Chris And Nena

In the morning, we grabbed some breakfast, checked out and then went to pick up our rental car for the next week. We then went shopping for food and supplies, including checking out MEC (Mountain Equipment Cooperative) which is huge and has great prices on camping and outdoors stuff. We were both starting to feel a bit broke, and we also were pretty limited in how much room we had in our bags, so no purchases were made (so much restraint and discipline!). Actually, we were going to get a reusable coffee filter for $8, but then you had to become a member which was $5 so no really worth it. We finally got on the road towards the Rocky Mountains around 3pm only to discover the perils of Vancouver traffic (especially when it's raining for ... read more

We got into Portland in the evening and met our host Val. In her profile picture on Couch Surfing she had a white wig and white face paint (taken at Burning Man perhaps?) so we weren't sure we'd recognise her. Thankfully she recognised us as we pulled up to the kerb. After a bit of a chat and unloading some stuff, she took us up to the local Japanese. It's very well known and even on a Wednesday night there was a queue and a 30-45min wait. We put our name on the queue and popped into a nearby bar to taste some of the local brews and chat about quantum psychology and other random things. One of the key aspects of Quantum Psychology is to do with defining or branding yourself or others. For example, ... read more

The flight to San Francisco went without any issues. We flew with Virgin and had possibly the newest airplane we've ever seen. Everything was shiny and un-worn. A bit of a change from some of the sad looking planes we've been on. We had to do a transfer across to the international terminal and then catch the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) to our destination. It was easy to tell we were in San Francisco with organic food places even in the airport and lots of information on the airport attempting to become carbon neutral. On the train we chatted to a guy from Portland, Oregon who was really friendly and helpfully letting us know which train to catch and places to see up in Oregon. Nena's cousin Perdi and her partner Jake met us at ... read more

ok, this blog will be a little different. Burning Man doesn't lend itself readily to the normal ways of doing things. So, here's some random memories and thoughts about the week. Oh, for those that don't know "The Playa" refers to the type of dusty desert surface. It's pronounced like plier and not like player. Dust Vast numbers of mechanically crazy glowing gigantic art cars crusing the desert picking up randoms A shipwreck in the desert complete with pier and various weird ship paraphernalia (pickled squid?) Wrangler fish swimming around luring trippers with glowing ball bait Daily hunt for a tasty coffee (always free) Camping with Couch Surfers - most from Seattle, but plenty from worldwide More dust So much art out on the playa. We are still finding pictures online of things we didn't see. ... read more

Since we were too late getting to The Grand Canyon to see sunset we decided to further confuse our body clocks by getting up ridiculously early and watch sunrise. Our alarm went off at 4am, we quickly pulled up camp and then drove closer in to the Grand Canyon to where we could catch a shuttle bus to where we wanted to go. The morning was a bit cloudy and hazy but it was still pretty beautiful in the pre-dawn light and seeing the light come into the rocks as the sun rose was gorgeous. We wandered along the path between different vantage points, saying good morning to other early risers, and to an Elk that was wandering through the trees. Feeling tired, we caught the shuttle bus back to our car and dozed for a ... read more