There's no place like home, there's no place like home *click, click, click*

I see having a pair of ruby slippers along the same lines as Star Trek's transporter machine. I would use them to travel back and forth between the east and west coast. Just as I figured, being home in Maine has definitely made me think of starting to make plans to return to my rightful place in the world (right, Ang?) I don't see myself transitioning back to Maine right way but being in the New England area is a must do.

Geez, I just read some of my older post. God damn, there have been some good times and my writing was exciting. What the hell has happened to me? I need some descriptive inspiration to manuveur my brainwaves to write that good again. I love road tripping. My journey out west last year was an inspirational journey on many levels. The question is, who's gonna road trip home with me at the end of next season? Tune in, now that's a cliff hanger...good literary move. Swell.

The Adventures of Murder Squirrel--Pictures

Murder Squirrel with blood on his knife. Are
we missing any hotel guests?


Edward (aka Rafiki) introdues Murder Squirrel
to his kingdom.



Murder Squirrel living on his Mountain.

Murder Squirrel stares at me in my sleep. Some

nights it really creeps me out and I have to banish

him to the closet.

Murder Squirrel at the Puyallup Fair. Scary!

The Adventures of Murder Squirrel

The creation of Murder Squirrel was designed early in the '09 season at Mt. Rainier. He arrived at the Paradise Inn Gift Shop very unexpectedly, in a box with thousands of his friends. It was an invasion of creepy plush rodents with beady eyes. Only Murder Squirrel was ghastly and cruel enough to fight his way in to the hearts of the employees at Rainier, leaving the others plush squirrels behind to be sold as slaves to the highest, child-like bidder. The above is the first picture of Murder Squirrel on the day of his creation. In the first days of his creation he terrorized the hotel guests by sitting threateningly in the gift shop window, peering out into the lobby with his knife gleaming until he was banned by the high king. Since then he has gone into hiding protected by all that revere him. Some nights he has hidden deep in the woods, camping, drinking to much beer and living dangerously by sitting to close the fire, his singed tail is scarred to prove it. Here's a crazy fact: while I have not summitted the mountain, Murder Squirrel has climbed the 14,411 feet up to the top of the volcano we live on together. Although I do not have them there are pictures to prove this. He is a wild one that Murder Squirrel. His most recent adventure was to the Puyallup Fair where he drank to many airplane shots before going on the Tilt-A-Whirl. As you can imagine he was quite a threat to eveyone who walked by him. When some teenagers behind us in the line touched him saying he was so cute. I made sure to respond, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, he's more dangerous than he looks."

Like a River

It is really disappointing on so many levels how little I have written on my blog this summer. I would like to make promises that from now on I will be more dedicated to my blog writings but I feel in my heart that I may not be able to follow through so why be so rigid especially since my new motto is BE LIKE A RIVER. If you have obstacles just find a different path around it, trickle through it or flood over it. Or maybe I'm the dead leaf floating down it. I'm not sure but I really like the metaphor. I have not hiked nearly as much as I did last season but I did manage to make it up to Camp Muir with my dad a couple weeks ago. I have two more hikes that I want to accomplish this year to add to my Mt. Rainier hiking list. I want to hike up to Indian Henry's which is about a 14 mile hike round trip. There is a little cabin up there. And, I want to hike from Sunrise to Paradise. That would be a 22-23 mile hike and an overnighter. I think that's one of the reasons I haven't been writing on my blog so much. I like to share my hiking experiences and adventures in the woods. I just haven't done as much hiking this year. It is a much more social experience this year and I'm not big on writing about the everyday mundane conversations I have with people. Not enough freaks to exploit really.

For those loyal followers who have been faithfully checking to see if the hunter is still prowling, bless you and stay tuned: Pics will follow soon, as will my attempt to upkeep my preservation of life at Rainier.

Snow Desert

I stopped for respite in the only shade on the mountain
for about 15 minutes until my marrow cooled from the boiling
point.

Man, you just gotta love the weather here on The Mountain. One thing is for sure The Mountain will never breed monotony. A week ago today, last Monday, May 4 it snowed and continued for three days straight. Then, this weekend was an absolutely stunning weekend with the sun blazing down on the white, pristine Mountain. I went hiking up to Alta Vista (5950ft) on Sunday. You would think I was hiking in the Saraha Desert it was so god damn hot! I actually almost turned around within minutes of starting b/c I was sweating to death. The sun was beating on me from the sky and reflecting off the snow. A dangerous combo. Of course, I was wearing sunscreen but still managed to get a funky looking burn down the front of my neck. AND, Today, I went for a 1/2 mile walk around the parking lot in a Blizzard! The wind was blowing so hard the snow was stinging my face. By the time I turned around, 10 minutes later, it had mellowed out to barely a flurry. So, basically, it is either snowing or blazing sun here at Mount Rainier. Gotta love it. No, really... Gotta LOVE it!!

Buried Alive

It was a really beautiful day today!

Funny story... I asked the head of maintenance at Inn when he thought I might get the boards off my window. My room is on the bottom floor of the inn. I have two windows that are currently sealed with ply-board. My room is like a cave. Even when the lights are on there seems to be an impenetrable darkness. I wake up at 7am each morning thinking it could easily be 2am or I wake up at 3am and bolt out of bed b/c I think it's 9am. Each morning I walk up the stairs to peak my head out the door to see if the sun is shining or if it is snowing because it seems that in the last two weeks it is one or the other. When the sun is shining (it's doubly bright b/c it's bouncing of the snow) I instantly raise my elbow over my eyes because the light penetrates my vampire like senses, causing me to squeal and scurry back to my room to adjust to the daylight hours. So, "Vern," I say (whose name I have changed for amenity sake), "Vern, when will the shutters come off my window?" After asking which side of the Inn my room is on, Vern chuckles, and in a sarcastic tone replies, "Mid-June if your lucky." Now, I have a secret hope that Maybe, just maybe he was kidding. I actually hadn't gone to the other side of the Inn to see for myself the snow situation. Here comes the crusher: Vern comes up to me yesterday and says, "So I took the bulldozer out behind the Inn to dig your room out. I'm diggin' and diggn' and finally I see the top part of your window. Then I look into the window and see that it's women's public bathroom." He laughs and laughs, "Your room is buried A WHOLE FLOOR beneath that room!!" At that point he says, "I said screw it! Sorry, you'll probably be buried 'til end of June." So, if you live in a two story house, just visualize the snow being up to the top of the windows on the second floor with your bedroom on the bottom floor. Basically, I'm buried alive.

The Tatoosh Range directly across from the Inn.

I think this will be my view mid-June.

I am standing in front of my room which is

two stories below.

My room is two floors down under the snow.

Will I ever see the light of day?

Pirates of the Caribbean

Okay, so I never actually saw a pirate while I was in the Caribbean but I had my picture taken with a fake just to make myself feel special. The cruise was pretty good. If I'm being honest, which I always am, I'm not much of a cruiser. Too many people in a confined space for my liking. I couldn't find one god damn unoccupied space on the whole ship. That being said, I really enjoyed the zip line in Belize. We zipped through the dense jungle canapy in a monsoon rain storm. That was pretty exciting. Mom and I went to the Chocchoban Mayan Ruins in Costa Maya, Mexico. No, I do not have the swine flu although I was a hypocondriac about it for the first 4 days after, feeling my forehead every three minutes to make sure I didn't have a fever. The last adventure we went on was swimming with the stingray. I got to feed them after my initial "eww, ichy" stage. I have to say while the evening shows were pretty cheesy, the formal dinners every evening were delightful. The food was divine and the service was top notch. Like they literally dipped my tea bag for me. I felt pretty swanky for a minute there. You can see my pics on my facebook page. If you're not my facebook friend then too bad for you. I'll get pics up on my blog eventually. It's just difficult when you live on a mountain with dial-up as your only connection to the techno world. I am psyched to be back at Rainier with the exception of the 10feet of snow. Today I went for a short little hike and did not see a soul. Just me and the mountain. That beats out a cruise any day as far as I'm concerned!!