Abigail M. Schilling

Heather picked me up at the Redding airport early Friday morning. Despite the fact that there is a grandstand from which family can watch planes land and wave at their relatives departing the nine-seat planes, Heather just got me at the curb. I was tired already--having taken two flights before 9 am--so we went to Starbucks. Standard. Some people think it's weird that I go to so many of the same places when I'm on vacation, but I LIKE STARBUCKS. Things I like always make fun times more fun. The whole Dodds family met us and we headed into the woods for an Independence Day Hike and Geocache at Mossbrae Falls.

Do you guys know what Geocaching is? It's only the best hike-related activity EVER. According to Wikipedia: "Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a GPS receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world." UM, AWESOME. Heather's dad Stanley is really into geocaching so he lead the hike and operated the GPS, notifying us when to start digging. Since the GPS has some degree of variance, we had a large-ish area to canvas in search of the small water-proof cache container. Thankfully, the geocache forums had given us a hint: GRANDMA. Eventually we found a huge rock with GRANDMA carved into it (probably by Grandpa, awww). Under the rock were some logs and in one of the logs was a hollowed out hole with the cache in it! Ta da! Talk about a rush of adrenaline.

Something terrible happened though, while we were searching for the cache. It became apparently that the area we were search had been used as a campsite recently. You know how Smoky the Bear says that you should always leave nature the way you found it? No footprints or nothing? (Or was it Ranger Rick who taught me those wise words?) Well, these campers clearly did not know The Code. First we found a tent pole. Then we realized that the stuff that look like snow caps, was actually toilet paper. You are totally supposed to pack out use toilet paper with you, as gross as that is, bad campers. You suck. So we were complaining about how these losers don't deserve to own tents, etc., when I spotted some stones that had been clearly arranged by a human being. They were right next to the GRANDMA rock (rather close to the real log) and I thought Ah ha! I have found it! The cache must be under these carefully placed stones! and I overturned one and there was the TURDS of a human being ON THE GROUND. COVERED WITH ROCKS. FRESH TURDS. The stench filled the air and I screamed and jumped and screamed some more. Isn't that disgusting? I still have the heebie jeebies. It's not like we were in the middle of nowhere. There were lots of other people in the vicinity, visiting the waterfalls and stuff. I have NO IDEA what these campers were thinking. BRING A TROWEL. DIG A HOLE. DON'T RUIN MY LIFE.

Having been properly horrified, we drove North to Ashland, Oregon, where my roommate Carolyn was attending school, and where I spent time as a child, and where there is fun to be had. We stayed at the Ashland Hostel which was fairly reasonably priced although it felt a little bit like we were staying with our rich, eccentric uncle, who insists on doing all the house repairs himself, has your sheets still in the dryer when you arrive, and complains to you about his mother coming to visit. All of these things happened (except for the uncle part) , and when the owner/manager told us he informed his mother that he "ran a real clean operation" and she responded with "we'll see" our heart ached. Those mothers can never be pleased and he was still painting the deck when she showed up twenty four hours earlier than expected. I'm still cringing.

We went to Pasta Piatti for dinner because anything with pasta in the title is a good choice. I got their vegetarian dish which ended up tasting like dessert. Score one for the vegetarians. We efficiently finished a bottle of wine before heading to the outdoor Fourth of July Concert where we heard Carolyn play "about one million marches." (Her words.) We brought a sheet to lay out on the grass, and as the sun fell we became more and more cold. I was wearing jeans and a jacket; Heather was wearing a sundress. True to form, I was still more cold. By the end of the evening (when the fireworks went off) we were cocooned into the sheet, twisting it around both our bodies and draped over one another like little baby puppies that can't generate enough body heat on their own.

Saturday morning was Brothers for birthday breakfast. They have a lot of fancy omelettes and I ordered one that tasted like dessert. (Ashland loves dessert, I guess. Score one for Ashland.) We also got mimosas because of a) vacation, b) birthday, c) duh. Brothers' gets total props, though, for having TRIVIAL PURSUIT CARDS in the sugar trays. Super genius idea and we were really bad at the super genus category. And the sports category. But we got about 80% of the young players questions right. Wooo!

Since we didn't get to go swimming during our hike on Friday (turns out the waterfalls were formed from freezing snow melt and therefore numbed my feet before I could get in any deeper), I thought it would be fun to swim in the river. Thought being the operative word. Or perhaps would be since we had a bit of trouble finding the river. As a kid, I spent a lot of summers in the Rogue Valley and we spent a lot of time on the river. But neither my mom or I could remember exactly how to get to the river. At a promising national park we were turned away, told that while the park was on the river, there wasn't actually a beach or riverfront. We eventually found a "beach" several miles away where a lot of people were river-ing, but it definitely wasn't as glamorous as the secret swimming holes we visited in my childhood. Also, instead of sand, there were rocks. This lead to some problems. Oh yeah, and I thought it would be a good idea to wait to change into my swimsuit AFTER we were at the river and so, in a brilliant moment of idiocy, I found myself half naked urgently requesting that Heather wrap the towel around my vicinity so that I could dress in some way that wasn't provocative to the many families surrounding us on all sides. Swell.

If the river was a bit of a bust, it was nothing compared to the mistake I made by eating ELFudge cookies at a rapid and constant rate. They were purchased as river snacks (standard), but the warm sun started to melt them and I felt it was my duty to the elves to SAVE THE COOKIES AND EAT THEM AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. I hadn't had cookies in a while and my stomach was not at all geared up to handle what I did to it. You know that scene in Two Weeks Notice when Sandra Bullock's last burrito starts "barking"? It was a little bit like that. Heather is so my Hugh Grant. And that Mexican Restaurant in Jacksonville is so my hero for having an available bathroom.

When Carolyn was finished with her required academics and we had all napped, we got dressed for birthday dinner and birthday movie. Heather picked SUSHI. I was looking forward to it because Heather has called me multiple times from the bathroom of this particular sushi establishment to update me on the size of the drinks here (large) and the alcohol content (large). She was right on both counts. Our server was a total bitch though. It felt personal, like she was getting us back for what we did to her in high school or something. I'm always kind of shocked when servers are rude to me because a) I'm very nice, and b) I'm DRINKING LIKE CRAZY, YOU CAN MAKE SERIOUS MONIES OFF OF ME! She did not get serious monies because I (nicely) requested a bluebery mojito and she snapped back, "They're not in season." Right.

Sunday morning we were packed up and drove all the way down to San Francisco (about six hours), for EMILY'S WEDDING. Emily's wedding was my favorite wedding of all time. It got a head start with the open bar (!) (!!) (!!!) and sealed the deal with: short ceremony with an awesome pastor who said great things that were brief and not awkward and right on, short cocktail hour (no waiting forever for the reception to start), killer table for us (people we had never met who were exactly like us!), and then just really fun times. After six drinks, I gave Emily a speech on six reasons why her wedding was the best wedding. At on point, her mom (who looked REALLY hot, that was one of the six reasons) came up to us and thanked us for coming. She addressed us by name, said how much it meant to her Emily and her that we were there. I've never felt indebted at a wedding before. It was just so NICE. Carolyn drove us home where Heather passed out (all the dancing wore her out) and I did some under-the-influence goodreads updating. Of course.

Road trip weekends with my BFFs, I love you.