As a quick departure from the words-heavy posts that I’ll be making, regarding my preparations and move out of the United States, here are a few quick pictures of some of the more interesting meals I’ve been having during the days while I’m not at work.
I have a lot of planning to do, but I’ve learned that cerebral work like that requires time away from the screen to succeed. Time for my brain to process what I’m working on, notice patterns, and connect dots to find inconsistencies or weak links in the plan. When I don’t, things go wrong. To make sure they go right, I take walks and eat sandwiches. Or gorge on dinosaur chicken nuggets.
I sip Lattes too, of course. I am still in Oregon, after all.
Saturday, 04-Sept-2021, through Saturday, 11-Sept-2021
I love road trips. I’ve learned that, speaking to various therapists and councilors in the last year or so, long drives are a major form of meditation for me. I have something to keep me focused, and I’m accomplishing a goal, but I can let my semi-conscious mind wander and reflect on what’s been happening in my life.
I try to do this at home, of course, but… I always get too stressed out, feeling like I should be doing something instead of juSaturday, 04-Sept-2021, through Saturday, 11-Sept-2021
I love road trips. I’ve learned that, speaking to various therapists and councilors in the last year or so, long drives are a major form of meditation for me. I have something to keep me focused, and I’m accomplishing a goal, but I can let my semi-conscious mind wander and reflect on what’s been happening in my life.
I try to do this at home, of course, but… I always get too stressed out, feeling like I should be doing something instead of just sitting back and letting my brain process all the various thoughts and possibilities that are constantly screaming around in my skull.
For my birthday, I’d originally planned to climb at Index with Daniel. When that fell through, I’d sketched out a road trip down highway 101 into California with my friend Laurel. That fell through too. Finally, I gave up and decided to do something on my own – something I’d always wanted to do, but had never quite been able to make happen.
An ascent of Devil’s Tower...
Wednesday and Thursday, 08-Sept-2021 & 09-Sept-2021
Wednesday:
I left Rapid City in the mid-afternoon. The goal was to make it to the tower early enough that I could get a solid 8 hours of sleep before waking up… which meant that I needed to be asleep by… 7pm.
Yeah…
Okay, maybe I wasn’t aiming for a full 8 hours of sleep. Plan was to be asleep by 8:30, okay? Still a very legitimate amount of sleep!
Anyways, okay. So I left Rapid City.
The drive into Wyoming was pretty simple – beautiful, in a hazy… sort of ethereal way.
With many thanks to a guy at a gas station who warned me about a few speed traps on the road, I made my way out of South Dakota, into Wyoming, and along the road to the first national monument of the United States.
When it finally came into view over the horizon, I was… Excited? Apprehensive? I had mixed emotions, to be sure – this was the culmination of the whole trip, and quite possibly one of the biggest (or at least, the most famous) route that I’ll have climbed. This was a big deal, climbing and emotion and anticipation all wrapped up in one point on the horizon.
I kept driving.
Wednesday was primarily a rest day – I didn’t plan on exploring much of the tower before the ascent, but I did plan on driving up to the base, at least, to scout out driving times and other concerns. If I was going to be up there by 4am, I’d need all the recon info I could get…
And with that info gained, I headed back to my campsite. A teepee, actually, with a lovely soft bed in it waiting for me. I mean, not honestly that soft… but hey. A heck of a lot softer than the sleeping pad I’d been rocking, so I was absolutely not one to complain.
I ate an amazing dinner, watched the sunset, read a bit from my book, and slept like a log.
Thursday:
First things first – Prairie Dogs!
Okay, with the cuties out of the way – Thursday was my climb day! But… the climb was early, and even after taking a nap I had quite a bit of time left in the day. See, we summitted by 7:45, and I was back asleep in bed by 11:00, after doing a few extra routes… which meant that I was awake from my nap a bit after 1pm. A quick breakfast-for-lunch later, and I was heading up to the tower to really appreciate the cultural side of it.
I treated it like a museum, really… Walking slowly, enjoying the scenery, and going at my own quiet pace.
So walk with me. Enjoy the signposts, read a bit, and see the views that I saw from along the trail!
After exploring the tower, seeing the signs, and appreciating the work that the national park services has put in, I headed back to camp to enjoy the rest of the day. Peace, quiet, and beautiful views were my greatly appreciated reward for the day.
Hello, and welcome back to your annual story time of Ben and Sarah’s international adventures! Keeping with the tradition of the last few years, Sarah and I visited with her family, this year going back to Scotland.
From Saturday, 21-December, 2019 all the way through to Saturday, 04-Jan, 2020
Part 1 – The overview, and photo highlights
The general framework of the trip is detailed below; we didn’t come into the trip with any major plans or goals, we were really looking forward to the time to relax after the busyness of 2019. It’d been a pretty amazing year, full of huge amounts of growth… but with that growth had come a number of challenges that left us fairly drained.
A visit to the Highlands was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Quick summary of our trip to Scotland!
Leave Portland on Saturday, 21-December-2019
Get stuck in San Francisco due to a delayed flight, and stay overnight at the super-posh Grand Hyatt while also getting to walk around the city and visit my cousin
Arrive in Scotland on the 23rd… but unfortunately without our checked bags
Explore Aberdeen for two days (Tuesday and Wednesday), getting to see the Art Museum, attend the midnight mass at St. Maccars, and even watch dolphins jumping in the surf outside of town
Drive to the Isle of Skye, staying overnight at the BenLeva Inn on Loch Ness. We don’t see Nessie… but we do have a full can of Irn Bru (a type of soda) vanish, leaving only the pierced and empty can…
We spent three full days on Skye, and had an excellent time exploring and photographing everything we could find. Some major adventure points were:
We hiked up to the Storr (in the rain)
Explored the town of Portree, and ate some extremely good Cullen Skink
hiked the Quiraing route from the parking lot down to the town of Flogetty
Walked out to the Fairy Pools
Back in Aberdeen, we spent a day touring around the countryside, seeing standing stones and other amazing points of interest.
We spent another day back in Aberdeen exploring the city – seeing Greta’s office, visiting shops, and walking through some amazing museums
