Blogs from Tacoma, Washington, United States, North America - page 5

I am currently working as Education and Outreach Director at Citizens for a Healthy Bay, where I have worked for about 2 1/2 years. However, shortly I will be leaving this position and taking some time off to backpack around New Zealand and Tasmania, working along the way on Organic farms. I always love to travel to see how other people interact with the natural world. I think that experiences such as these are a school of sorts, and that I always come back wiser and with more understanding and compassion for humanity than when I left. It is a good tonic for the abrasive and sometimes anonymous world that we live in today. ... read more

Only two days left with my little Washington fam! I'm going to miss these guys, I've been living with them for almost three weeks now! Seems like there's no one I'm not missing these days, right? ...Aunt Jackie's Pumpkin Carving Party... ...Birthday Celebrations... ...Halloween... ......leaves changing... ...family...new and old friends... ...brutally cold fall weather...oh wait, don't miss that one! Haha! But I don't want to go home just yet, no way! I'm just gettin' started! Everyone be sure to check back with earlier journal entries, I've added a lot more photographs!!! Tonight Fawn and I ran around and took pictures with her little skeleton, Jack. She's going to make cards out of them for the Christmas sale. I'm suprised we didn't get kicked out of the craft store, we were pretty sketchy. I've had so much ... read more

6,500 feet in the air. I wiped the sweat from my brow and tried to slow my breathing. But when I had a look around, it almost stopped completely. It was my first taste of the mountains. There was so much to see and so much that was seen, so much that was felt, and so much said that I could never get it all down tonight. Maybe not in a lifetime. But I will tell you that it was worth the soreness that encompasses my entire body today. I lost myself in you the forest I'd seen so many times only in picture books magazines or vidoes The fog, flirting with the sky lifts and then settles winks at the sun and then rises again only to sink once more and then dissappear into the ... read more

I went to work with Fawn yesterday, we left at 4:50 AM. She has a job at the Seattle Municipal Building, across from the sky-scraping Bank of America building. I met all of her friends, experienced real-life office cubicles first-hand, and didn't get to see Mt. Rainier pink in the morning because of the fog. When I got out of the elevator I squeezed my nose, blew, and popped my ears. Only 38 floors, but I felt like I just took a jet ride. I walked for about 20 minutes in my lousy flip-flops, curse the punk who stole my shoes. By the time I had reached the Green Tortoise (hostel), I was walking on my tippy toes like I was wearing high heels or something. I walked into Seattles' Best, the chain coffee shop that ... read more

I looked at my map. Yup, this looks like the place. The Bank of America Building. Tallest skyscraper on the West Coast of North America, taller than the Space Needle, and ten dollars cheaper, too. I walked into the building and no one was around, including the receptionist. I figured, hey, maybe I can just go, I mean, if they're not around than it's their fault if I don't pay, right? And so I sprinted to the elevators, nonchalatly, of course, and pressed the "close door" button 500 times even though I knew they would inch together at a painfully slow pace anyways. I got to floor 60 and the elevator opened, even though I had requested the 70th, so I hopped out and asked the little round lady at the desk why. "Hon, this isn't ... read more