Adventure

This year I have been to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a very nice, albeit brief, visit to my old college roommate Makah and her fiance Andre.

But I will be visiting other places this year. Next trip will be to the city of Detroit. I just realized that I will be in Detroit celebrating Patrick's grandmother's 80th birthday during Mother's Day weekend. This makes me feel guilty for not visiting my own mother. I am contemplating on driving down to Los Angeles next weekend to say hello to the parental units.

The next big trip I will have is to visit Peru. Of course I will be touring and site seeing in the city of Cusco. I am a bit sad that my friend Carlene will be leaving on July 31, five days before I arrive to Cusco. At least I have an extremely reliable source for traveling advice and information. Carlene has been in Peru for over a year now.

Other trips this year will include the possibilty of me flying to Ottawa, Canada to visit my family for my cousin Richard's wedding, and a trip to the Pacific Northwest to see my old coworker Tammy.

But the trips I miss the most are my camping trips. There is nothing more exciting than traveling with friends on the open road in the US. I'm attaching one of my favorite photos from last year while touring southern Utah.

Florida and Utah

Getting to my destination is never the problem, it's returning home that is.

Anyway, I had a fantastic time in Florida and camping in southern Utah. Apparently I missed the week long heat-wave in Los Angeles while I was out looking like a deranged woman while I was camping in the Colorado plateau.

Will post photos later on this evening when I return home.
And for those of you who read my blog, I was recently accepted into San Jose State's Master's in Urban Planning program. That's right, I will be returning to school, leaving behind my job. All I have to do now is put in my notice. I'll do that when my supervisor is actually at work.

Traditions

When Patrick and I first started dating back in 2004 we both were avid outdoors recreational kind of people. Our first date was a hiking trip to try to reach the Mount Lowe hotel ruins. We overshot the destination point by four miles. So our hiking date ended up being 11 miles, instead of 5. Whoops. Anyway, farther down the line we ended up camping together for the first time in June of 2004. We went to Yosemite the day after getting mugged at Berkeley.

Since then Patrick and I had been back to Yosemite every year for Labor Day weekend. For me, this year will be the fifth time going back (I actually went with a few friends in August of 2003 after my skydiving adventure). It has been a sort of traditional between me, Patrick and our friends. Every year we have a few people that come back, but every year we also have new friends that join us. There hasn't been a time, despite my cranky behavior, that I didn't enjoy being at Yosemite for a few days, void of any sort of real communication. For me, I love the fact that cell phone reception is essentially non-existent.

In 2004 it was just me and Patrick. The following year it was Tho, Patrick, The (Tho's sister), Daniel, Matt, and me. The year after that, in 2006 we had enlarged the camp site to two and had Tho, Patrick, Matt, Kimmy, Delia, Kelly, Patrick and me. Last year, we had Tho, Bruce, Chris, Brian, Patrick, Delia, Kelly, Kathy, Will, Patrick and me go to Yosemite. For the past four years we had camped at Crane Flats. Unfortunately, because of my laziness and such, I forgot to make reservations at our usual place. So for 2008 Patrick ended up reserving three campsite at Hodgdon Meadows, which is why I had a random post with a Google Earth image. It's much closer to the western entrance of the park, and much much closer to Hetch Hetchy Dam and Tuolumne Meadows.
Despite the hectic planning, travel arrangements and providing directions each year I feel that there is nothing better than sitting around the campfire, eating, drinking, and being obnoxious. Letting go of the real world and submerging myself into a group of friends that enjoy these moments every bit as much as I do is the best feeling in the world. The only irritating thing is by the time we are done with our trip, the group always ends up with an excess amount of beer, and none of us want to take it home.