Caroline, Lee, Jess, and I went camping at Shi Shi Beach last weekend. It’s part of Olympic National Park, on the Washington coast, nestled in the midst of the Makah Reservation’s tribal lands. It was a beautiful 2+ mile hike through the forest to get to the beach, backpacking in carrying all of our gear, water, etc.
Last summer, in July 2009, I convinced a group of 12 friends to ride the STP with me. It’s the 209 mile Seattle to Portland bike ride done over two days and we had a great time! We did Saturday training rides before the event (very casual) and all managed to survive the long two days of riding during the actual event. Here are some long overdue photos of the trip between Seattle, WA and Portland, OR. Enjoy!
Noah got 4 flats in 24 hours… happily ensuring I got zero!
Loving my new wicker bike basket. Awesome!
It was wet, thundering, lightening, cold, and hilly… but it sure was pretty!
Embracing the spandex
Welcome to Oregon! Crossing the state border!
Deliriously happy at the finish line with Mez. So very proud of us, and our entire great group, for doing the training and riding the ride! It was definitely a fun summer adventure!
It’s been less than a month since returning from Vietnam and I’m back on the road yet again this week. I spent one week in Naples, Florida with my family at Thanksgiving, spent a week in Northern California for work, spent a little time at home in Seattle, and am now back in Naples… this time with Mez’s family. It’s been my first time meeting his little sister and his parents. Like Mez, they are also quite impressive, smart, direct, intimidating overachievers. Like Mez, they’re also sweet, funny, generous, and very gracious hosts. And in a fun coincidence, they have a second home in Naples just like my uncle. So here I am back on Naples on a family trip for the holidays, this time it’s just with his family instead of mine. :) As with all Naples trips, we mostly spend time eating, hanging at the pool, shopping for groceries, watching the sunset, and eating more. Good times! Sunset photos to follow when I’m not blogging from the iPhone. :)
Susie recently pointed out that we’ve both been back in the States almost a year now… how crazy! After my year working in Kenya with Cindy, after the backpacking trek across all of Southern and Eastern Africa with Susie, after the high tech trip to Korea to visit Laura and Hanna, and continued backpacking in the US from Austin to Chicago to Asheville, Caroline and I eventually met up and did another road trip from Austin across to California and then up to Seattle. So much has changed between when I left for Kenya, when I moved back, and where I am today. I had no idea what would come after life in Kenya, but I know I wouldn’t have predicted a life that includes living in my same old apartment building, leaving the nonprofit world, a new job in environmental consulting, dating in a crazy new scene, and last minute decadent trips to Vegas.
As for travel… I’m consulting again, which means a fair amount of (domestic) travel for work. And while I have no big international trips planned till Thailand in spring, I daydream about my “top ten” places all the time and think about where I might be able to visit next. More immediately though, I am very excited about my upcoming trip to Burning Man this summer and all of the craziness that entails. Hope y’all are well!
Susie and I began our travels together a year ago today on Jan 26th! I had just finished a 14km marathon through the slums of Nairobi, and flew straight from rural Kenya into modern South Africa. I got in line at customs behind tons of other travelers and couldn’t have been more tired or ecstatic to see Susie on the other side of the guards! Unlike me, she wasn’t coughing, and didn’t appear to have black lungs/TB! Instead, she was looking bright and cheery and bearing gifts, a camera, and a new backpack! Such a fantastic day and such a fantastic start to a wonderful journey together across Africa and back into Seattle life. We found our home with the Nuns, then immediately went to coffee to “plan” the trip. And by planning, I mean catching up and giggling and babbling and talking slowly!
Susie was always better on the road about sending meaningful group updates… so I shouldn’t have been surprised to get this fantastic recap in my email this week. Made me laugh out loud, feel all warm and gooey inside, and even get a little teary eyed. Mostly it made me remember… endless stories… endless adventures… so so so many good times. A girl couldn’t ask for a better travel partner or a better friend to return home to. So much of my love goes out to Susie for making 2007 a remarkable year! Here’s her recap and here are a few of my pics. Enjoy!
Cat dear,
Welcome to the one year anniversary of our reunion in Johannesburg. Or so I think – need to review the ol’ journal, but I’m nearly certain it was today. Can you believe that?
What a wild, crazy year it has been. Recap:
-Traveling. Holy shit – elephants in Addo, hilarity at Cape Town pride, meeting Brett in Windhoek, skydiving, sand boarding, basking in the rains of the Zambezi churning over Vic Falls, water slides in Lusaka, 10-hour pickup truck rides, the quiet, broken beauty if Ila, too many “samoosas,” Wimby beach parties, breaking beds in Nampula, the most amazing recuperation mission of all time in Nkhata Bay, welcoming ourselves to East Africa with “why are you so stupid? you stupid, stupid girls!” haggling our way onto the “cheapest” boat out to Zanzibar, planning our Kenya double-date from afar, Susie goes bananas trying to upload photos 5 at a time, strange walks with a strange ex-heroin addict in Jambiani, finding sweet relief from the heat in Lushoto, catching a glimpse of Kilimanjaro on the bus ride to Nairobi, reunions with Brett, discovering sometimes I felt like a plumpkin, the cheapest, most delicious steak ever in Kampala, near-fist-fights getting ourselves around Uganda, trekking with gorillas, rafting the Nile, reunions in Malava, navigating the streets of Mombasa, and the sweet life out on Lamu. Cat, we had one hell of a time.
-The return. Parties, navigating life being “back,” reunions with friends, dinner parties, saying hello to the mountains again.
-Dating. Dear lord. Susie is a disaster, and Cat discovers her knack at rocking the dating world like no one else. You really should get paid for this.
-Going back to our old jobs. Riiiiiight. Still working on that, and who knows, maybe we’ll work together?
-Staring a business. With Cat to thank, of course. Making it happen in Seattle.
-Fibroids. Screw ‘em. And say goodbye to them and hello to life with your body back. Hot as hell, Cat.
-Navigating the new challenges of living in what feels like the same city, but sure is different. Friends here and gone, the SLUT, new restaurants, new music. So much to keep exploring, which is what makes Seattle rock.Just wanted to say, Cat, it has been such a wonderful, complicated, and exciting year, and I can’t be more thankful to have spent so much of it with you. It is one year after what was the start of a pretty amazing journey, and I look forward to seeing what the next year has in store for us.
Love you, Cat. You’re pretty damed cool.
Big hugs,
S
World’s worst matatu minibus in Mozambique
(can’t seem to remember if this pic was from before or after the puking?)
Susie & Cat – couldn’t be happier to squeeze us plus a driver onto the back of a tiny motorbike in Kampala
Have I posted this quote before?
“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it.”
- John Steinbeck
I particularly love the last two sentences: “In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it.” Good man.
My cousin Steph sent a little “get to know you” type email this week where you’re supposed to answer a bunch of questions like favorite drink, how many states you’ve lived in, etc. I don’t usually fill those emails out, but I was excited to see Steph emailing me, so I responded. Most of the questions weren’t too exciting, but it also asked about the last time you cried, which made me stop and think. Since returning to Seattle, I’ve actually teared up or cried a fair number of times. Definitely still adjusting to being back and adjusting to being away from Kenya. And with the National Geographic cover story on Malaria, Vanity Fair’s first ever Africa issue, and now the Mountain Gorillas on the cover of Newsweek, there seems to be constant reminders of where I was, what I lived through, and what I’m currently musing or missing.
It’s kind of hard being back, which I knew it would be. And everything seems so difficult right now… what happened to life feeling straight forward and clear? I definitely don’t have anything in life that feels remotely straightforward or clear for the time being. Except maybe for my apartment. I meet with my future land lord this coming Wednesday and then I’ll have a (small) place to call my own. Cindy and I moved out of our house in the village on December 15th and it’s been a long time moving from place to place, living out of a suitcase, sleeping in a tent, and now crashing on a friend’s couch. I know having a bed to sleep in will be fabulous for my back and for general peace of mind, but I also know it won’t magically make everything else fall into place. It’s a start though… first a place to live. Eventually a new job. Then bigger life questions to follow. Who knows… maybe I’ll even figure out where I fit in with friends and relationships someday too. :)
Sunrise at Crater Lake National Park
Here are a few pics from the road trip. To see more, I’ve posted the rest of the road trip pictures in my picasa account. Enjoy!
Hmmm… Maasai showing crafts and culture apparently perpetuates degrading associations of the African continent. Anyone hear about this debate? Any thoughts? Just saw this notice and thought it was interesting, though I’m not sure where I fall in the debate. I really haven’t heard much else about it yet.
Community Questions Woodland Park Zoo’s ‘Maasai Journey’ Exhibit (Seattle, WA) – Community members and local scholars will host a public forum on August 8, 2007 at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, West Room, 6:30 pm-8:00 pm to air their concerns about the Woodland Park Zoo’s ongoing display of Maasai people, crafts, and culture. “Maasai Journey” is an expanded version of the Zoo’s long established “African Savannah” exhibit, and includes four Maasai “cultural interpreters” who tell stories and sell Maasai crafts in a reconstructed African village. The resulting display of African men and culture within a setting generally reserved for presenting wildlife and natural habitats invokes the horrific history of the disempowerment of native Americans and people of color in the United States and perpetuates degrading associations of the African continent, its people, and its cultures with all that is wild, exotic, and timeless. Following a rigorous nation-wide debate about a similar exhibit in Augsburg, , in 2005, international scholars described the WPZ’s ” African Village ” as the most egregious example of a global trend towards racialization or the insidious separation of human beings into allegedly biologically-based and unequal categories. Not only are we concerned about the impact of this exhibit on the youthful population that constitutes the majority of the zoo’s audience, we are disturbed by what this exhibit indicates about the place of African and other non-American cultures and peoples in our community, and by the impact of “Maasai Journey” on the image of our city.
About the Organizers – The Public Forum is being organized by Stephanie Camp, Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington; Catherine Claiborne, a community activist and Master’s Candidate in Public Affairs and International Studies at the University of Washington; and Itohan Osayimwese, PhD Candidate in the History of Architecture at the University of Michigan. The purpose of the forum is to stimulate debate within the community, encourage those who have voiced concerns to share them, and to identify and propose alternatives to the “Maasai Journey”.
Rod sent an invite today for a welcome back potluck picnic and who I am to skip an event hosted in my honor? You know how much I like Seattle parks so I’m definitely in. Anyone else want to join us?
Potluck this Sunday at 5pm
Cal Anderson Park (one block off Broadway at Pine) / Elysian Brewpub
1635 11th Ave, Seattle, WA 98121 US
Rain plan: Rod’s Condo in Belltown (call for directions)
Everyone’s invited/bring friends.
Rod writes: “Please join myself, Erin, and Samantha in a welcome back party for our favorite globe trotting, volunteering, and all around cool hip person, Cat! Here’s the plan: We’ll do a picnic/bbq/potluck in Cal Anderson park at 5pm on the 22nd, and relax and enjoy the lovely outdoors. We’ll group somewhere just east of the large cone-shaped fountain, spread out, and eat. Then, as the evening draws on, we’ll mosey on over to the Elysian Brewpub, just a few short blocks away for a drinks. If it rains, call Rod for alternative plans: 206-383-8256.”
After leaving Austin last week and trekking through Roswell, the Grand Canyon National Park, Sedona, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Crater Lake National Park, and Portland, Caroline and I made it to Seattle today! Yay road trips! Other than a little smoking engine in Roswell (maybe it was the aliens?), the drive was uneventful and super fun. Visited lots of friends along the way (Chris & Aimee, Meg, Scott & Zoey, Ajit, Sue, Jess, Alan), camped at and visited national parks, made it to Flagstaff on the day of BeerFest 2007, missed the Roswell 60th anniversary space ship crash celebrations by one week, enjoyed lots of fantastic scenery, managed to avoid all rush hours, did some short hikes, and did lots of people watching. Managed to only stop at one Dairy Queen the whole trip (despite the frequent barrage of attacks on my will power/self control). A fun time overall and a highly recommended trip if anyone is looking for an excuse to get in a car for a week.
I’m now in Seattle… time to unload the car, look through my boxes in storage, and start catching up with old friends! Also time to look for a job, though that’ll probably wait till Monday. Hope everyone is well!
Caroline and I are in San Francisco this morning drinking smoothies and laughing lots with Alan. Today we head to Oregon for Crater Lake National Park and then will be in Seattle by Friday or Saturday. It’s been a lot of driving, but has been fun to see stuff along the way and visit many old friends. I will post photos and more updates upon my return!
Guess who’s posting this from her Honda on the side of the Texas highway? Caroline and I started the reverse road trip today… wish us luck!! More later… for now we’ve got to get driving!
