Summer 2004 Road Trip: map, pics, stories inside

[Mariner]

zion national park. pictures taken from the top of this crazy pillar of rock way out in the middle of the canyon. to get there you had to hike half a mile along the precarious spine of a curtain of rock 20 feet wide at the top and 1000 feet straight down either side.

[jenn]

wow...cool.

[RopeyLopey]

regarding your background, I would have expected some interactive map. ArcIMS for you?

(no, seriously, looking forward to your pictures -those clouds of Oklahoma are fantastic shot - I guess meteorologists would have had a climax from that).

[obscured01]

That's so awesome. I wish I could do something like that, although I don't think I'll ever get to. It looks like you passed right through Lubbock Texas (I-27).

[Mariner]

there was a dude up there at the top of that insane trail at zion who was a spitting image of sean william scott (stifler from american pie), and who exuded all of the cool things about the stifler character and none of the negative things about him. and he was from memphis. he was like stifler's awesome, friendly southern cousin.

[Mariner]

zion was incredible. the hike up to this place (called angel's landing, i highly recommend) had like 50 trail switchbacks and was about a 1,500 foot ascent in 2.5 miles.

[mxzombie]

mariner you are my idol

[Mariner]

ack. i played around with that storm picture and tried to change the attachment in the original post. didn't work. here it is.

[DeadSwan]

hey mariner, by any chance, do you know of a place to download AutoCad? for free? b/c i'm a cheap asshole....

[vanilla]

was it lonely going on a trip alone?

[RopeyLopey]

Originally posted by DeadSwan
hey mariner, by any chance, do you know of a place to download AutoCad? for free? b/c i'm a cheap asshole....

send me a link, too! Thanks.
BTW DeadSwan, what do you need AutoCad for? I thought you do something completely different

[DeadSwan]

Originally posted by RopeyLopey
send me a link, too! Thanks.
BTW DeadSwan, what do you need AutoCad for? I thought you do something completely different

i want to teach myself.
i'm considering architecture. what do you want it for?

[RopeyLopey]

Originally posted by DeadSwan


i want to teach myself.
i'm considering architecture. what do you want it for?

A lot of companies back home are still using that for producing maps. Getting new software is too expensive for them. It's better to really get good at it - you never know - it might be useful one day.

[DeadSwan]

Originally posted by RopeyLopey
A lot of companies back home are still using that for producing maps. Getting new software is too expensive for them. It's better to really get good at it - you never know - it might be useful one day.

do you want to be a cartographer?


i love maps

[Mariner]

i didn't take any pics in southern california. i had one day to drive from zion nat'l park in utah to san fran to visit liquid-j, and there were no raods that went across so i spent about 13 hours on the road going way south and then way north again.

the weekend with jesse was awesome. i pretty much figured it would go that way when he strolled up to greet me in a suit and highway patrol/aviator sunglasses. best first impression ever, lol.

i tagged along as he and his friends tore up the downtown club scene. all his friends were a lot of fun, and some were pretty notable people. they all drunkenly forgot my name, so by the end of the weekend they were just calling me "minnesota!" me and j had a hilarious conversation with a stripper about her sexual adventures and her penchant for erotic asphyxiation. i also had her believing j was gay. "why else do you think he moved out to san francisco after college?" she was all "oh my god, really? that's so fucking hot!"

j introduced me to sushi, which is awesome. also had some good steak on a couple of occasions. we hit up the beach one day, the first time i'd ever really seen the pacific ocean. heh, we saw a lady there almost get her head taken off by her kid's kite. we got pestered by this little neighbor kid that would only say his name was "bear". lol. i helped his crazy polish roommate break into her room through the window after she locked herself out of it.

j is one of the coolest cats i've ever met. you can take that to mean every way "cool" can be interpreted. we joked about the space-time continuum, rocked out to dido in his car, and hit up a laundromat. yeah, it was a pretty diverse weekend. i look forward to hanging out with him again.

[RopeyLopey]

Originally posted by DeadSwan



do you want to be a cartographer?


i love maps

I already have a degree in Cartography and Geoinformatics. I love them, too. (and Mariner does, for sure, as well)

[thechick]

awesome, i can't believe you did it alone. you came to san fran did you like it here! i hate my city sometimes

[Mariner]

Originally posted by DeadSwan
hey mariner, by any chance, do you know of a place to download AutoCad? for free? b/c i'm a cheap asshole....

i don't myself, but i could ask around, i think i have a few friends that might know about that.

i love maps

heh, i was a geography major. i worked in a map library for a while (looking at all the stuff at work was cool, but the work itself drove me insane.)

[Mariner]

Originally posted by vanilla
was it lonely going on a trip alone?

naw, not at all. it was really cool to be completely on my own, do whatever i wanted whenever i wanted. i absolutely loved it. i got the right mix of companionship with the people i visited and with my buddy and his bro joining me for a week or so in idaho/wyoming. beyond that, i needed some time away from the cities and my friends and family, so this was the perfect opportunity to get away from it all.

[Mariner]

Originally posted by thechick
awesome, i can't believe you did it alone. you came to san fran did you like it here! i hate my city sometimes

i liked downtown san francisco proper, if only for the whole waterfront/bridges thing. i have kind of a waterfront fetish. i honestly didn't see a whole lot of the rest of the area, but what i saw i liked. good diversit of climate and landform and communities, etc. it was insanely expensive and pretty damned busy, though, so i'm sure that would get old fast if i lived there.

[Mariner]

Originally posted by Toby
I'm doing this next year...

you damned well better.

Originally posted by Randall Sandell
wish i could so something like that

you damned well can. do it. dooo iiiiiit. c'mon.

[RopeyLopey]

did you pick up any hitch-hikers?

[Mariner]

Originally posted by RopeyLopey
did you pick up any hitch-hikers?

heh, only the one...and no one will ever hear from him again

[Mariner]

north of san francisco

[RopeyLopey]

did you keep a road-diary?

[Mariner]

hell YEAH.

[Mariner]

Originally posted by RopeyLopey
did you keep a road-diary?

i started, but i soon realized that i was so anal about it that i'd waste too much time on the diary that i could be spending seeing what i set out to see. so i put the kabash on diary-ing, and instead made a conscious effort every day to always be fully aware of the moment and to really soak in everything i was experiencing.

washington's olympic peninsula:

[beef curtains]

that's not a rain forest!!!
where in washington did you stop / do things ?

[Mariner]

Originally posted by So very sad about me
that's not a rain forest!!!
where in washington did you stop / do things ?

is too! not a tropical rainforest, but a rainforest nonetheless.

i drove into washington from astoria, oregon. i stayed at ft. canby state park, right in the southwest corner of the state. had a close encounter with a bear there. drove up the coast on a still, misty, beautiful morning. spent the day hiking in olympic national park (where i took that picture). went swimming in the pacific ocean there, much to the surprise of the raincoat-sporting tourists checking out the tide pools. it was like 50 degrees and rainy, and there's me in my shorts jumping into the 35 degree ocean. i got some pretty entertaining looks on my way back to the jeep. stopped in port angeles for lunch, then made my way out to fort flagler state park for the night. explored the awesome ruins of this huge old early 1900s fort/gun batter there, where i took the following pictures:

[Mariner]

sunset behind a bunker