleanor. It was about 8 miles round trip to the lake edge and back and only 5 miles to the lake over look. Sadly I was getting a HUGE blister on my foot so we had to turn around. Got back to our camp site and gathered some wood and started a nice big fire, ate dinner and then sat around talking about anything and everything the rest of the night! The cabin/shed provided a GREAT wind barrier because we camped in between them, I’m glad we did too cause it would have been FREEZING even more if we hadn’t had that barrier, you could hear the winds howling pretty damn good! The forecast was for gusts to 50mph!

Crawled into the sleeping bag about 9pm and I went straight to sleep. I had my mummy bag completely closed up so my entire body was all the way inside the bag. The overnight low was around 15 degrees! About 4am I woke up and because my bag had come open a little bit and my nose was FREEZING. Nick was awake as well so we talked a bit and then watched the starts! Sooooooo beautiful! Shooting stars everywhere. I got a little bit freaked out there for a bit though cause I kept hearing branches breaking and stuff! lol. Fell back asleep and woke up again around 7am. Sat in the bag for a while because it was so cold outside. Eventually got up, broke down camp, ate breakfast, explored the area a little more and found that there was an old barn not to far from us, then headed back to the car.

It was so sad heading back that way. I wanted to just keep hiking farther and farther back into the park! We didn’t see a single person till we got back down to the base of the trailhead. It was so sad seeing those first people again! LOL. Got back to the car and headed back to Fresno.

The drive back to Fresno was really nice, stopped into Wawona again and talked to the wilderness permit people again found out that Tioga road was STILL closed and never opened and that Glacier point had JUST opened Sunday morning so it’s a very good thing that we didn’t just sit around and wait for them to open. Though I do kinda wish we had got there before Tioga had closed, we would still be stuck up there! How fun would that be! lol.

Got back to Fresno, dropped Nick off and then headed back to LA. It was so sad driving home! 🙁 When I arrived home Sirin had left her lights on and her windows open, I saw her apartment all empty and was sad that she was gone now!

Overall it turned out to be a GREAT weekend up in Yosemite and I can’t wait to do another trip soon!

New Chapter Begins!

A new Chatper begins today. A new job, an ex forgotten, a new life.

This past weeekned has been amazing for me. I spent it in Houston with some really great people. It was amazing how welcome the guys and gals that I met there were.

I rolled into town late on Wed evening. The flight there was fine, i had the front row of the plane and tons of leg room. Really hot guy next to me and he slept the whole flight. I watched two movies which i can’t recall now.

Checked into the hotel which was also good. Headed out from there to meet up with David. We went downtown to some wine bar. it was very cute and met up with his friends Hillary and Jessica. Hung out there and had a few glasses of wine and chatted it up. After a while there we headed out to Hillary’s house for dinner and then out to a gay bar for Karaoke. They sang, I did not. It wasn’t very busy, but we had a really fun time. Headed back to the hotel after that.

Thursday I got up and was supposed to meet this guy to go to NASA, but he over slept so I just went alone. I had a really fun time. It was cool to see the old mission control and what not. But i wish that you could have seen more of the behind the scenes stuff. I guess there was a more detailed tour, but there’s only 13 spots on it every day. Of course they were sold out. After that I sent to the San Jacinto Monument, which was alright. Headed back to Houston after that and met up with the guy and we had dinner before he had to work. After that I headed over to Hillary and Jessica’s place and we went to this HUGE Wal-Mart of liquor! Amazing!!! From there we met up with David and did something? What did we dooooo!? I can’t recall! 🙁

Friday I got up and headed out to Brazos Bend state park and had a great time. I didn’t get to hike around as much as I would have liked to, but that’s because I have a cast on! I think that’s a good excuse. I hung out there for a while, then headed back to the Hotel, showered and then went over to meet up with Emily, Jim, and a few other people who’s names are escaping me. We went to this HUGE festival thing downtown and had a really fun time listening to bands and what now. Went back to Jim’s place and watched the fireworks which was nice. After that I headed over to Hillary and Jessica’s where David, Josh and a few others were at. We all drank way to much, sang, played rock band, talked and had a WONDERFUL time! I didn’t leave there till 4:30 and then went over to this other guys house and we cuddled and slept. It was nice!

Got up at 8:30 on Saturday and met up with David and we did all the art stuff in Houston. That was nice. We went to this one Russian Exhibit in which he had painted these HUGE canvases BLACK and then covered the interior of a church with them. Geeee, what’s that represent?! haha. We broke for a few hours and I went back and napped. Met up with him and Josh again for dinner and then went out to a few bars that night. Again a very very fun night! Got home around 2:30 and crashed.

Today I got up at 9 and packed then went out to brunch with David and Josh again then we just went around the city doing random stuff till 3 when I headed to the airport. I got on an earlier flight so that was nice and just got back to LA.

This weekend had really helped me to get over Const. I’ve realized how much of an asshole he really is and meeting this GREAT GREAT AMAZING group of people in Houston was so perfect timing. I really want to write more about how I feel about this, but I am to tired right now.

I’m also very very scared about starting the new job tomorrow!

Ok. I had a lot more I wanted to write, but I am tired. Perhaps I will come back and update with more details!

Night!

PS. Hillary Woest
Jessica Frinsco