Vancouver

I had a fantastic time climbing Mt Rushmore last Sunday. It's somewhere behind the monument (you can't get very close to the actual carving) and must be the best crag I've climbed to date. A bunch of sport routes all the way down to 5.6. In fact, I sent my first lead with my new Black Diamond quickdraws.

The picture is a red rock formation I drove past in the Southern hills. It's a nice contrast to the the gray granite of the central hills.

I was going to start with a chronological post of all the things I've been doing: kayaking, climbing and car camping. Instead, I'll just cut to Sunday night when I get to the Gathering of Eagles and find out that my father is getting married! Yep. Met Fiona who is visiting the Black Hills for a month from Australia. This happened last week and in two weeks is getting married (July 11th) and then leaves to Melbourne July 12th to spend a year or so in Australia. Congratulations Zack and Fiona!

I've been driving now for 2 days. Last night I stopped in the National Forest outside of Anaconda, MT. I had bought some CHorizo sausage for dinner and was very hungry when I started cooking. I haven't figured out how to use/make chorizo. So this came in a fairly large diamter casing and quite long. So I assumed it would cook up like a bratwurst. So I boiled it. What ended up happening is the case broke and the sausge remained in small parts. Basically, I had Chorizo soup. It wasn't bad, but quite spicy. Consequently, I left a small environmental hazard in the forest of Montana. So if anyone has some suggestions on how to cook Chorizo...

Whew! Nice times! Portalnd has been fun. Went drinking Sat night with Noel. Hit a few really cool places and got up Sunday to do some hikes. Went out to Manzanita and found some waterfalls and beautiful views. Definitely visit the Oregon coast if you have the chance.

I can't believe that people get so worked up over the fate of one person in a permenant vegetative state, but allow 1400+ young men and women die in an unjust war.

So I was goingto make one those apologies for not posting thenext couple of weeks because I'll be travelling, but hell, I haven't been posting anyways!!

I will be leaving to SD from June 19th until around July 2nd. I feel like a travelling salesman on these trips. I visit like one person a day and go from door-to-door. It's fun, but exhausting. Not to mention I'm the sort of person who likes to just hang out. This fast pace is hard to keep up.

I feel bad leaving my loyal readers without good blogging material. It's like your favourite show being cancelled before the season finale. WTF! So just in case you need an excuse: my friends Ira and Maris came to visit us from Latvia.

I attempted to blog a couple of days ago, but my computer froze mid-word. After that act of higher power I assumed that was not a day for blogging. But today is. Whew. I just need to relax. If you remember a few blog entries ago, I was extremely relieved by turning down an offer to write a journal paper. Part of the reason was that it just complicated the visa process. Well, today I went down to get my work visa and it was a pain. Jim was just not receptive to me applying at the border. Not that I wasn't allowed to apply, but that I *shouldn't* be applying. It's not his job, supposedly. He finally agreed that he could issue a work permit, but he couldn't post date. This meant burning two months off the other end of my one year permit (because I don't start until Aug 1st). So after all this confusing mess. plus an urgent fax from the office I didn't get my permit. Bleh. So I mailed it off. Ugh. I hate not having everything in place. So the stress level is back. I'm just feeling like I should have pressed on and gotten the visa regardless. Now I have to wait 45 days.

Wow. What a concert. Dori and I stopped into Bellingham on our way home from Whidbey Island and the new Cribbs show. We took an unsual route to get to Casa Que Pasa and passed by The Royal. We notice the marquee says the Presidents of the USA are playing tonight. So after polishing off mucho carne we picked up some discount tickets to the show. The band came on around 11:30 and played a fantastic set to showcase their new album. A fantastic weekend with a surprise finish. I almost forgot to mention the fluffy buttermilk pancakes with blueberries and strawberry syrup for breakfast.

Mmmm.

One of the sexiest Landcruisers I've seen.

I turned down an offer for a paper last night. After finishing my thesis my professor offered to fund me over the summer to write a paper. However, it had to be a journal paper. I just wasn't feeling good about doing it. I'm happy with the research I did, but I'm not convinced it was really great research. In other words, I think I could do a conference paper, which tends to be short and more of a report on your work. A journal paper is supposed to be the culmination of really thorough research.