Ah, the joys of flying alone! My flight left from Philadelphia at 11am. I had a layover in Dallas/Fort Worth for about two hours. When I booked my flight I had planned to meet up with another Tpunk member for the connecting flight. However, he ended up canceling his flight and I spent two hours wandering around the terminals. Dallas' airport is actually one of the nicest I've seen. The layout is simple, four large terminals connected by a monorail type system. This landing in Dallas is actually the roughest I've had, I'm guessing it was the wind factor. Quite a few screams errupted from some of the children on the flight but actually it wasn't that bad. The flight from Dallas to Seattle/Tacoma had a movie playing which made the flight seem faster than it was. Arriving in Seattle it turned out that Anthon's arrival to pick me up and my leaving the terminal to go to the street was timed perfectly. Anthon drove me toward Beth and his apartment telling me about the city and life in general. We waited for Beth to get off work and took nearly an hour trying to decide where to go for dinner. We ended up going to a pizza restaurant that serves thin-crusted specality pizzas. Very good! After dinner we went to the Fremont section of Seattle and saw the infamous "Fremont Troll". Then we stopped at Water Works, a large park and abandoned gas factory and proceeded to roll down the huge hill that overlooks downtown. Of course, I got sick from this roll and spent the rest of the night sleeping and/or vomitting. Great way to start the week!
Fremont Troll
Thursday, August 10th
During the night Jamie, a fellow East Coast Tpunk, arrived. Jeanie, one of the local Tpunks, picked us up after we had breakfast (both Anthon and Beth had to work) and showed us around downtown. First stop was Pike's Place Market (famous for the throwing fish), next we drove around Capitol Hill district (known to be the 'gay' community), finally we ended up at Seattle Center which is where the Space Needle is located. After wandering around Seattle Center for about an hour we decided food was needed to survive the rest of the tour. We headed up towards the Puget Sound area and ended up eating a a burger shack near the harbor. Jeanie dropped us off at Anthon/Beth's for her to make her henna business: http://www.paintedlotus.com. Jen arrived from the Mid-west and the group went to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Wallingsford. Two bottles of wine later the group ended up at a local Irish pub with three more Tpunks in tow. All together: Anthon, Beth, Jeanie, Will (Tacoma Tpunk and 'bus driver'), Jamie, Mike (Jen's partner in crime and my Tpunk dad), Jen, Tony (Tpunk founder), Carmen (Tony's partner in crime) and myself. The group moved onto the Sea Dragon (a jazz bar down the street) where we proceeded to have rounds of brews, shots and Irish car bombs. No night is complete without a fast food stop. Complete with Anthon running down the street at 1:59 to ask the place to stay open for the group to get there. Luckily they had plenty of free leftovers!
Friday, August 11th
My car load to Cascades National Park left a little later than the other cars in our group. We stopped at a popular BBQ joint in N. Seattle and then headed up into Northern Washington. The drive was beautiful! Surrounded by 'hills' according to Jeanie but I thought they looked more like mountains. Actually they were the foothills of the Cascades. We arrived at our campsite and set up camp. I believe that we spent most of the day and evening hanging around camp working on the keg of Mac & Jack.
Saturday, August 12th
We woke up early and went for a drive to all the overlooks and scenic areas in the park. First we stopped at a small path that lead to a cliff overlooking part of the river. Next to the parking lot was a bridge that went over a deep stream of glacier runoff. Needless to say walking out on the bridge was a little wobbly. We then stopped at a overlook of Diablo Lake, from which you can see numerous glaciers (6-8, I can't remember). Onward to the overlook of the Liberty Bell. We ended up eating lunch on the lookout which is basically the top of a huge, huge cliff. We then stopped for a short hike through some mossy forest and then onto a small town to pick up booze. The town was actually laid out like a old country western town...complete with roving violin and banjo players as well as a saloon. Back at camp dinner was started and our group had to perform the entertainment. Needless to say a bottle of 16yr old Scotch Whiskey Single Malt Lagavulin helped us. Wow, I still hear about that one. I don't recall too much more of that night. I believe this night was when a meteor shower took place. This involved the whole group gathering on the edge of the river and staring up at the sky, drinking beers.
Over Diablo Lake
Sunday, August 13th
Today we woke up a little later. Breakfast was lazy and we decided to split into groups. Mike, Jen and myself decided to go on a hike. The rest of the group went swimming in the freezing glacier-fed river. The hike was murder for me....all up hill - considering the most hiking I get is level Delaware parks it was tough. Mike kept me going and the views were worth it. However I believe something was incorrect with our guide because two hours into the hike we were way above the lake....which we were supposed to be level at after 3 miles. We ended up turning around and high-tailing it back to camp because the gate is 'supposed' to close at 430pm for the park. However we didn't get there to 5 and there were still many cars parked there. Oh well, still a good time was had by all! Back at camp our group was on clean-up and got to relax for the cooking of dinner. Dinner was fantastic! Foil dinners with potatos, sausage, oinions and so much more! Down by the river a few of us Tpunks were having a heart-to-heart. Back at camp everyone else was drinking and attempting to kill the keg. At some point I looked at Jeanie and said "Wanna get drunk?" I got a "Sure" and 15 minutes later both of us were trashed. Good times that night!
Monday, August 14th
Waking up early we packed up camp and left for Seattle. Brooke, Jeanie and myself took the van and ended up stopping a local burger joint in the middle of nowhere. Awesome! We got back to Seattle and I ended up going to Tacoma with Jeanie to return the van, getting my first view of Mt. Rainier! When we got back we headed to dinner at a Mexican place and then headed to the local Irish pub again for darts. The night ended with several Tpunks passed out on the floor. The next morning I flew out and had a layover in Chicago.
