Salt Lake City - 4 Days

So Friday we left at 5am. I slept from there til 10am when we stopped in some random town Glendale, Nevada. Woke up cos we stopped and I stayed awake from then til like 3pm alternatively reading, listening to music, and writing a post for Souls. Then dozed a while more then we were theree at like 5 or so. Got everything into the hotel, we called my aunt Alice and she dropped by after she got out of work. She took us to her house and then out to this neat pizza place called The Pie (decorated with math pi symbols XD). It was rather tasty. Afterwards she went swimming with most of my family I stayed in the room though cos I didn't feel like swimming, I wrote one more Souls post. Thennn we went to bed pretty early. Had sort of bad cramps all day which sucked.

Saturday woke up at like 8, went downstairs to have breakfast. Drove over to Uncle David's house, and Uncle Charles was there too. I petted David's dog Emmy a while, a pretty red golden retriever, while Charles and David washed the windows of my dad's car. Thenn we drove an hour or so to David's cabin in the mountains. It was neat, I took lots of pics while there. Very pretty views. We drove back, then went to lunch at Pei Wei then back to the hotel. Then we all drove back to Alice's, Dad dropped Mom and I off for my cousin Jenny (6-7 years older than me)'s baby shower. Dad, David and Geoff all went out to do mini golfing or something. Baby shower was okay, there were a lot of people there I knew even less than my relatives and I don't even know my Utah relatives all that much. ): So it was a lil awk but sort of fun doing lil baby games like guessing baby foods and stuff. At one point my Aunt Barbara had a spider on her back and was like "get it off get it off" to me and I was like "O_O I CANT." So she ran inside, tearing off her shirt, and this little girl Mary was there with a camera saying "I'm supposed to take pictures." XDDD.

I gave Jenny's daughter / my first cousin once removed, Valencia, a few gifts from when I was cleaning my room like an iPod dog speaker thing and some bracelets. But I didn't really play much with her until bridal shower was over and Dad & Geoff were back, then I started jumping on the trampoline with her and we became friends again. She's 8, last time I saw her she was 4-5. We hung out she showed me around inside and stuff. And we went out to the back and picked plums and apples from their little orchard. Valencia decided she wanted to cook something with them and I helped her make a "delicious" fruit and vegetable salad with plums, apples, pickles, zucchini, grated parmesan, cheddar, and tomatoes, haha. Then we had tasty spaghetti dinner with one bite of the salad for all of us. Alice put on some little kids movie about a puppy and we all watched that, I wrote a post while it was on. Then back to the hotel and sleepings.

Sunday woke up at 9am to snag breakfast, then back to hotel room and slept until like noon was awesome. Drove out to Uncle Charles & Aunt Barbara's house and we had some pasta / burgers for lunch. They have 10 cats and 4 dogs there o_O. I spent a lot of time cuddling with this one pretty cat Penny and Charles kept trying to get me to take it for my apartment next year, offering $300, free food, a free cage if I took her. XD. They're trying to cut down their number of cats. After being there for a while Cousin Joe (5 years older than me) came upstairs and we talked about comp sci cos he was in the army or something and just came back and is doing his second year of a comp sci major now. Which was cool, I've never really spoken with him before we're facebook friends now. Uncle David, dad, Geoff, mom, Aunt Barbara and I all played some silly board game called Would You Rather. It was amusing enough. Afterward we hung out in backyard while Geoff, Mom, Uncle Charles chilled in the hot tub and everyone except my family sipped on beers. I was offered one multiple times though, haha.

After that we went to Alice's house for dinner again, got there around 6-7. Cousin Mike (6-7 or so years older than me) was there this time which meant his son Kaiden (8 years old) was there along with Jenny + Valencia. =D. He's RIDICULOUSLY cute little blonde kid with glasses. Geoff and I rapidly befriended Kaiden again and we jumped on the trampoline with them a bunch. Dinner was pizza + spaghetti. After dinner Alice got out her scooter (which initially brought to mind the picture of like a Razor Scooter but is actually one of those gas powered motorcycle things). And I spent a tonnn of time riding around her backyard in the scooter and this go-kart it was wayyy too fun. After I was done with that Geoff and I chased Kaiden and Valencia allll over and I got so exhausted. XD. Once again Kaiden was SOOOO cute. Valencia liked to call him a dork and stuff and one time saying he was king of dorks I was like "yeah well I *like* being a dork!" and Kaiden gave me a ridiculously adorable grin. XDD. They had to leave at like 9 or so and so did we, except when we were trying to get out the door Geoff lost his shoes. o_O. We spent like 20 minutes scouring the backyard and finally found them, then went back to hotel. Slept, woke up at like 5 and we drove back. I slept til 10 or something idk. Read for a while, around 12:30 I drove for like an hour from outskirts of Las Vegas to Baker, CA. Mostly going 75 on a freeway, which is good practice for driving considering my whole family was in the car which meant serious yelling and backseat driving and rough-housing between them all. Then I dozed some more. We got back around 3:45pm!

Portland - Day 3

Woke up at 7:12am and showered. Went downstairs to eat breakfast, had part of a waffle and an English Muffin. We rushed out the door after writing down Nina's directions and managed to catch our bus by running down half a block, watching it stop in front of our hotel, and proceed to the stop we were standing at. I bought an all day ticket thing then played a little bit of Harvest Moon while we went back downtown. We managed to get off at the right stop but we thought Pioneer Square (where we were meeting Nina) was this park thing so it took us a while to actually find the right Starbucks. But it was okay because she was running late too, for a sad reason though, nosebleed. ): She missed two trains, got there to meet us at like 9:30am or so, said "hi" to Alex's parents then we walked off to find the bus we wanted to take to the Rose Garden.

We got there pretty easily but the wait was a while so we taught her how to play Mao. Then we got there and wandered around for a while and got some shaved ice which was pretty good, except I kept dropping it all over me. Then we went to the Japanese garden which was alright but cost like five dollars to get in. We tried to take this special zoo-train into the zoo but it wasn't running for a few hours so we went by the boring bus. While waiting, we played cards and picked grass and then threw the grass at each other. Once there we got some cash out of the ATM and then I had a delicious quesadilla at this cafe. In the restaurant we mapped out with a pen where in the zoo we would go.

Once inside the actual zoo, we walked around pretty much on the track I set. We saw a bunch of cool animals, but some of them were lame and sleeping because it was rather hot out. We did this one simulator ride that was completely not zoo-related and took us on a ride around to all of the planets. At some point Nina got an orange soda float, which was bad, but in washing up the stickiness we found a nest of baby birds with was adorable. Near when the zoo was closing we went into this butterfly room place. It was supposed to cost a few dollars but we all got in free because the cashier wasn't working and the person liked Alex's threadless t-shirt. We spent like thirty minutes trying to get butterflies to land on us but we all fail'd.

So after like four hours in the zoo we get on the Max which is like half-subway, half-train, and spend like forty minutes or so going out to this other nearby city, Hillsboro. Because we needed to go to Sonic. It's like nearly 8 by the time we get there, and we spend twenty minutes or so teaching Nina how to play Pusoy and catch a bus that should run nearby Sonic. We're all trying to look for the street we need, Butler, but Alex is the one paying the most attention. Ten minutes into the trip his dad calls so he's on the phone and not paying attention and we unknowingly pass our stop. After five more minutes of driving we ask the bus driver if we'd passed Butler and he denied having any knowledge of the existence of the stop but told us Sonic was at this DIFFERENT street, one we passed a while back.

So we got off and decide we might as well just walk if he said we passed it. We walk for a bit and we're all exhausted already because we walked all over the zoo too. Finally we get the GPS working, and it says Butler is a few streets down from where we were. And it happened to be the one street that none of us read the name of, the one we were joking was probably our stop cause we missed reading it. Annoyed, but HEY SONIC! so we walked down a bit and had some good juice and onion rings and mozerella sticks. It's like, almost ten by now and we have to be back downtown by 11:30 to catch the last bus back up to our hotel.

The bus that drove us earlier was the 48; however the driver said it was his last run so we knew we couldn't get back on it, so we wandered a bit trying to find a stop on a nearby street for some other bus but ended up failing to find anything. We went into a nearby Hilton hotel and asked for directions back to the Max station or a recommendation for a bus and they gave us some weird and incorrect sounding directions and said it was only a 15-20 minute walk. Heartened by the estimate, we start off down Cornell, the street that the 48 went down and the one that crosses Butler.

Words cannot properly express the pain and monotony of spending the next hour and a half walking in as brisk a pace as we could manage down to the Max station. Early on I had to pee from drinking my Sonic juice, and I eventually actually went behind this one sign on this one pretty dark road with Nina and Alex standing by. It was pretty hilarious and definitely hardcore. We stopped at a Chipotle to ask for directions to the Max station and they told us what we pretty much knew: take Cornell to 185th. Cornell took FOREVER, then we got to start on 185th.

We actually had no idea how to get to the Max station from 185th, a thing we noticed after we were already so far down it there were no open stores or anything around us. Alex tried to buy a soda once, but like as soon as he got to the door the light went off and he was closed, it was kinda funny and a happy moment because Nina and I got to temporarily collapse on the grass. Then it was back up, and onward. We found a few bus stops and tried calling to find out what time they were coming, but none of them were actually still running.

At around 11:20 or so we started freaking out a little because we had been walking down 185th a LONG time and things weren't looking familiar, partly because we failed to pay attention at all on the beginning of the bus ride out towards Sonic. Finally we got to what looked like train tracks and start wondering if we had crossed them or not. One thing that was definitely frightening was the fact that when we turned onto 185th on foot we chose to go right even though we weren't 100% sure that was the way the bus had come from, so we started questioning that turn. We couldn't find the train station on the GPS, either, so it wasn't really able to help us at that point.

We decide to push on a little furthur, JUST IN CASE. So we get to the train tracks and see the little gate to cross and like a couple steps onto the track the lights start flashing and the things on the road lower so cars can't drive by. We hurry across and it comes quite a bit closer to us than any of us were comfortable with. Watching it pass by, we notice that large letters painted upon it declare it to be "The Max Blue Line." In turning around we also notice a sign that indicates the Max runs by - a good thing, because we turn right on the next street and then go down a little alley / sidewalk thing and end up AT THE STATION YAY OMG.

So it's like 11:35 now, which happens to be the time we had to be back downtown. Alex's mom calls and starts freaking out a bit at him because she doesn't know where Hillsboro is and didn't know he was going so far. She gives us the numbers for a couple taxi cabs, and we wait for the subway to come. Nina calls the trimet phone thing to find out when the next Max is coming but it says it's going to be 3:30am, which seems ridiculous but is not exactly the best thing to hear. Nina calls Emily, the friend she's staying with, and Emily says if she can get a hold of a car she'll see what she can do to help.

A little while later a Max shows up and we are all ecstatic and get on. Except, like, at literally the NEXT stop the Max announces that it is terminating and everyone has to get off. We're all upset and angry at it, and we're doing so loudly, so another person who gets off comforts us by saying another Max should show up in 10-15 minutes or so. Slightly heartened, we sit there just enjoying the action of sitting after walking FOREVER. My feet, thighs, and calves are all throbbing in pain by this point. After a bit the Max does actually come again, then we take it back downtown which takes another 30 minutes at least.

We hang out for a few minutes near the stop and discover from Nina that these odd water statue things are actually drinking fountains. Then Emily is able to pick us up and she's super nice and gives Alex and I a ride back to the hotel. We give her the rest of the fudge we bought at the zoo in thanks for her kindness, and she comments on the shirt I was wearing because it was one she designed and Nina had sent to me. She drives slightly how I imagine Sami does, and her boyfriend, William, who is also in the car, has to remind her once or twice about red lights and such. Then we lied to Alex's mom and say we took a taxi home because she doesn't like him driving with strangers.

We're finally home around 1am and then eventually we fall asleep, I put off writing this so long I forgot what else actually happened in the next few hours. :D. I probably tried to write some of this, talked to Nina, ate some veggie meat, while Alex complained about light and stuff. Sounds likely to me, at least.

Portland - Days 1 and 2

Bus was alright. It was pretty empty, and roomy, and decently comfortable. I watched about half of Princess Bride with Alex, then his laptop battery died (there were no outlets) so I just kinda half slept and hugged my pillow until the bus was over. It got there like half an hour early which was cool so we went inside and I got a drink.

Then we got a nice table on the new train, I played some DS games like a bunch of Rune Factory and little bit of Kirby. Sometime in there while I was playing DS games we watched Mulan. At some point Alex went down to the food court and bought a cheese pretzel, pizza, and some beef jerky. The two things I tasted were really not that good so he went back down and got some french fries, which also kinda sucked. Then a third time he got some chips and nacho cheese which were actually good, but when we tried to buy more later they were sold out, it was very sad.

When we got off at Sacremento at midnight, we were informed our train was going to be two hours late. So we just hung out in the train station, which at least ended up having free wireless internet so I went online to talk to Nina. Then we watched part of Happy Endings, which Alex didn't like and so wandered away even though there was hot Maggie Gyllenhal.

Eventually at like 2:30 the train finally got there and we got on. It took me until like 4 to actually fall asleep though, and first impressions of the new train were really lame. There were no tables, just rows of chairs and no outlets, more like airplane seats than the last train we had been on. I slept until 7 then woke up for a little bit, managed to fall back asleep and have dreams that Alex was ordering breakfast without me even though I was STARVING since all the food but the nachos sucked on the last train. He woke me up at 9 though cause he had made reservations at the train dining car for then - he had woken up at 7 but not been able to fall back asleep. So we went to get food and they had nothinggg so I just picked at Alex's omelette and hashbrowns, but the hashbrowns even were gross and had green onions on them.

Then I went back to my seat and slept on and off until like 1pm or so. I woke up and ate some cheese and crackers and a bit of goldfish. I played a bunch of Harvest Moon and read for a few hours in order to finish the Chuck Palahniuk book about Portland that I wanted to give to Nina after reading it. The train kept constantly updating the arrival time. It totally failed in estimating time correctly, like it would say "in eight minutes we'll be arriving at our next stop!" and fifteen minutes later we'd actually stop. After a million different estimation changes we finally got there at like 7:20pm. Then we wandered around the bus station for a bit, we didn't know how to get to the hotel. We talked to Nina but she said that she'd rather wait until tomorrow to hang out because we wouldn't have much time anyway; our train was originally supposed to arrive at like 3:40pm.

The person at the train station was nice though and gave us a free taxi ride to our hotel because of how delayed our train was. It's a pretty nice hotel. I got a cheese and tomato subway sandwich and put some veggie meat on it, the first real meal I'd had in the past two days. Then we spent like thirty minutes looking for this part of my headphone that fell off, but to no avail. Went to sleep at around 1:15am.