Archives for posts with tag: caving

september 26

September 26, 2011 //
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2011, a monday

Class, math tutoring, astronomy lab, Geology Club (free pizza!), calculus and astronomy homework. Should study for my Earth history midterm, but feeling pretty wiped out and it’s not even 9pm.

2010, a sunday

woke up at jula’s. got ready, then drove her and her roommate, brittany, to the abbot kinney festival. we got awesome sandwiches from the grilled cheese truck, then found some shade and people watched. terry met up with us and we got ice cream sandwiches from the coolhaus truck. ben found us, and we spent a few hours walking around looking at the booths. it was ungodly hot out there! spent, drove jula and brittany back to their place then stopped home on the way to burbank for family night. studied while I watched the last 2 eps of ‘true blood’ with elaine and meghan, then everyone came over and we had tacos and enchiladas and watched ‘boardwalk empire’. ended up having a long chat with elaine and started nailing down details for big bear.

2009, a saturday

up and at ‘em at 7am in time to eat some breakfast and get ready for our 9am cave crawl through old town spring cave. our guide, leslie, was great and we had a lot of fun in the wet cave. the water was higher than usual due to the recent rainfall, and the current was pretty strong in some places. we saw a little crawdad, i fell in the water, a good time was had by all. we broke for lunch – campfire fritatta, leftover campfire casserole, more s’mores – broke camp, then said goodbye to mark, jocelyn, jenna and dan. then, katie, lindsay, amber, grace, carlene and i did the waterfall crawl through marengo cave. ryan, our guide, helped us navigate the extremely strong current and suck-mud filled passageways, through many of which we had to crawl on all fours or flat on our bellies through mud and 50° water! it was SO MUCH FUN! i did all but one of the optional trips and am so glad everyone was able to come and had a good time. we were head to toe covered in mud by the end. lindsay and i got back to chicago and got to drying out our gear, then walked to mcdonald’s for some ice cream. pretty awesome weekend and there’s still sunday coming up!

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Categories 5 year journal

september 25

September 25, 2011 //
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2011, a sunday

Got up early, fiddled about on the internet until the bike shop opened. Rented a bike, made a review sheet for my Earth history midterm. Lunch, met with Kim for a lesson. Spent the rest of the night doing calculus and eating freshly warmed baguette with butter and apricot preserves.

2010, a saturday

worked out, ran errands, which took 3x longer than it should have, due mostly to crazy traffic. did not even get to study really, and had a pretty stressful day (after a really stressful week) before it was time to meet up with the girls at jula’s in santa monica. we all threw together a really good dinner, then jula, terry, renee and I walked to santa monica glow. the night was warm and beautiful. got a giant tiramisu from the vizzi truck, looked at some odd art installations, then people watched for awhile. walked back to jula’s and on the way I got a soft serve from mcdonald’s which was probably the most satisfying part of the whole night. I slept over at jula’s and we stayed up talking for awhile.

2009, a friday

lindsay and i got up early and got our gear together, then drove to oak park. we met up with mark, jocelyn, jenna and dan then wagon trained down to marengo caves in southern indiana. we stopped at the cracker barrel on the way, and met katie and her friends, carlene, grace and amber, at the campsite. we set up camp, then went to the corydon wal-mart for supplies. dan started a fire and we ate like kings – sausages, campfire casserole (or cowboy casserole), s’mores, celebratory cupcakes, ginger garlic chicken skewers, wine and rye whisky. we were the only ones still awake at the campground, and a basset hound wandered over out of the dark and joined us by the fire; we christened him chimichanga. we went to bed around 2am.

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Categories 5 year journal

hang song doong

January 1, 2011 //
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amazing article on national geographic about what is possibly the world’s largest cave, hang song doong in phong nha-ke bang national park, vietnam.

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Categories I must retire to my nerdery, look over here!

New Zealand/Australia, Day 7: Waitomo Caves

March 21, 2010 //
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be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!

We left Napier and crossed to the other side of the North Island to the Waitomo glowworm caves. First we were kitted out in wetsuits, helmets and innertubes – and those wetsuits were a struggle to get on! It was a comedy of errors in the changing rooms. We spent over an hour wading through the cave system, jumping over waterfalls and floating down the river with the thousands of tiny blue glowworm lights overhead as our only illumination (and our only guide out of the cave). We got chocolate-covered marshmallow fish for a snack in the cave, and had a lot of fun with our guides, Brydie and Lloyd (who has no sense of smell!).

Afterwards we got hot showers, hot soup and hot bagels. We drove on to Auckland and settled into our hotel suite – our home until we boarded the cruise ship.

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Categories photos