Driving to Alaska August 2011

I am having some difficulty uploading pictures so I will attempt to do that after all the text.
Next journey was my drive to Alaska to start my 10 month long internship with the Kenai Fish and Wildlife Service. I, with the help of my parents, got my cousin Jeffy to tag along (and my doggie Oliver too!) so I wouldn't be driving 5000 miles alone. We headed out on August 4th and arrived in Alaska 7 days later without a hitch.
It was a beautiful drive as we passed through Chicago, the Badlands, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada, and then even up to Fairbanks just for the heck of it. No car trouble, decent weather, and beautiful sights made for quite a nice trip. I decided however, next time I make this journey, whenever that may be, it's going to last 3 weeks instead of one. There's just too many things we didn't have time for or just drove right by that deserve a visit.

I've been really behind...

So I have been incredibly behind on my blogging on here. Thought I would bring this thing back to life so I have another place to cronicle my adventures other than facebook. Since I have not done an entry since May 2010...not sure where to start. I think I will do some from summer time in Seward and then start documenting the drive back here and my adventures around my new home.

It was definitely a beautiful couple of weeks for the 4th and I decided that made up for all of last summer when it rained, rained, rained.

We did the usual trails, including, but not limited to, Mt. Alice, Mt. Marathon, Flattop Mt., Falls Creek, Caines Head (0vernighter), and Mt. Marathon waterfall. The overnight at Caines Head was very nice and even though we didn't make it out to Fort McGilvray, it was a fun time nonetheless. My next overnight cabin rental will be Lost Lake. Get ready people!

All in all, it was a beautiful time in Seward this summer and the weather did not dissapoint.

CHICAGO

The city of Chicago, Illinois
February 19-21, 2010

So my parents and I took a little weekend trip to visit my sister in Chicago. I had only been there once before and traveling to semi-new places is always a nice adventure for me.

On Saturday, we got our day public transportation passes and started to head into the city to do some sight-seeing.

We first went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I have to admit, that place creeped me out. A lot of the pieces of "art" were so random and out there, I wasn't too impressed. Good thing they saved the better stuff for later on the higher floors. Here are some pictures of the displays.

After the art museum, we traveled around the city and made our way to the Lincoln Park Zoo. I do enjoy a free zoo, even though they always make me sad. Such large animals in such small cages...

After the zoo, we did a bit more traveling and saw the weird "bean" statue. I was a bit mesmerized by this creation and took a lot more pictures then I have on here. We need one of these things in Cleveland/Akron.

For the evening, we had the awesome deep dish pizza for dinner and then headed over to see an improv comedy show called "Whirled News." It was an entertaining weekend and as I say for most big cities, they are always fun to visit but I could NEVER live there...

New England Adventure

October 12th-15th, 2009

I always had this urge to do a fall foliage tour before...couple that with the fact that I have this day by day calendar of the "1000 places to see before you die" where White Mountains National Park came up on a day in September, I therefore began planning an excursion to the New England area.

I decided to bring along my long-time friend Ashley and her furry companion Tucker. Though it was my hope to leave by 4am on Monday morning, I assumed we'd be behind schedule from the beginning.

I reserved a "rustic" cabin atop Black Mountain in New Hampshire for 3 nights so we could be one with nature and enjoy the scenery every chance we got. The description on the website said it would be a 1.3 mile hike up 'moderate grade' in order to reach the cabin. When we finally reached the trailhead at 7pm on Monday evening, it was pitch black dark, and I had some fears about the potential wildlife that may be joining us on our hike. Nonetheless, I grabbed my flashlight, we put on our terribly heavy packs, and started up the trail. After an hour of tiring climbing up what I would call 'steep' grade, we still had not reached the cabin. Being an avid hiker in the wilderness of Alaska, I knew we had to be close and I wasn't really too worried. It wasn't until we were going on 2 hours when I started to panic. 1.3 miles could not take that long, could it? After calling some people with no avail, I told Ashley that if we didn't reach the cabin in the next couple minutes, we'd have to do some serious considering of what to do next. Thankfully, not a few minutes later, we reached the cabin and were welcomed with a bunch of firewood to warm our cold and sweaty bodies.

When we awoke the next morning, we were greeted with 3 inches of snow on the ground as it continued to come down. I don't mind cold weather and I had slept relatively well, it was just going back down the hill that worried me in the slippery conditions. We headed back into town in the afternoon to see what there was to do. We got some advice from the ranger station, showered, and drove around the town a bit. We knew it would be a good idea to head back up the mountain earlier than the previous night and believe it or not, it took us only an hour the second time.

Though the second night spent in the cabin was a bit more rough than the first. I could not keep the fire going and was incredibly cold throughout the night. I decided that we'd spend the next night in Vermont instead and we'd plan our day in the morning of all we wanted still to do in NH. As the next day arrived, we packed our things and said goodbye to Black Mountain Cabin. We were let down as the Mt. Washington Auto Road was closed because of ice and decided to drive to Maine just to say we were there. We then went on a little hike to a waterfall and shopped in the cute downtown district. From there, we headed off to Vermont to stay somewhere close to our next destination: The Great Vermont Corn Maze.

The corn maze was incredibly awesome. I'd say it will probably be the best corn maze I'll ever take part in in my life. AWESOME.

After we left the corn maze, we made our last stop before heading home at the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory. Filled with our free samples and a bit of sadness for saying bye to New England, we headed home.

One day I will be back again. Hopefully earlier in the season!

Kennywood

Mid-September, 2009

My friend Willy acquired some free tickets to the amusement park, Kennywood, in Pittsburgh. Though I was mid-hike when I got his phone call that said to meet him at his house as soon as I could, I had to put on my jogging shoes and get going.

I had never been to Kennywood before in my life and growing up around some pretty sweet amusement parks like Six Flags, Cedar Point, and Geauga Lake, my standards were pretty high. You can imagine my anti-climatic surprise walking into such a tiny park with what they called "roller coasters."

Regardless, we had some fun screaming down the little hills, standing in line for the Noah's Ark debacle thing, and going out afterwards. Though too bad Kennywood, I doubt you'll ever see my face again.

Penn State vs. Akron U

So I'm definitely behind on this blogging thing. Here's some of the things I've been doing the past few months...

September 5, 2009

So my dad told me that the Penn State vs. Akron game would have pretty cheap tickets; therefore, the night before, I decided we were going to make the drive out to Happy Valley to fulfill one of my dreams of seeing a Penn State game live. We took along my buddy Allison, a current Akron zip, and embarked on the 4 hour drive to the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. The weather was beautiful, though freakishly hot sitting in the largest college stadium in the nation.

It was awesome seeing Joe Pa on the field and then driving by his house after the game. I really wanted to get some 'peachy paterno' ice cream afterwards, but the line to the custard place was over an hour long. Lame! Regardless, Penn State trampled Akron as hoped and it was a beautiful day for football.

We of course had to get a picture at the most photographed location on campus - the Nittany Lion statue! Go LIONS!

the FEST

the FEST

Wicliffe, Ohio

August 9th, 2009

So each year St. Mary's Seminary holds the FEST which is a day of fun, music, mass, and unity. I had never been before as I feel like since my days in Youth Group I always had a conflict that weekend. Well, this year, I was able to attend with St. Hilary's and it was a lot of fun. It definitely was the hottest day of the summer I think with temperatures over 90, but that couldn't take away from the great music and awesome closing mass and fireworks celebration. Not to mention the large amount of free kiwis I acquired...mmm! If you've never been, I highly recommend attending as it is a great event for people of all ages. I even got to see wonderful Brandon Heath play live! I took a couple of pictures for your enjoyment...