When a U-Haul Meets Your Train: Plus, Waterfall-Hiking!

` It's been kinda eventful laterly - thought I should tell ya.

Yesterday, Phil's college buddy, Eugene, was coming to the Everett Station - so we thought - and we showed up and the train came in and he didn't get off the train. So we were like "what the hell?" Then, Phil got a call. It was Gene.
` He explained that he was on his way here on schedule when all of a sudden, the train brakes and there's this sound, and then more braking until the train stopped. Just outside his window is this fireball - he took a digital picture and showed me. I'd ask him to give it to me and post it if I was capable of it.

[I was not able to at the time on seo-blog, so I missed my chance.]

` Well, it turned out that it was a U-Haul that was burning outside the train car - the driver had luckily got out before the train hit. I have no idea what that was all about, but all of his belongings, furniture, computer, whatever was in it, was destroyed - I saw the picture in more detail on Gene's laptop, and clearly it was a goner. While people were fleeing the car, he was sticking around to watch out the window with some other people.
` As the grass began burning around the fireball, the train was backed up, as the outer casing of the engine was the only casuality. Whoever was in charge of the train finally decided that they weren't going to put everyone on a train and take them all the way back down to Oregon - they just got another engine and took the train the rest of the way, about two hours late.
Anyway, he got here two hours late and we went to the Diamond Knot Brewery, had the bestest pizza ever (as usual), and then I went to bed.

` On the eleventh, which is technically now the real yesterday, Phil, Gene, Me, Mike, Brian, Luke, and Toby (he's from Germany! Neat!) all hiked a few miles up this mountain to a body of diarrhea-inducing water creatively named Lake 22. In the dense precipitation.
` First off, there were many stream crossings and waterfalls across the trail, though the only ones that had bridges were the ones that would knock you downstream. In several places, the water just ran down the trail itself, so it was like walking up little streambeds and even waterfalls. Joy. At one point, there was a bridge lying on the ground and a boulder in its place, which acted as a seven-foot-tall railing to keep us from going over the waterfall. At another point I'm glad the bridge was not out, because the waterfall was not exactly swimmable.
` Then, there was this open area as we were getting through the clouds and above a lot of the drizzle. When we got to Lake 22 I was thinking of maybe eating some trail mix, being that I'd bought some for the trip. Then the guys wanted to go around the lake. That's when it began to rain, like a real, Ohio light rain (RAIN!!!) instead of the typical Everett rain (drizzle).

' Even more fun, guess how we got to the around-the-lake trail? Step onto the diseased lake across three pointy little stones to a log. Walk across the that and step way down to a four-inch-wide board set just above the water level, propped across other pointy little rocks. Then go across another stone to another board and other stones until you get to the boardwalk. We were really wet though and couldn't make it around to where the patches of snow were on the other side, so we turned right around and went back. Amazingly, none of us fell in, considering we were all carrying stuff.
` Then, as it got more and more wet, more of the trail had become a river by the time we were getting down. Luckily, I was doing pretty good with the stepping stones and keeping my feet dry, an accomplishment considering I was wearing hiking sandals. (It's not a real intensive trail for the feet.) Of course, I lagged behind and lagged behind and then tripped over something just as Phil and Gene were going out of sight. Even worse, my feet got plenty wet in a four-inch-deep stream on the trail!
` Luckily, they finally realized I was missing and waited for me about a third of a mile down from where I tripped, and it took twenty minutes for us three to get down to everyone else. I guess I don't feel so bad, though, considering that the other guys are just amazing when they hike - to keep up with them, you have to jog.

` Well, anything else? Not really, other than the fact that I'm going to have another chocolate chip cookie that Phil made while EdgeWalker - who was supposed to be here tonight - gets to sleep on the floor of San Francisco's airport with no cookies.

` Ah, EdgeWalker. He went to school with Phil since age four up through college at OSU - they've been good friends, and now... EdgeWalker's plane was delayed for some reason to get to O'Hare, so he missed his connecting flight to SeaTac.
` Instead, he had to fly to San Francisco, but he can't get a flight to Seattle until morning - which comes three hours after Ohio mornings - so when the sky gets bright at 3 a.m. (an hour from now), it'll be 6 a.m. according to his biological clock! I hope he gets here before Gene has to leave tomorrow morning, as Gene was hoping to come along to see Seattle in daylight. (He did get to see it though, when the rain was letting up at sunset as we went to get dinner at Jai Thai - which we were planning to take EdgeWalker to when he got here...)

` Ah well, anyway, that's another boring life-story from me - though it's mostly boring because of the repetitive sentence structure and the fact that I really don't go out of my way to make it interesting or anything. In fact, I forget completely what I was intending to write - my fingers are just flying and I itch all over and OH PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!!!!! Time for Benadryl - it works on itches that aren't allergies because it blocks histamine! Hooray!

Re: When a U-Haul Meets Your Train - PLUS, How To Hike Up A Waterfall!

sounds like a fun hike. cool blog.

ohiochic | 25/06/2005, 08:10