writing about my wack summer

week of 5/24 

freaking out about packing my house. i asked everyone, how do you pack to be gone for so long? luckily liz has been reminding me that i basically wear the same 5 shirts and 3 pants on constant rotation. when i was casual dating by the third date i usually had worn pretty much all my clothes. still. i packed about 2 bags of clothes, not enough books, the four journals i use (planner, journal for scribble and to-dos, tarot notebook, and my diary), margot's things, and some comfort objects such as my blender, fan, and pillow. i need smoothie. and my worst fear is being slightly warm. it all fit into my car, as well as margot's bed and the cage i bought her which i kind of regret buying because i haven't used it. she's a good traveler. 

5/27

got to liz's house the day she got back from alaska. we said hi at like 7am, i woke up at 4am to drive to philly because i really needed to work that day and the last time i drove to philly it took a thousand hours. turns out i didn't really need to work, i had been talking such a big game about my 2 weeks off that everyone just said happy travels ashley!  liz napped, margot and i settled, i brought in the bags i was storing at liz's house because i was putting my car at my parent's house and couldn't risk them seeing my gigantic vibrator if they decided to open the trunk. 

not related to anything but i've known several people who received a hitatchi magic wand in the same exact way i got mine, as a life raft thrown out during periods of no sex in my long relationship. i had no idea how to use a vibrator, i came from clenching my thighs and not touching myself at all. my ex was like. figure it out!!!!!!!! i did not, until later, after we broke up. 

anyway i packed again, now specifically for SF and backpacking. liz lent me a giant suitcase which i checked, solving the problem of where to store my giant backpack, sleeping pads, and other dumb stuff you need for camping. i needed to buy so much stuff. i hate acquiring stuff because i live in a tiny apartment with no closets. but it's good that now i can do this (backpack). 

5/29 

first leg of my flight at 6am. why??? why. my first impulse is always to do things at an ungodly hour. flew to STL, rowen wouldn't meet me at the airport even though i think he could have, they don't usually check your boarding pass at security, just your ID. joking ..... on my second flight from STL to SF, i was sitting in an empty row when a mom, followed by her toddler, husband, and an old woman said, hey you're in our seat :) i said hmmmmm and pulled up my boarding pass. the flight attendants came over and verified i was in the correct seat. chaos from the little family, the grandma said they were supposed to all be together. i said i would move and the mom, who was handling this entire kerfuffle, said to the flight attendant: THIS NICE YOUNG WOMAN OFFERED TO MOVE, and as she said that i noticed she was not only holding the hand of her toddler but also had a tiny newborn pressed up against her boob. the dad was doing nothing. i thought, women are actually not making a big enough deal over the conditions. 

the flight attendant had a southern accent and said, you really don't have to move, you won't have a window seat in the grandma's seat. i really didn't care, this was holding up the flight, the family was the last to board. the flight attendant brought me to the new seat, an aisle, and the guy in the middle seat had his legs so spread out. i sat down and started to put my things away when the attendant said, do you want a better seat? i looked up at her like, yeah, and she brought me to an exit row, open middle seat, and said, i'll buy you any drink you want if you want a drink. it was 8am so i said i was fine. when she came around with snacks she was asking everyone "salty or sweet pistachios?" and she handed me both without saying anything. when i was getting off the plane i said, thank you so much, and she said thank YOU. 

got to sf at 10am, reunited with the weed pen i had left a year earlier. buen sabor burrito yay, met alex's boyfriends who i liked.  smoked a cig in front of alex and he said where did you pick that up. a girl from philosophy club appeared and i said thank god, a girl, we talked and she's been sending me instagram reels. one of the boys knew a lot of the wasteland (poem), and said some lines to me when i was leaving early (tired). sleepy sleepy, rowen eventually arrived when i was in bed.

5/30

became a member of the REI co op against my better judgement. had the soup from cha-ya vegetarian that i once had a dream about. i do like san francisco 

5/31

driving driving, saying bye to alex, driving across the golden gate bridge,  to this little breakfast place i had identified long ago when i wondered what i would want to eat once we finished the lost coast. it was good. got to the million dollar shuttle that would take us to the trailhead (they have a monopoly on this shuttle). packing our backpacks in a sort of flurry, i forgot the beers we were going to chill in a river. and hand sanitizer. gross but whatever, i'm kind of a germaphobe and this backpacking was good practice for being okay with being a dirt ball. 

an older woman drove our shuttle there, and she spent the entire ride talking to a girl from CA who sat up front with her. the CA woman said she had lived in CA her entire life and had only seen one bear. mentally recounted all the bears i've seen and hoped i wouldn't see another one. 

got on the trail except it wasn't the trail, and thought, ahhhhghghghghghg. but it was okay, we just needed to check the map a lot more than i was expecting. the map was good, though. felt unprepared and generally worried until we found our campsite which was nice albeit slanted. 

had to eat my first Bag Meal. i picked a lentil stew and it looked like vomit and tasted terrible. thankfully we had a some Normal Food like cubes of cheddar cheese, which we really enjoyed. 

we had fun at our first site, taking pictures and rowen sang a song about how two of the rocks were for seals and one was for birds. watched the big seals on the rock, they didn't do much but when they did do something like jump off the rock or yell at another seal it was exciting. listened to them talk all night long. 

6/1

rowen fell over leaving our tent. #humanizing. your boyfriend is mortal and can fall over and cut his hand, so you should be nice to him even if you're really stressed about the tides and feel like we should have left 20 minutes ago. #learning #lessons i am in a lifelong struggle to not be an asshole 

hiking hiking, we lost the trail again but it was fine, we climbed up a cliff and were back on it. saw a beach deer, beach coyote. the water we filtered was good and cold. "making water," this is a step you must take before you drink it.  we stopped for lunch in a clearing so nice that the couple who got there before us said: the trail is that way, when we arrived. lol sorry guys .... we are eating lunch under these nice trees too. they left so we had it to ourselves. i ate a tortilla with peanut butter i squeezed from a pouch ("real food"), rowen ate bag and boiled water for me for instant coffee. the coffee was sweet, warm, yay. i dipped my sun hoodie in the creek before we left because i had been blowing my nose in it, and also i was hot. just dipping it in the creek did nothing for the snot, i had to scrape it off with a rock. if i had been born in the 1700s this would be reflexive common knowledge, i would probably have a favored technique for scraping dirt off clothes. 

towards the end of the day there was a big river running into the ocean with a nice deep pool of water in its elbow. no one was around so i took off all my clothes and got in. it felt so so so nice, i think maybe being sick was making me warm. i don't know why someone holding the back of their hand against your face is supposed to be an accurate way of assessing fever. anyway. creek revitalization 

got to "big flat," where all of god's (hiking) children were, because it was before another impassable zone. so we all bunched up there. had a less desirable spot than the first night, very In View of Others so it was hard to pee. but the ocean was nice, i ate my pad thai from a bag which was better than the lentils. as i got more full i found it more gross. cheese was gone :( 

horrible night, i really felt sick by evening. i was blowing my nose in my sun hoodie so much i was running out of real estate (all the toilet paper i used as tissues were gone, disintegrated from my snot). the belly, the back, the sleeves, the hood, even the neck gaitor, sooooo snotty and gross.  cried a lot about being sick and not able to sleep #cryinginmytent. when i was up staring at the walls i remembered being up with liz when we were car camping, staring at the walls, thinking about how my family's cat was going to die the next day. maybe a bad memory to pair with my first camping experience. anyway, i survived both of those nights .....

6/2

at 530 i was like we need to get out of here. sleep was not happening. rowen packed up the tent, we started out. met dogs and a nice old man and a gay person. i asked the old man if we were near the end about 3 miles from the end and he said uhh, i don't think so... i said i thought we had 3 miles! he said to him, that wasn't close. #marathonmindset 3 miles is not that many. 

finished the hike, 26 miles all told.  wish there was more of a celebratory vibe but i was near death. went back to the place we had eaten before except i could not taste at all and was not hungry, only ate half my burrito. just feeling a bit frail, so i maybe looked like, scary thin........

rowen drove us to crater lake. stopped at in-n-out, nostalgic for me despite being a vegetarian and also not hungry. the last hour of the drive was scary thick woods. i'm so scared of hitting a bear ever since i almost hit a bear. but we got there, bears unharmed.

when we got to the hotel at like 1030pm rowen said, i'm going to bring our hiking clothes to the car so they don't make our room smell. i couldn't smell so i said no omg don't go back out there, we just got here. in the morning he said he wanted to feel like it (the hike) was fully over. 

i pitched this hike to rowen in january and it was very nice to do it. 

6/3

who up cratering their lake. not me because i was still dead this day. ate half a sandwich and felt terrible, napped while rowen watched survivor. we went to the back porch, facing the lake. i took a silly video of rowen. fun to experience a national park in a way that i would usually look down upon (not leaving the hotel).  had dinner and ate chocolate cake and asked the waiter about his seasonal work. i'm always fishing for a way to talk about montana. luckily if people have been to glacier it is usually their favorite so it usually comes up (it did). 

6/4 

beautiful drive to seattle, it was so so pretty through the woods. big tall redwoods all over. again i wish i could have appreciated it more ........... another day of being SICK!!!!!! got to rowen's dad's house, domestic domestic domestic. 

6/5 

told rowen he should be spending more time in his parent's beautiful mother-in-law suite, so nice and comfy, did laundry, more domestic. saw an eagle. being a plus one to someone's family is always interesting, "girlfriend," a not unpleasant flattening.

6/6 

rowen drove me to the airport, wow, thank you so much. plane back to philly right into @applesauce's party, happy birthday applesauce! stayed in liz's room because i was SICK and that's where margot was. when she saw me she got zoomies even though she was maximally drugged. happy to be reunited with her and to know i wouldn't have to leave her for a while. 

6/7 

spent time with my mom in the burbs, getting my car and preparing to drive across the country.