Portland Part Three

Sunday morning we returned to Pullman. The drive was long and Mother Nature apparently hates Washtucna. Snow/hail/sleet caused the car in front of us to spin off the road. Dan and Victor pushed the car back onto the road and the young driver followed behind us until the Colfax turn off. The rest of the highway 26 had similar bursts of awfulness followed by completely normal stretches.

We made it to Pullman in time for budget and worked to put out Monday's paper. After a couple hours at work, Pullman looked like it was December, not March.

I was going to take photos from my phone to document the trip, but I forgot. All I got was a photo of a dirty van at a rest stop, Victor driving, and a blurry train. I failed to get a photo of a sign for the town Rufus.

Portland Part Two

We woke up Saturday morning and Victor's adorable parents had prepared a breakfast spread for everyone. We returned to the conference, just missing the keynote speaker. Some of the sessions were good, others were boring and useless. One in particular, where the speaker and member of the audience bonded over having awful childhoods, was odd and uncomfortable. We spent the last session of the day sitting in the back of the room working on the Tony Bennett story. This post and this post were written during the session.

When the conference ended, the group of us sought food. While waiting to be seated, Mel and I went to the Nordstrom rack that was right across the street from the restaurant. We bought shoes, as did Dan, but they unfortunately gave him two right ones. Once fed, we returned to Victor's house and I tried to snuggle with his cat which would have none of it. But it adored Victor.

Portland Part One

One week ago today, a group of us at the Evergreen headed to Portland for the regional Society of Professional Journalists conference.

Part One: Friday

The journey began early in the morning with three staffers each in two cars. The drive was long and not particularly pleasant. I have nothing else to say about it.

The other car arrived at Victor's house (where we were staying) first. My driver got a bit lost and we arrived about a half an hour later. We changed our clothes and Brian hogged the iron. We then headed to the awards banquet. The Evergreen picked up seven awards, 3 for columns, 3 for photos, and one for breaking news reporting. Much my horror, The Daily from UW won best student newspaper.

Conference organizers tried to get the 30 people or so at the banquet to mingle, but we would have none of it. We left after the awards and walked to the mall so Melanie and I could take advantage of no sales tax. We both bought dresses. When the boys had enough, we returned to Victor's.

Best Presidents' Day by far

Over 800 miles in four days
In a wet and moldy car
With a friend I see every day
To visit a friend we haven't seen in a while

The CD player was annoying
Lisa read aloud from Unreasonable Behaviour
I tried to turn up her volume
It did not work

I had Irish cream
But not in coffee
To celebrate St. Paddy's Day
He is better than St. Valentine

After grilled cheese, we visited the ocean
Played in the waves and on the rocks
Then looked at Tom Cruise while eating burritos
Before learning where the blood will be

We ate ice cream at Billy's
And felt like small children
But we beat Oregon
And later mocked a stupid truck

I visited home
To de-mold my car
So my friends could visit my farm
Where a goat skull greeted us

Later there were guns and a goose
Thumbless emus and a green egg
We visited the bone yard
My father offered Jacob a cow pelvis

We began our return early
Got giant pancakes at The Rusty Tractor
Lisa took someone's drink (by accident)
Adventure over, we made it back in time for work

A Few More Kalaloch Pictures

The Lingering Smell of Campfire

I returned from camping on Saturday morning tired and in desperate need of a bath. Overall the week-long trip was great, however, a week strait with my grandparents was a little straining on my patience. Thank God for Ali, good books, coffee, chocolate, the ocean, and the arrival of my mom on Thursday afternoon. Eliminating any one of those could very possibly have made the trip bad. Anyway, here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.

Our Friday Night: Part One

As I sat in my van on Aurora Ave. Friday afternoon reading the names of the numerous bars, pubs, and taverns, I saw one of them was named The Chupacabra. I had tried to remember this word a few weeks ago in a discussion I had with Christina and now that the word was fresh in my mind I decided to call and tell her. We chatted for about 10 minutes and I explained to her that we had been driving since 1:00PM and now were stuck in North Seattle trying to avoid the traffic on I-5. We finished up our conversation and I told her I would call her when we finally got home. My mom then asked if Christina and I had any plans for that night. I half chuckled and told her no. Mom asked me why I laughed and I replied "why would we have plans for tonight?" "Because it's Friday night." But Christina and I never do anything on Friday nights other than hang out at my house and watch a movie. We like our mellow nights.

When we finally got home after 7 hours of driving and for me 7 hours of nausea and headache, I called Christina back. We then decided to go to a late movie in Olympia to kill time until midnight when we would drive over to Barnes & Noble and pick up her reserved copy of Harry Potter. I was rather excited and said to mom "Yay! I guess I am doing something tonight!"


When Christina arrived, she stepped out of her car wearing the navy blue Evergreen Swim Club sweatshirt I "gave" to her. I looked at her and giggled "I should wear mine too!" She nodded and giggled with excitement. I ran and got my other matching sweatshirt and she excitedly explained how when we are standing in line we will have to stand next to each other so that together the sweatshirts read "Ariel VanZandt" (she has the "Ariel" one). No one else thought it was funny.

Our first stop was Top Foods as we were in need of sugar and drinks to get us through the night. As we entered we saw a line of Harry Potter freaks fans camping out by the flowers. Turns out even Top Foods was having a midnight release of the new book. We made our way to the back of the store to the candy area. After we had gotten our candy I realized that I really hadn't eaten much that day because of my car sickness and that I now was ready for some "real" food. We wandered over past the bread then into the produce discussing the different options. Christina tried to convince me that a $5.99 piece of tiramisu was "real" food and as tempting as it was I had to decline. I actually decided on some green grapes. As I was putting them into the bag Christina informed me that green grapes hurt her teeth.

1,000 Places To See Before You Die

I got the book for Christmas. I figured I would because every time I went into World Market with my mom I would tell her that I wanted it. Now they have a TV show. I'm so jealous of the couple they chose to participate. I wouldn't even hesitate to take 3 months to take a trip around the world, expenses paid. I tried picking my top ten places out of the book...not even possible...and I didn't even leave the Europe section. That's another reason why I would do the trip. I'd get to go to Europe, but I'd also get to experience places I wouldn't have considered. Like México. It's so close that I don't really think about it, but there are some spectacular places there. Now, I'd also like to go to India, Peru, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Ireland...I'll stop there.

I wish I hadn't run out of tabby thingies...

Blessings in Disguise?

As some of you may know I have been planning on studying abroad in Spain next year. You also may know that I am now going to Western Washington U next year. I have been contacting the study abroad office at Western (they have turned out to be very difficult people to deal with) to figure out the best program for me. There are lots of different programs in Spain and I was hoping the Spanish study abroad advisor would help me narrow the list down so I could make a smart choice. She did not help me much, but after about 10 different emails I was finally able to make a decision. The decision is that I can't go to Spain. She told me that I essentially have two options. I can either study in Spain during fall semester (Western is on quarters) but the deadlines for applications have already passed or I can go during the summer which isn't an option because I really need to work. Even though I'm sad I'm also a little relieved.

I also found out yesterday that I didn't get the summer camp job I really wanted. It would have been the perfect summer job. They would have payed $8.50 - $9.50/hour and they would have given me 40 hours/week and the hours would have been 7:30-5:30. Basically, PERFECT! Of course I didn't get it. Now I will probably end up working at Big 5 again getting crappy hours and crappy pay.

Maybe they were both blessings in disguise.