This is for my blog and my LJ so there could be a little redundance, whatever.

Thursday night was bowling... with my sprained right wrist I was forced to bowl left handed. It was still a fun night. Probably the last time that Brandon, myself, Aly and Eric will go bowling together because Eric is moving back to Bremerton and Aly lives in her apartment so she only shows up half the time. That's not necessarily a horrible thing, but it's notable. I don't think I managed much higher than 120-something with my left hand but I did bowl on a lane with three names (so I bowled 3 games on that one lane during that "game") and I got over 100 for each name, which was decent.

During bowling Brandon said he kind of just wants to get in his car and leave tomorrow, which was Friday. I said he should wait for me to get home. Then upon suggestions for where to go I said Crater Lake because Brandon mentioned it last year and we just never went (which I think was for the best, ultimately). I got up Friday and thought we were going to be leaving shorty after I got home but found out later in the day that I guess the plan was to leave Saturday since I was going with. Whatev, I took a nap and then wanted to go to Green Lake, offered for Brandon to go and he wanted. So we went to Green Lake and about half way around I thought we might as well just leave soon and try to get to Crater Lake for sunrise. It was on. We went home and we left around 8:30 pm, got gas and stopped at QFC for caffeine and road food, no road beers.

We got stuck in Portland because everywhere south of Olympia is f'n crazy with construction and they closed two lanes in Portland which made 5 miles take 40 minutes, which really sucked when we're trying to get somewhere on a schedule (a sun schedule, not a time schedule). We then got to Eugene, took exit 188A toward Crater Lake (still far away) and we were going to have to stop for gas. We would have stopped for gas any time after we got off I-5 but the first gas station was Oakridge, about 35 miles from Eugene. Okay, it is 1:30 am or something, but in the land of Washington and everywhere else I've been, gas stations can still be open this late because of credit cards. Well, we get to Oakridge and Shell is closed, Chevron is closed, of course the small gas station is closed. We kind of think "wtf" but decide to keep going because we want to make our time. Then I'm looking at the map and Oakridge is the biggest town on the way to Crater Lake, so the odds of finding a gas station on the way there, open 24 hours, is pretty slim. So after a few more miles toward Crater Lake we turn around to head back to Eugene and give up on hopes of getting to Crater Lake by sunrise.

Get our gas and head back toward Oakridge. It's around this point that I take a nap. I slept for maybe an hour and a half cumulative, but not much time in a row, not very good quality sleep. Eventually we get to Crater Lake. It's nothing spectacular but it's pretty cool, take some pics and then we're on our way to the Oregon coast. I suppose we may have missed a turn or something and end up in Medford, OR when we get back to I-5. It's time for meal (the time says breakfast but it wasn't really morning to us) and I wanted to stop at Sonic, which we fortunately stumbled upon one. I got a Supersonic cheeseburger (double) and chili cheese tots (which I did not eat until Sunday morning at home). After that, Brandon needed a break from driving, so I got to drive while he took a nap. He probably only slept for an hour, which is quite impressive because I only drove for maybe 3 or 4 hours, the rest was him. We got to the coast, drove along it and stopped at a beach that looked interesting and not too crowded. Got out, walked around, found a cave and climbed on some rocks. Okay, pause, this was honestly the highlight of the trip for me. This beach was what I would call an ideal-typical Oregon beach. It was really rocky (large rocks) and just... interesting, EXPLORABLE. It was great. It was the coolest place I've been to since Granite Mountain last year with Rayna when we walked through a cloud and probably somewhere up in Alberta the time before that. Just one of those places that you could sit for hours and do nothing and it that would be perfectly fine. Of course you'd want someone there with you, too.

Back to the story though, we left the beach and Brandon drove again. We stopped in some beach town to get food. All of these coastal towns look like they're in the 80s. There's not much money there and it's kind of interesting. It's been a long time since I've just wandered around, seen po' dunk places. It was fun. Next place we stopped was Cannon Beach. Interesting place but too many people, even though there weren't a ton of people on the beach, just too many people in Cannon Beach for my tastes. Left and headed for Fort Stevens to see the Peter Iredale shipwreck on the beach. After that we pretty much just headed back to Seattle. Went through an area on a country road where big bugs were hitting the windshield quite frequently, about 1-2/second, it was pretty funny. Slept 0ff and on from Kelso to Seattle, I was a little bit miserable for the last two hours or so and then we hit traffic in Seattle at midnight on Saturday.