Long time no post!

Sorry about that! I haven't been the most faithful blogger in the world. But can you blame me!? With the end of the semester and finals PLUS trying to get everything together for my little field study thing all whilst working and trying to play too.... anyway.... you can see why blogging got pushed to the back burner for a while. :-)
Speaking of Field Study..... It has been SUPER awesome so far! I've loved every minute of it! We decided last minute to get a 4th van and I was unofficially appointed driver of said van. I love driving so I couldn't be happier. The trip just seems to be less boring and quicker when I'm behind the wheel. Plus - a lot of the students just sleep along the way. They miss a TON of really beautiful scenery. I seriously want to stop and take pictures just about ever 50 feet. Let it be known that I LOVE the Oregon coast! It is SOOOO pretty! One day I hope to have a little summer beach home - or maybe just a time share that I can come out to for a few weeks a year. Seriously, I love it out here! Everything is so slow paced and relaxed. And all the hippies and granola types are really interesting to talk to / watch in general. Hahaha!
So... where have we been so far?? I'll tell you:
Bonneville Salt Flats in UT - 'nough said.

Gerlach Nevada: the armpit of all the earth. No seriously, it is. Talk about a horrible place! We drove up and got out tob e immediately attacked by swarms of nasty little tinsy bugs. I am STILL itching! YUCK! It seems like ALL of the businesses in the place are hotels or bars that also work for restaurants. There is a gypsum mine not far away - if it wasn't for that I'm sure NO one would live out there. We found out that the whole reason we went out there (a really cool guyser of all things!) was closed to a group of our size. It's on private land and the owners were a bit worried about a group our size. Too bad. REALLY too bad - especially because we seriously drove through the most boring / ugly country in the world to get there. Suffice it to say I hope I never find myself there again. Hahaha! ANYWAY. That night we had a perfectly clear night and because there is so little light pollution we got to take really neat pictures of the stars. I even spent all night out there in my sleeping bag. It was a bit chilly but totally worth it:

On the way between Gerlach and Reno NV we saw this cool rainbow around the Sun! I've only ever seen this around a full moon so this was super neato:

We also stopped at Pyramid Lake where I did a few paintings which I'll post later:

Reno, NV: Just a step or two above Gerlach in my opinion. It really is trying hard to be Vegas....only it epicly fails. I was unimpressed - especially with the low class people. Ew! It was nice to move on.

Orick CA - we got to stay in a neat little hotel here. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of it. :-( The dear old lady that owns the place burried her husband the day we drove into town. She, I think was 85, he was even older and had been basically bedridden since sometime last year when he had a stroke. Their little hotel was kinda out of place with a Palm theme that stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of the redwood forest.
If you should ever find yourself in Orick you should know that everything shuts down at about 3 in the afternoon. including both the restaurants in town. That made for a fun evening for some of our group. Lucky for some of us I brought a coleman stove so we made dinner for ourselves - Spaghetti.
While in Orick we visited the beach:

...Lady Bird Johnson Grove:
...and a place called Fern Gulch. It was pretty awesome! 20 foot vertical walls covered in ferns with a small stream winding its way down the bottom of the gulch. It was pretty awesome:

Coos Bay, OR - this place was pretty sweet! We got some great pictures of beautiful sunsets and neat boats while we were here. We also had fun at the laundromat The drive up from Orick was really pretty. I LOVE Highway 101. There are a lot of cyclists traveling along the coast line. I've decided that I really want to do that some day. From Mexico to Canada or the other way around. And while I'm at it I might as well do it on both the East and West Coast. Someday....
Anyway, on the way between Orick and Coos Bay we visited Revelation Trail:

...and Battle Rock:

We totally dominate any gas station we pull up to. :-)

While in Coos bay we stayed at a camp ground with yurts! Those were fun! They even had electricity and heaters - which was nice because it got a little chilly at night!
Coos Bay gave us one spectacular sunset!
We started at one beach...

See the boat there on the lower left!? LOVE it!
...and then we moved to an different one, conveniently called Sunset Beach...

We had some fun in the laundromat in Winchester Bay - just up the road from our camp ground. This is Maddie, Laura and Sara. They are usually in the van I drive.
This little gem is on the side of the road between our campground and Winchester Bay. I did a water color of it. I'll put it up once I find a good scanner...

The drive between Coos Bay and Cannon Beach was really pretty as well. Everything was wet so all the colors were really saturated. If I hadn't been driving I would've taken a million pictures. We stopped for lunch at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for ice cream and lunch in that order. YUM!
Cannon Beach, OR - OK, I love cannon beach. I remember coming her on a family vacation when I was in middle school, but it was nothing like I remembered it. So probably I combined a place or two in my brain. Anyway, Cannon Beach is gorgeous. Almost all the houses have wood shakes as siding that they have just allowed to weather into a pretty silver/grey color. And they almost all have white trim and black shutters. It makes for a very uniform and manicured look. Again, I wish I would've taken more pictures of the city. But I just kept feeling like the things I saw through my lens looked a lot stupider than when I was just looking around. Plus I focused a LOT on watercolor while we were here. I finished 5 paintings even! Which is a lot for me, ok? We stayed in this SUPER nice and huge "beach" house that was about as far away from the beach as you can get. Hahaha! But it was up on a hill so the view was incredible!
While we were here we...

rode the little 3-wheel beach bikes - mine had a few issues:

shot at sunrise:

shot at 3 different sunsets:
1:

2:
This is Stephanie, the other girl usually in my van:

3:
First we had to do some great jumping pictures. Apparently I can't count! I'm the ONLY one that is late in these ones!

Maddie is a gymnast for BYU so we had some fun with these ones:

took some sweet dusk pictures:

took a day trip to Multnoma Falls:

and had 2 magical days of sunshine on the beach. That was lucky - the forecast predicted rain the whole week!
Ya gotta love jumping pictures during a quick break while watercoloring on the beach!
Cannon beach has a whole bunch of art galleries that we all visited throughout the week. Probably my favorite place was the glass blowing shop. We got to watch a two artists in action as they blew 3 pieces. It was really fascinating! I've decided that I am going to take the glass blowing class at BYU next spring. It looks really challenging but super fun at the same time! I didn't have my camera with me or I would've taken a few pictures of it.
The drive between Cannon Beach and Seattle took forever and a half. I felt like we stopped every 15 minutes for the first bit of it! Probably because we did. We stopped for 2 hours or so in Astoria, which is apparently where The Goonies was filmed. Who knew!? I've never seen it so I wasn't all that excited, but there were a few in the group who were SOOOOO excited! We did get to stand in the cell that the bad guys broke out of... and we took pictures of the house "they" live in....whoever "they" is. Good stuff
Seattle, WA - I LOVE SEATTLE!!!! I have been here several times for choir tours and family vacations and such. I love it every time I come here. We are staying in a super awesome Hostel literally across the street from Pike's Place Market - the place where they throw the fish and all that! Couldn't ask for a better location! I will probably stay here every time I come to Seattle. $25 a night, with free communal breakfast and dinner. It's great! We had seafood on the program budget our first night here - I got a Smoked Salmon dinner and some popcorn shrimp. Seafood is so much better on the coast. 'Nough said. Our pour little GPS guide got a little confused driving around Seattle I think we maid about a billion u-turns and at one point crossed 4 lanes of freeway traffic in order to make our exit. Parking is another story. Parking our huge vans was pretty much a nightmare. But after about an hour and a half of searching we got it done. Still, I love Seattle. I need to check if there are any med schools out here that I have any hope of getting into.....
Wow, it's now 12:01 AM and I have to get up in about 4.5 hours. Oopsies! I'll post more when we have internet access.... which may not be for a week or so....
..... OK, so I had every intention of posting photos. Then it got late... then we drove from Seattle to Victoria BC..... and took a ferry on the way.... and I still haven't posted em.... so I will later....