Backpacking Trip & Portland Trip w/ Wedding

Ignoring the elephant in the room, (the fact that it's been 4 years since I've done a single thing on this blog) I'm just gonna get right back into stuff. I've stated this in the Blog info, but I'm gonna turn this into a personal archive and also just post whatever I feel like. That said, let's get into what I did this summer and boy was it a full one.

My summers start late due to RCC ending Spring term in mid to late June. Plus, this summer I got to take a wonderful differential equations class because they only offered it during summer term and I need for for my degree (how fun). Truthfully the class was not too bad, however it did mean I needed to manage my time wisely for when I was away from the class on trips and whatnot. 

Backpacking Trip

My brother, father, and I did get to do our yearly backpacking trip which is always so much fun. We finally got to redo Flint Ridge after it being closed for 3 years due to Covid. The old-growth redwoods are spectacular, and it was very quiet. On the hike (4 miles by the way) we saw maybe one or two people. The campsite was a bit busier, but that's because it's got a shorter access trail coming in from the other side of it. I think this may have been the first time I carried all of my own gear (or perhaps last year, it's tough to remember) and it was fun to get to use it. Having all my own gear also led to me being able to take my friends and I on our own backpacking trip, but I'll get to that later. Since the trail has had very little traffic and even less upkeep, there were some difficult bits. Trees had fallen across it, or it was hard to determine where the trail was. Overall though we made it with all of our bodies intact and that's all that matters, right? Nonetheless it was so much fun, and hopefully we can do one more trip next year before ship off to college, but if not this was a pretty great last-trip-for-the-foreseeable-future.

At the end of June we went up north to Portland to pick up a nice shiny new (to us) Suburban for my dad. Then, we went south a bit to the Albany area and went to a friend's wedding. It was just a short little weekend trip, but we ate some good food and spent some quality time together.