Junior year marks my first time not living in a residence hall (dorm, dungeon, cubicle, prison cell, whatever you want to call it). After a series of unfortunate events (among other things, signing a lease and then being told they're not building your house anymore) my roommates (brooks and lily) and I ended up moving to a bustling city, with tons of shopping, nightlife, and hot people (start making your vacation reservations now). I know you're probs dying to know where this metropolis I call home is located. Well it's about 15 minutes from campus in.....drumroll please....PENDLETON. Yes, that's right I'm living in Pendleton.
Now I'm assuming you've never heard of Pendleton (let's be serious, no one has) so lemme just paint you a little picture of what it's like. Well first, I have to pass through exactly one traffic light on my home (never mind the fact that the average speed limit is 31). The big happenin downtown section of P-Town is shaped in a square. I'd say it takes about 137 seconds to walk from one end to the other...seriously. What swanky stores line the square? Funny you should ask, Pendleton just so happens to be the mecca of antiques. Literally 5 of the 8 stores are antique stores (one of the non antique stores is a bridal shop complete with feather boas for your big day). Also the people are actually antiques themselves. I'm pretty sure the average age of a person living in Pendleton is 67.
As far as nightlife goes....it's magnificently sketchy. Driving home late at night during recruitment there were always cars parked in the street but no people in sight (c'est bizarre, non?). We were all convinced that Pendleton hadn't received the memo that Prohibition was indeed over and that they had some sort of speakeasy. Obvi I made it my personal mission to find it. I drove around the infamous square late one night and saw some light peeping out of a door. It turns out there's a real life bar called the Islander. All of the shades were down (sketchy) so I couldn't tell what was going on inside (i'm assuming old people boozing and discussing their recent antique purchases).
so ya, if you're in the market for some antiques or a new grandma come visit meeee
All throughout orientation I've been a representative (along with Aliza, Greg and Karen) for the College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities. Our main job is to sit on stage (look sexy) while Eddie Smith wins the parents over (with his stories, charm, and great hair). If you don't know who Eddie Smith is, you might as well crawl in a hole due to shame and embarrassment (seriously). He's a Clemson legend. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. This man has the gift of gab and has made it into a career. You should see how after he's only been talking for 2 minutes he's got the entire audience of previously disgruntled parents now googly eyed and drooling in the palm of his hand. I told ya, he's got a gift. What's even better is that despite the fact he's actually like 50, he's still basically 22 years old (you'll see what I mean later). I wish I had a picture of him for you because he's a BABE.
So at our last orientation session Eddie is all like...give me a call (he gives his cell out to everyone) and we can do lunch on Friday. We're all extremely giddy at the prospect of a lunch date with Eddie. Well Fri rolls around and operation Lunch with Eddie in in force. Greg calls him up and it turns out Eddie already has plans (he's just so popular). Sad day. Hopes and dreams crushed. BUT WAIT. Eddie suggests we should do dinner (at Wingin' It of course). OMG did we just secure a dinner date with Eddie Smith!?!? This is SO much more exciting than just a regular ol lunch date. Oh happy day! Hopes and dreams alive and kickin. We tried to make the time until the big date pass as fast as possible by going to Greenville. It worked. Before we knew it, it was DATE TIME. After some final primping we (Karen, Greg and I) headed downtown to Wingin' It (it's a bar/ wings place duh) to meet our love. Ahhh butterflies.
And so it began...
the best dinner date ever in the history of dinner dates.
After we all sat down (in a cozy, romantic booth) the waitress comes over and asks us what we want to drink. Eddie (being the babe that he is) wants to get us a pitcher which then forces each of us in our under 21 glory to go around the table saying how we're only 20. Talk about embarrassing. But being the ever gracious date, Eddie takes one for the team and says he won't drink if we can't. This little incident opened up a lovely dialogue (it was Eddies doing) on fake ID's and where you can use them dt etc etc. This was just the beginning of assorted scandalous topics we would come to discuss with a professor. We all were happily munching on the tater tot appetizer Eddie ordered as he told us story after story of Clemson's glory days. Let's see... before karaoke they held Sing-a-Longs at what's now Sardi's Den. Lyrics were written out on flip charts and if it was your birthday not only did you get to lead the sing a long but you also got to take home this sweet pointer that said "I led the sing a long." Eddie made it sound like the greatest thing ever. He told us about the midge with the raspy voice they all called Willow (among various other nick names). How could I forget about the time when he brought a 13 year old boy (he thought he was a senior in highschool) out to a party. Eddie (once again as the ever gracious host) asked one of his lady friends if she would show the kid her boobs....she did....and then the kid asked to touch them. bahah. This was Eddie's clue that he was in fact a boy just hitting puberty not graduating high school. Eddie was also super excited because the japanese students were going to be coming to town soon (he likes to make them sing "row, row, row your boat."). In other Eddie news, He was locked out of his house this morning in his boxers (who knows). Apparently Eddie is having a party next week and we're invited because "no one likes a wiener fest." He had us so enthralled in scandi conversation that we didn't realize he had already paid the bill. After hugs in the street, Eddie strutted back up the street to his apartment (conveniently located within a stumbling distance from downtown).
It was after our end of orientation banquet (yes, I cried) and we weren't in any hurry to go to sleep (that would mean that it was all really over with). What should we do? hmmmm. let's see.... it's a Wednesday night....in Clemson....in the Summer....Okay that doesn't help whatsoever (seriously nothing to do). How about... we go on ADVENTURE PART 2!!!!
Adventure Crew Pre-Adventuring
Our first attack that night was Cooper Library. Now the lib is not exactly a happenin place in mid July and lemme tell you a pack of chatty hooligans in matching sneakers don't blend in well at all. We were either trying to find another tunnel or get up on the roof (we're not picky). So we take off up the stairs to the top level of the library and search around for any sort of secret door that could get us to the roof. They're all locked (damn tricky librarians) and despite the fact that we have a couple covert locksmiths in our group and despite the fact Greg Lane has been hitting the gym 64 times a day (you should probs buy tix to his gun show)...we couldn't get in. Oh well. We go down to the bottom quiet (deadly) floors and look around for other suspicious doors to other suspicious places. Needless to say we came up empty handed. We needed to meet up with a straggler adventurer...Aliza (bear). So we go to let her in and of course the alarm starts BLARINGGGGG. We all take off different directions running up and down stairs, through aisles of books. My escape group thought we'd be super clever and pick up books and sit at desks and pretend as though we were reading. Foolproof right? Yes, especially when your in the horticulture section and are leisurely reading about different species of plants. Once we felt as though the whole alarm scandal had blown over and we would no longer be attacked by beyond middle aged women in glasses wanting to protect their precious books (sorry for stereotyping librarians), we met up with the rest of the group outside. Then we decided to go to the....MONSOON ROOM.
We made our way (not stealthily whatsoever) to where the monsoon room is located. The plan was for a few of us to climb over this giant gate thing and then let the others in. So of course the monkeys of the group flew over the gate and then a couple others tactfully climbed over. Once we were over it was pitch black and we didn't have any light (cell phones were left in the designated cell phone bag on the outside) so we did as best we could. We went up some stairs and were on top of these giant fan things and discussed matters with our friends on the other side. In the end we were unable to find the door to the monsoon room. meh. But as I always say.....the adventure must go on!
Us at the tip top looking down (use your magnifying glass)
Michelle contemplating the climb
Our next plan of action was to try yet another entrance to the underground tunnels. This entrance is a tad more obvious than the others, I mean there's a mini roof built over it. So we all gather around said mini metal roof and start to pull (hoping for a group strength miracle). It didn't budge and you could see the lock plain as day. Bummer. We start walking and realize there's a car at the end of the cul de sac. Oh wait that's not just your average car parked at midnight on a Wednesday outside Lee Hall. That my friends is a COP CAR. Yes, the fuzz had been watching us the entire time and we just so happen to be walking right towards him. He flashed his lights. Oh balls oh balls oh balls. What should we do? In a millisecond we had another foolproof plan in place. We walked over to the giant sculpture and pretended like we were just walking around taking pictures (lame). Then we turned and walked the other way and thankfully the boys in blue stayed in their car. Whew that was a close one.
We then went to the Union because we wanted to get on da roof. So we used the handy dandy trashcan as a boost and climbed on top of the student government offices. We crept along until we were safely out of direct eyesight (bc most people walk around at night looking for people on the tops of buildings). We make our way to this tower/stand thing and climb the ladder to get to the top where we took some pics (duh).
Then we spied that a window in Johnstone (for those who don't know better, it's a dorm) was open. We made a beeline for it an boosted everyone through. We decided we should try and get to the top of J-stone (which would be much higher than we already were). We all piled in the service elevator (straight out of 1934) and hit the button for the top floor. Of course it made the whole building shake, startling the weasel of an RA that was working (hell is currently beginning to break loose). We get off the elevator and low and behold Mr. RA himself was coming up the stairs. This is how the next minute played out....
RA: "What are you guys doing in here?" (in a shaky, scared voice)
The Group: "uhhh" "yada yada yada" "mumble mumble" (psh please, if he only knew)
RA: "There's no girls allowed" (spoken like a prepubescent boy, voice cracking included)
Greg: takes off sprinting down the hallway (Jackie and Healy follow immediately)
The Group: mumbles something and then take off following those sprinting
***THE CHASE IS ON***
We literally fly down the stairs jumping actual flights as the measly RA tries to keep up. He almost nabs Michelle but of course our physical prowess prevails. We bust out of the doors and start running through the Quad (trying to play it off as part of our normal nightly sprint). I'm not sure whatever happened to the RA (he probs had to stop and use his inhaler).
We walked (ready to sprint at the sight of any car) down to the stadium. After hanging out (and taking pics) with the new bronze tigers we were ready to tackle breaking in the stadium....again. This time we marched in like we owned the place (please, we're pros). This time we go over to The Hill and lay down and do a lil star gazing (among other super cool things). We hang out for a good while (just chillin) and then some people run down the hill while others (including me) log roll down. Wild times. Then we all did a 100 yard dash across the field. Thank you Death Valley for being our playground.
Ladies (plus Huu)
Fellas (plus Huu)
THE ROCK
And yet another epic adventure goes down in history
So for all of you who aren't lucky enough to be Clemson students, we kinda have our own bucket list of things to do before you graduate. Now I haven't felt much pressure by this list probs because I have no idea of when I'm actually graduating, but it does serve as a good list of shenanigans to get into.
shhh secret book business
One thing on the list involves signing a book. Now I'm not going to tell you what book or where/ how you find out about it (I've got to preserve some mystery, sheesh). Anywho I signed said book earlier this year but some other ambassadors wanted to sign it too. So I went along for the ride (walk) for the whole book shindig. I don't know how it happened but all of the sudden after the book was signed and put back in its resting place we decided that we must continue on scratching things off the ol clemson bucket list. So we set our sights on finding an underground tunnel. Once again for those of you who don't go to Clemson....we have this system of underground tunnels on campus and most of them have been locked up (to keep scoundrels like us out). Legend has it that you get expelled if anyone catches you in the tunnel yada yada yada yada. Anywho we were determined to find one and after all of us polling the sketchy clemson people we knew we came up with the conclusion that the entrance in the Union was open. We all go bebopping down to the Union and follow our secret directions (through back staircases etc) to....THE DOOR TO THE TUNNEL. Greg gives it a tug and of course the door to such greatness is locked. We spent a solid 10 minutes trying everything we could think of to get into that darn door. All of the girls' bobby pins were destroyed in the efforts. Grown men were brought to tears (maybe). Let's face it, that door bested us. We scraped our egos off the ground and headed out of the Union to where another possible entrance would be. As we were making our way out Greg opens this random door and guess what was behind it....THE TUNNEL. Ahhhhh we all screamed (like 5th grade girls who had just seen Justin Bieber). It was basically this brick room with a hole into the tunnel. There was even a handy dandy chair there for easy entrance and exit. We all jump down the hole (after the flashlight app had been safely downloaded to all iphones) and start rummaging around. It's nothing but pipes, dust, and other assorted grossness. Those of us over 3 feet tall were forced to squat and crawl through it. We made it pretty far before we would have to be as flat as a pancake to get through. So we turned around and made our way out. Sweet success!
the entrance
excitement
crawlin creepin
epic cell phone flashlight usage
After we climbed our way out from under the Union it was time to head on to stop number three on this adventure.....THE FOOTBALL STADIUM.....aka Memorial Stadium aka Death Valley aka the police station is attached to it (aka this was going to be tricky). We headed to where we thought the easiest way in would be. Some of our group opted to be lookouts and we had to get everyone else (and their various sized biceps) over a 10 foot (give or take) fence. Not quite as easy as opening a door and jumping down a shaft. We needed to use a (once thought useless) skill that we learned at our team retreat at the beginning of the summer. At said team retreat we had to get each member over this giant wall using sheer manpower (while a certain grumpy old lady *cough* NANCY *cough* yelled at us). So we set up our little tripods with spotters of course and started getting people over. Not too shabby if you ask me. Anywho as we're all jumping off the dumpster Greg scrapes up his shins pretty badly. Now don't start feeling bad for him (it gave him a new word of advice to tell all the freshies and their fams at the mornings orientation intros). We sprint off to get inside the stands and omgggggg it was awesome. You're used to it being packed with 86,000 screaming fans and now it's just you and your friends in complete silence. Ahh chills. We debated on whether we should go out on the field and then just balls to the wallled it and ran down steps and jumped down onto the field. We walked over to the East Endzone and spent about 5 minutes working out the self timer on Aliza's camera. As we were taking pics, KT (lookout number 1) texted Tricia saying there was a cop on the phone outside. AW HELL NO. We all take off in a dead sprint to the exit. Never have I ever run so fast in my life. We all CJ Spiller-ed it (not exaggerating in the slightest) basically the entire length of the field. I thought I could get over the wall to the stands in a single bound (obvi I was out of my mind at this point). After a second try (and some help from Greg) I was over and we started helping everyone else. Everyone was over except Michelle (this proves to be a recurring theme) bless her heart. We dragged her over and took off up all 987 steps. We made it back to our trusty dumpster and jumped over to safe ground. We were bloody, sweaty, panting, and suffering mild heart attacks. I used all of the .02 ounces of athleticism I have in my body in that escape.
self timer at it's best
rawrrrrr???
I'm sure you're probably thinking we're probably going to call it a night. False. There's two more stops on this adventure train. We parade down to the football practice fields to climb the tower. OK, so maybe it wasn't a parade and maybe we had to make a quick stop to call lovely Jackie an escort (yes, despite all of our mischief we are still good people). After taking some pictures with the tombstones we surveyed the best way to get in. We decided to slide on our stomachs underneath the fence. This involved us flattening ourselves to be about 3 inches thick (not easy when you got a donk). Of course after we all squeeze through, we see a GIANT opening like 10 feet to our left. Sheesh. We take off to the tower and turns out it's made out of this spiky metal (not exactly the friendliest stuff). Huu climbs up it like the little jumping bean he is and Greg is soon to follow. Several boosts later, everyone is over except me. Now it was time to call on all I "learned" in my rock climbing leisure skills class. I was making it over pretty easily until precious Tricia tried to help and ended up punching me in the eye. It was quite a site. Anywho we fought back the cobwebs and made to the top of the tower where of course we took pictures (photographic documentation was extremely important to us that night). We then bebopped down and headed to our last and final stop.
Our last stop was the REFLECTION POND. Now if you know anything about anything, you know that the reflection pond is freakin far away from the practice fields. So by the time we had good ol Coop in our sights our adrenaline was gone and we were battered and bruised. Once all shoes were taken off and electronic devices stowed safely away from the water, we made the moves to get in the pond. On someone with decent legs (not my nubs) the water was probably mid thigh height. To avoid just awkwardly walking around in the pond we all got in a circle holding hands and went under on the count of three went under (cut us some slack, cheesy is a job requirement for us). Then we walked our soggy selves back to Byrnes (Buns) for a couple hours of sleep before orientation in the morning.
After a couple weeks of nonstop orientation-ing, we were all looking forward to our long 4th o' July weekend. Most ambassadors were either going home or on some mini vaca. I was being harassed left and right about what my plans were and me being not much of a planner to begin with of course had none. Sooo Greg and I decided to tell people we were going on a road trip (we're big talkers). Lemme back up real quick. Some of you might be a little confused. There's a new Greg in my life. It's a real hassle because before I would refer to my dad as Greg when conversing with my friend population (or blogging for that matter). From now on I reckon I have to start calling my dad...dad (bleh). Well New Greg is a fellow orientation ambassador and this boy is the cheese to my macaroni. Now enough about Greg...back to the real story.
Me and New Greg on the job
So after talking up big plans of a road trip (destination unknown) all week it was finally Friday and everyone scurried off to their respective hot spots while Greg and I stayed in Clemmy. Obvi you can't kick off an epic road trip to who knows where in the late afternoon. So we decided to have din din at 356. After being stuck in orange polos and khakis for what seemed 64 years we may or may not have been overly dramatic and dressed up a little too much for dinner in downtown Clemson. That was perfectly fine but the fact that we were matching (on accident, promise) was slightly ridiculous. We further embarrassed ourselves when the waiter asked "Have you heard of our dollar vodkas?" and the only response we could manage (after much stuttering and stammering) was "no." Well at least the food was good.
chips and salsa?
Well Saturday I didn't wake up until 3pm (freshmen take a lot out of you) so there went the trip. We decided to head to Greenville for a late dinner. We wanted to go balls to the wall and try new things. After pacing up and down the streets of downtown Greenville looking at all the choices, we settled on Handi. It's an Indian restaurant and having never had Indian cuisine before I was super pumped. We may or may not have been wearing matching outfits again and we may or may not have been the only ones in the entire restaurant. Anywho they brought us the Indian version of chips and salsa. This like paper thin bread with green salsa-ish stuff. It was delish of course. After reading the novel of a menu for about 8 hours we finally made our meal decisions. We got the Onion Bhajia as an appetizer. It's like onions fried in this sort of spinach batter with this sweet red sauce for dipping. I took one bite. Then I died. It was sooooo gooood! I couldn't wait for my meal of Chicken Bhuna to arrive. I had no idea what to expect. They brought out each of our little dishes with our meat and sauce and then there was a GIANT pile of rice for us to share (nevermind the fact that we needed more). Mine was chicken and mushrooms in this spicy spicy red sauce. It did not disappoint whatsoever. Greg's was in this crazy orangey-yellow sauce. We were both sniffling the whole time and drank approximately 4 gallons of water.
Post dinner we took a stroll through Falls Park. We stumbled upon this shrine to Furman's original campus so we read up on some Paladin history. We also peeped in all sorts of little art galleries. I had no idea they had so many (I applaud you G-Vegas). As we were going up the steps leaving Falls Park my gracefulness really shone through. I definitely FELL UP the stairs. Thankfully no blood was shed and only my ego was bruised. Well we worked up an appetite for some ice cream (also I needed to eat my feelings to recover fromt he fall) and as fate would have it, there was a Spill The Beans right there. Now I'm sure you're probably getting ready to yell at me for going somewhere that we have in Clemson especially when I'm supposed to be being adventurous. Just calm yourself down because we decided to make all new flavors (therefore balls still on the wall). I got chocolate (duh) yogurt with strawberries and dark chocolate chips. Not gonna lie I was probably more nervous about this new flavor than I was about the Chicken Bhuna. Turns out holy crap I made the best decision of my life with that combo. Perfection!
I can't really remember much of what I did on July 4th. Who am I kidding? It probably involved sleeping a lot and eating a lot. I do remember that night (in our usual extremely cool ways) we drove around looking for fireworks. We could hear them all around us but failed epically at finding them until we drove back home and boom there they all were. Good joke fireworkers real funny.
Today we're headed to Zion National Park. After a quick bfast and 2 chocolate chip cookies (to-go) we said see ya later suckass to the Jacob Lake Inn. We drove a couple hours and all of the sudden we were in Utah at Zion. Zion was ahhhhhhhhmazing. soo sooo pretty. We drove through this mile long tunnel through one of the rocks (kinda scary not gonna lie). We made it to the visitors center where of course we were looking for mugs. And guess what? THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY. Trip ruined. We should just leave. But after some hemming and hawing we decided on which hike to take. We were on a bit of a time crunch so it had to be a quickie (that's what she said). We decided on the Emerald Pools Trail. It was only 1.2 miles round trip (we were being veryyyy lazy). We took the shuttle to the Zion Lodge to get on the trail and before we got off the driver said there were souvenirs and restaurants there (this was our kinda place). We started down the trail (I think we picked the shadiest trail the desert has to offer). It was really pretty walking along. We made it to the "emerald" (brown) pool in no time at all. We were able to walk under the rock and get a waterfall shower. It felt delicious. We skipped on back to the lodge for souvenirs and lunch. Apparently this was where you could purchase fine Zion mugs. After carefully weighing all of our options we decided on these bamf yellow ones. the guy behind us in line caught a glimpse of them and had to get him one too. We asked the cashier where we should go eat and she starts rambling about the soup upstairs. Once we leave the guy behind us starts questioning her about the soup, where to eat, etc. He had to have everything we did. It was rather humorous. We went upstairs to eat and I got half a turkey sandwich and some of this lady's fave chicken noodle soup. It was definitely plain ol soup. I don't know what it is about these people out here but they definitely need to get out and try some better food. We took the shuttle back to the car and we perused around this gallery before we left. The guy's name is Michael Fatali and homeboy takes some insane pictures. They were all so bright and vivid but he loves himself a little too much. He had quotes of things he's said blown up gigantic all around the gallery. Whoaa there bud. Let's take it back a notch
Well we then got in the car and drove through the sweet tunnel again and headed to Page, AZ. It was a long ride mainly because we were driving through such desolation. The few houses scattered about looked like they were just made out of plywood. I'm not sure how anyone survives out there. But we crossed the Lake Powell (it's an actual lake!) Dam and were in Page in our hotel in no time. The babies were weary and needed a snack. So after some ritz bitz, Gardetto's and Seinfeld we were feeling much better. We went and saw our Mexican friends at Los Delfines for dinner. Some crazy decorations in there lemme tell ya but the food was goood. Enchiladas a la crema hit the spot. We watched some of the sunset and called it a night (after watching The Office and 30 Rock of course).
To sum it up- Zion is pretty/they have a good mug selection, Fatali has the best pics of all, and Seinfeld and snacks can cure pretty much anything
This was our last morning in the Grand Canyon so we had to go out big. We went back to El Tovar for breakfast. Sadly our waiter wasn't Rick and didn't have any cool signals (this further confirms my CIA hypothesis). It didn't matter because our table was facing the canyon and I had a bottomless cup of coffee. After carefully (and I mean carefully) reviewing the menu I decided to get the pancakes. Before you judge, know that these weren't just any pancakes drowning in butter and syrup....It was a pancake trio. One pancake was made with buckwheat, one was made with blue corn and of course they had one buttermilk. They came with prickly pear syrup (it's a flower on a cactus and it tasted just like a flower so I passed). They were delicious and humongous so I only managed to scarf down half before dying. That marked the end of our stat and we were moving on to Jacob Lake. We stopped on our way out to climb the watch tower and get one last glimpse from way up in the air (of course it was as awesome as always). We were confined to the car for 2 1/2 hours driving through literally the middle of nowhere in the desert. I tried to busy myself with finding sweet tunes on the radio but after awhile everything was static (I told you middle of nowhere).
Anywho we took the turn for Jacob Lake and were searching for the Jacob Lake Inn. Now maybe it's just me but when you hear the name "Jacob Lake Inn" I'm picturing a nice small inn on a big beautiful lake. WRONG (again). The lake is actually not a lake, it's basically just a depression in the ground where snow melts. I wouldn't even call it a pond. Now back to the inn...We almost missed it because it looks basically like a general store from 60 years ago (come to find out later it was built in 1923). We go inside and it's a "hotel," souvenir store, art gallery, sweet shop, and restaurant. They do it all. Our room (oh you just wait) wasn't ready and we were ravenous from our journey through the desert. Since it was the only choice we took a seat in the Jacob Lake Inn restaurant. We ordered a couple of burgers (they went down easy). Rows of cookies were staring at us and they claim they're the best out west so we got some oatmeal raisin ones (they were average).
Our room was finally ready so we drove down this gravel road between the inn and the gas station and there were single cabins and a few one story low strips of rooms. We pulled up to ours and I had no idea what was going to be behind door 56. For starters the walls were a lovely blend of concrete and wood panelling. There was a tiny (I think you could fit 2 plates on it) round table with three chairs just hanging out randomly in the middle of the room. The sink/mirror station was about one foot from my bed. I'm sure you're probably asking "Now Healy, What about the bathroom?!?!" Well after some searching we found it. The light switch is on the outside and when the door is open you can't get to it (highly frustrating). Once you maneuver turning the lights on, the toilet is about a foot from the wall in front of it and it's made for small children. There is a giant water heater blatantly right beside it. Across from that is the shower. If you are over 5'7" you will have to duck to get any water on your head. all of said water goes directly on the floor because there's no curb to it. They did have towels but they begged you not to use them to wash your car or RV with. Seriously...they had several framed signs in the room stating this. Well we had a good laugh for a solid 10 minutes until we realized there wasn't a TV and that the American Idol finale was tonight. Since we couldn't do anything else we passed out for a couple hours.
We did see that an area attraction was a fire tower so we drove 2 minutes to climb it (doin big things, I know). That was fun until the wind ame close to blowing us off. We wanted to watch the sunset so we drove a ways to get to a viewpoint at the edge of the Kaibab plateau. We get there probably an hour and a half early. This gave me a great opportunity to get some journaling in as the sun started to go down (I know, my coolness astounds you). We had the best view of the "Grand Staircase National Monument." It's just like tiered mountainous things but boy was that sunset worth a 90 minute wait. It was absolutely beeeeeeeeautiful. Now I love sunsets, seriously I do. And I've seen a decent amount in my day and this was definitely one of the best. I might go as far as putting it in my top 3. Don't worry, I took lots of pictures. Towards the end you had the sun setting in front of you and if you turned around you could see the full moon starting to show in the sky. EPIC.
Well it was getting late and time for some grub so we headed back to none other than the Jacob Lake Inn restaurant. Apparently Jacob lake shuts down early because it was just after 8 and their dining room was closed so we had to sit at the "counter" (basically a no alcohol bar.bleh) Well we ordered their signature chicken sandwich and it was just aiight. then it was time for desert. They've been raving about their precious pie since we got there so we figured we had to get a slice. Our waiter was adamant about their scrumptiousness. He was even so bold as to claim that people who don't like a pie flavor will eat a piece of theirs and love it. Well we decided to split a piece of apple (we're kinda apple pie whores if you haven't noticed). He places it down in front of us so pleased with it. We take one bite and realize that this pie is not good. After a few more bites we can safely say that this was in fact the worst slice of apple pie we've ever had. There weren't enough apples and there was too much goo. It also didn't help that they emptied the jars of cinnamon and nutmeg into it. After we expressed concern over these peoples taste buds and pie experiences, we had a real good laugh.
To sum it up Jacob Lake has fantastic sunsets and horrible pie
Today we were going to hike in the canyon so of course we needed a good breakfast. We went down to the Bright Angel lodge and guzzled coffee and ate eggs and potatoes and such. Our waiter didn't have us do any signaling much to our disappointment but our water girl was pretty funny. A ton of the people who work at the lodges are from different countries and this girl was from Thailand. She was as cute as she could be. She was obvi real excited to be learning english and of course needed to know cool phrases. So we overhear her asking the other waiters what "chill" means. Except she pronounces it "cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel" Presh.
Anywho it was time for us to hit the Bright Angel Trail. We were off to a slow start because the Koin Bros Studio was right there. They were having an exhibit I guess on paintings of the Grand Canyon so we had to check em out. They were all actually very nicely done. Mell gets the win though...his was delicious. Anywho we got to walking again (this time for good). Now I've done a solid amount of hiking in my day and I'm used to hiking up to the top and then making my way down. Not here...you start the top, hike down and then back up again. There's all sorts of warnings about hiking thru at the park saying it's a lot harder than you think it is yada yada yada don't try and go to the bottom and back up in one day blah blah blah. These warning were not wasted on my because I've seen the Grand Canyon episode of I Shouldn't Be Alive. Anywho I start flying (I have no concept of pacing myself hence I don't run) down the canyon. The trail is pure dust so there's a cloud of it following us. We passed people who are huffing and puffing like no other on their way back up. Right now I'm thinking they're being slightly dramatic (I may or may not change my mind later) Walking down into the canyon I started to appreciate it even more. I could see so many more angles of it than I could at the top. While we were hiking this guy sort of joined our group. We got to chatting and guess what? He's awesome! He's doing a cross country road trip by himself. He started in PA and has been all sorts of crazy cool places. I sure do love people with spirit.
We made it down to the first little shelter/rest stop which is idk a couple miles down (easy peasy). We headed off trail just past that and hung on a rock on the very edge. Um talk about awesome. I kicked my shoes off and soaked it in all its glory. It was scrumptious. I was really hoping I could nap out there all day and maybe some nice man in a helicopter would pick me up in time for dinner. Since that obviously wasn't going to happen, I laced up my kicks and started truckin towards the top. We go a decent amount before the blazin sun and my lack of pacing catches up so we found some shade and had a drink. We ended up having to make quite a few of these stops. They weren't lyin...it is harder than you think. The sun was beating down something fierce so a cool shady rock was the prime break location. I was amazed at what some people thought was a good idea to wear hiking in the Grand Canyon. Sure there were people in awkward real life clothes, some in lil canvas shoes, others in big baggy gangsta jorts. But my fave had to have been Mr. Trendy himself. Homeboy was wearing BLACK SKINNY JEANS, vans type shoes, and a sweet tank (I'm thinking American Apparel). I applaud you sir, for not letting the heat or the canyon get in the way of your style.
Anywho we are getting closer to the top and I'm sweating like no other. All I wanted to do was take my clothes off. But considering the amount of people (from various cultures) and all of the dust, i decided to persevere clothed (bleh). Well we made it out (finally) alive and cooled off before lunch. Who cares what I ate for lunch. I sure didn't. All I wanted was an ice cream cone. When we came out of the canyon everyone was licking their gian ice cream cones just mockin gme. So after lunch I sprinted (okay I walked) to get a cone of espresso chip. OMG it was everything I had hoped and dreamed. All of this sugar gave me the strength to go souvenir shopping. We collect mugs from the different places we go and we've been talking about the prospective Grand Canyon mug for weeeeeeks now. For some reason we were under the impression that they would have the best mugs of all time. WRONG. They wer all pretty fugly. Now I know you're probs calling us mug snobs but seriously their selection was lacking. After pacing in front of the mug rack for a solid 10 minutes we finally decided (settled) on a lil green mugh. We then went back to the lodge for a much needed stretch out on the bed.
We wanted to watch the sunset so we scurried off to an early dinner. I had a buffalo chicken quesadilla. It was tasty and spicy. But anyways we went to start taking pics of the canyon and low and behold my dad had his camera with him but his battery was back at the room. Balls. There goes our fun. We tried to get back to our room to get it before the sun set but no such luck. Instead we watched a lil bit of DWTS (long enough to see Derek Hough) and American Idol. By now night had really settled in and the moon was HUMONGOUS so we had to venture out and see what the canyon looked like. We beebopped on over to Yavapai observation point. Ahhh take my breath away why dontcha. The canyon was glowing like no other. We walked out onto this point to soak it all in. It was so quiet and peaceful. I don't think the moon has ever shone brighter. as bizzarre as this sounds I really wanted to dive off the edge (insanity). Once we could tear ourselves away we headed to get some dessert. we had our eye on the "Warm Apple Grunt" since we arrived. Lemme tell you unlike the mugs, it did NOT disappoint. It was this lil bowl filled with baked apples and granola topped with a big ol scoop of vanilla ice cream. mmm goooood. I say it was worth missing Glee. Of course we had to see who won DWTS so we bebopped back to the room and made it just in time to see the winner (obvi it was derek)
To sum it up- Black skinny jeans are inappropriate hiking attire (even if it is trendy tuesday), seeing the grand canyon lit up by the moon may make you suicidal and warm apple grunts taste a heck of a lot better than their name.
One thing you need to know about my dad and I is that we love a leisurely breakfast and when we go on vacation we search out the best bfast spot in town. Today was no different. We consulted our bff Ram at the front desk and he told us to go to the Sedona Airport Restaurant. Not quite an appetizing name. I was a little skeptical but I had to trust my buddy Ram (he had in fact led me to the holy grail of burritos). We took a shuttle up to it and it was a teeeeeeny airport on top of a butte (yes, butte) for lil propeller planes. The restaurant was literally right beside the runway (freakin sweet). Another thing you need to know is that on vaca cofffee is free game, as opposed to in real life where my dad limits my intake so I won't have a heart attack. So needless to say, I was knocking back the coffee and perusing the menu until I saw....pumpkin bread french toast. I had to get it (let's be serious, I countdown the days until Einsteins has pumpkin bagels and pumpkin cream cheese). I ordered it and my dad ordered the eggs benedict (homeboy loves eggs benedict). Anywho I tried to pass the time by looking out the window and drinking more and more coffee (which made me very jittery and anxious for my french toast). FINALLY it arrived in all it's glory. I buttered it as fast as my lil hands could and took a big bite. Then I died. It was defreakinlicious. The best I've ever had and my stomach thanked me for making such a good choice.
After breakfast we went to Exposures International Art Gallery. Greg was in heaven (and we only scoped out the outside). It had tons of massive southwest-y sculptures (think buffalo, indians, eagles etc). These things were something else. I mean if an eagle is going to cost you $550,000 (I'm not exaggerating in the slightest) I guess it better be special. Once my dad stopped drooling, We went to another place called Tlaquepaque where we went in all sorts of neat little art galleries. Then we had to part ways with Ram (tears may or may not have been shed).
studly Indian at Exposures
Now we were headed to the GRAND CANYON. We essentially drove 2 hours going farther and farther into the middle of nowhere (a few random trailers scattered about). So finally we get to the park and I was famished (this is the only time I get cranky). Needless to say we had to get some food in me fast so we ate at this food court type deal at the Yavapai Lodge (cold taco pizza not worth writing about blah). Now I perked back up so we could go see the canyon finally! We check out a map and start walking towards what we think is the rim. WRONG. It was the path to some lodge. We walk back and regroup at our map and start walking again. This time we think we're on it! WRONG. We walked for a solid amount of time and then when we we were walking past where the employees lived and some sort of hut with chemicals we thought we must be going the wrong way. So we trek back to our map of lies and find the right route...FINALLY. Once we were on the right track, it was a real quick and easy walk to the rim. And all of the sudden....there it was....the Grand Canyon. It was pretty shocking. I wish I was a somewhat competent writer so I could properly use adjectives and give you a worthy description. But I'm not. Sorry. All I can tell you is that it feels like I got on the Magic School Bus and it took me to the inside of a postcard. We walked around the rim snappin pics for a while and then we checked into our room at the Yavapai Lodge.
Check out the California Condors
We had a much needed little siesta until it was time for dinner. On our way we saw a car pulled over on the side of the road and a lady was waving her arms frantically at us. I was fully prepared o jump out of our car and perform a minor surgery but she was just showing us the elk. There were probably a dozen elk total on both sides of the road eating their dinner. A few even crossed the street right in front of our car. Pretty exciting way to kick off the night.
We ate dinner at the restaurant at El Tovar. It's this ancient hotel that was the fanciest of fancy back in the day ( I mean it's still pretty fancy now). Anywho I knew I was going to be in for some good eats. Our waiter was this man in his 50's named Rick and boy was he a character. I don't know if he was in the CIA or if he went to professional waiter school but he sure acted like it. He gave us our menus and said we wouldn't see him until we stood a menu up on the table (he demonstrated this in case there was some confusion). We could hardly wait til he left to start giggling. He referenced this and other secret signals throughout the night. I bout died. Anywho back to the food. whenever I'm out to eat nice places I enjoy getting exotic pork dishes (weird, I know). So tonight I got the pork chop with this gouda sauce and green chile cornbread stuffing. It was OMG delish. We spied another table getting their own individual silver pitchers of coffee, so of course we had to get on that. We gave Rick a signal and we said we wanted to split a piece of apple pie and have some coffee. He was adamant that we get the pie "a la mode" We said no thanks, and he said it's really good like that and we again said NO. IDK if Rick has been stuck out in the canyon for a while but there's apple pie a la mode everywhere and we've had it before obvi and tonight we just didn't want it. Well it gave us a good chuckle. Our individual pitchers of coffee came and oooooo was it good. The pie was scrumptious too (even without the ice cream Rick)
We went outside to check out the canyon at night. It's definitely my favorite when the sun is down and the moon is up. The inside of the canyon has this silvery glow and it looks so soft and tranquil. You can see every single star in the sky and ooo baby do they shine bright. It was really something else. We headed back to the room and realized we missed DWTS. We were bummed. All I wanted to see was Derek Hough (sexy, can I?) work it.
To sum it up...I'm pretty sure there's pumpkin break french toast on the menu in Heaven. The Grand Canyon scores a 100 on the epic scale. And I'm almost certain Rick was once a member of the CIA.
This is a long distance post coming to you all the way from Sedona, Arizona. Ya see, today my dad and I embarked on our semi epic adventure out West. Over the next 6 days we'll be spelunkering around the Grand Canyon ( and other place to see and be seen). But let me back up and tell you all thats happened so far.
We flew out of Charlotte, NC this morning. Now normally I would skip such a minor detail, BUT there was quite the character sitting in the row in front of me that you have to hear about. So before we took off, she was being obnoxiously chatty ( originally I was giving her the caffeine high benefit of the doubt, but no). Anywho I can hear everything she says and she's talking about where she can put her hermit crabs. Homegirl (who is in her 30's btw) has 3 hermit crabs with her on the plane!!! After a battle with the flight attendent she reluctantly puts them and their "hermit crab hotel" on the floor. Soon after she fell asleep (the rows around her were ecstatic at this development). We could all have some peace. Everything was fine and dandy until we landed. She goes to check on the crabs and she shouts that one of them is in and I quote "critical condition" And the scene begins. She's holding the crab that needs to be ushered immediately to the ICU in her hand and legitimately starts breathing on it like she was giving it CPR or something. The whole time she's doing this, she's also shouting out hermit crab facts (they need 70% humidity etc). I felt so bad for the poor guy next to her because she kept shoving the sickly crab in his face. I do believe she's a nut.
Okay so we arrived safely (minus 1 hermit crab) in Phoenix and OMG is it different than Clemson (obvi). It's completely flat aside from the dune-ish mountains. The whole landscape is like one neutral color (even the houses look dusty). We got our rental car and started heading towards Sedona (like 2 hours away). We were ravenous so we pulled of on the Happy Valley exit. I' mean with a name like that, theres got to be some good eats right? Low and behold they had a Mellow Mushroom! Can you believe it? I couldn't...I was certain it was some mirage brought on by me being in the desert. But after one bite of that Mighty Meaty pizza, I knew it was legit. After our faces were sufficiently stuffed, we kept on truckin to Sedona. And OMG it is crazy beautiful. It definitely kicks Phoneix's bootay. As my dad was driving I was having to take pictures with both mine and his camera. I was snappin shots left and right out of the window. We stopped gawking long enough to check in at our hotel (with sick nasty views).
We consulted with the guy working at the front desk (his name is Ram and he's my new best friend) about where we should eat. He suggested a place called Javelina Cantina. OOO baby did Ram steer us right. It was so warm and cozy inside (the perfect atmosphere for me to stuff my face with chips and homemade salsa). I ordered the chicken and vegetable burrito and it was BANGIN. Seriously, the best burrito I've ever had (suck it Moe's, Monterreys, and San Jose). My dad got the salmon tostada and he still hasn't stopped talking about it. We were definitely members of the CPC (clean plate club) tonight. After dinner we walked around and peeped in windows (of stores) hoping the sun would start to set. And of course it did because I mean obviously it's the sun and it's kind of predictable. But anywho the sunset was ahhhhhmazing. I'm really hoping my camera did it justice.
To sum up the day---Don't give hermit crabs CPR in public, it's weird. Javelina Cantina is da bomb and Sedona is beyond cool.
Now tomorrow we're headed to the Grand Canyon. I can't wait to see how a landscape can get more epic than the one I'm looking at right now. I'm pumped.
Yes, that's right, I Healy Rose Fitzpatrick am in L-O-V-E. I'm in love with a little thing called Leadershape and it's people. It was beyond the 6 most meaningful days of my life. I could talk about it for days, but I'll try and spare you my ramblings as best I can and just give you some of the highlights.
Day 1
AHHH we found out our family clusters! We spent a ton of time with our family throughout the week reflecting and discussing. I will talk more about my AMAZING family later (they deserve they're own post).
Day 2- The Value of One, The Power of All
Today we got to do a little community service. Me being the nature loving girl that I am, was excited to go to Greenworks and we may or may not have taken a few wrong turns trying to get there. It's an awesome non-profit focused on beautifying and cleaning up the Asheville community. Since it was kinda g-ross that day, we worked inside opening hundreds of little cigarette butt holders, pairing gloves, and making sweet bundles of trash bags. We beasted these tasks in like .2 seconds and were ready for some more, so we went on down the street to clean off a sidewalk. This is when things got exciting. As we were shoveling and raking our little hearts out, we heard a scream. We look and a car hit a girl on a bicycle. The poor girl is down on the ground and the car backs up and then goes screeching off. Who does that?? Luckily we were there and were able to call for help and bless her heart, she ended up being fine. But if you're in Asheville and you see a female with a dark complexion and no heart driving a black sentra, you best call the police.
Highlight number 2-tacooooooooos for lunch and churroooooooos for desert
We also took the DISC personality test and oooo baby we referred to our types all week. D was dodminance, I was influence, S was steadiness, and C was conscientiousness. Guess which one I was....I'm an I. I's are basically super enthusiastic and optimistic and they're very persuasive. Congratulations DISC test, you nailed me.
Day 3- Challenging What is, Looking to What Could Be
Today was the day we started creating our visions. We wrote down all of the things we care about, our passions, etc and what we want to create in the world.We shared all of this in our families and then used it to create a vision. My vision was that I want Clemson students to raise enough money to build a school in Pakistan through Greg Mortenson's (author of Three Cups of Tea) Central Asia Institute . And I want his book to be required summer reading and I want him to come and speak to Clemson students. And, and, and, and more exciting stuff. Everyone had super awesome visions and it was great to see all of the positivity.
After dinner that night we had the opportunity to get to know some Clemson leaders (the people that always send you emails). Since Student Affairs is my jam, I tried to talk to all of the people there that dealt with it. I soaked it all in and lemme tell you, it was delicious. I'm starting to think I'm probably never going to leave college.
Day 4- Bringing Vision to Reality
Big things happened today....there was an earthquake! Okay so maybe it wasn't a real earthquake and it was just an earthquake scenario but we sure did treat it as if it were a matter of life or death. We had to rank our steps of survival individually and then come to a consensus as a group. Even though it took us a while, and we had some disagreements, we finally decided on our survival steps. We scored ourselves and guess what? We did awesome! My score by myself was a whopping 34 but with all of our noggins together, we got a primo score of 6. Oh heyyyy awesome teamwork! The whole point of this exercise was to discuss different group behaviors. You've got your Task-Oriented Behaviors (TOB's), Maintenance-Oriented Behaviors (MOB's), and you can't forget those dreaded SOB's- Self Oriented Behaviors. It was neat to see how different people took on these roles without even knowing that they were. One thing about Leadershape is that I learned a new set of vocabulary that I can't let go and sometimes I get funny looks when I use it in the real world.
OMG I almost forgot to tell you about StarPower. Okay so all day rumors had been flying around saying that tonight we were going to do something that would make us cry. Um so obviously I was not exactly looking forward to this. I mean who likes crying? Anywho after the suspense could build no more, we went inside and awaited our fate. It turns out we were just playing a game...cough...I mean a simulation. So you got different colored chips and tried to trade up. I had no idea what was going on so I just traded to talk to people and cashed in asap. I did surprisingly well and was in the top tier. Well I won't harp on any more details but this was all an exercise of power and class. So we had a nice discussion with everyone and then again in our families.
Day 5
We talked all about some integrity today. It was stressed how important it is to lead with integrity. What you believe on the inside needs to match your actions on the outside.We also shared our core values with each other which was nice.
There was also a little skit show that night. Each family came up with a skit about stuff we did that week and omg was it funny. I was laughing my pants off. There was a spoken word/interpretive dance combo, a real world spin off, and even an Allan from the Hangover look-a-like.
After the show we went off in our families to have a final heart-to-heart. We got to share how we felt about each other. So what if my family talked from 8pm to 2am? Who cares if I had to eat my feelings in pepperoni pizza? We love each other that much and I will never let them go.
So after all of that love, there was no point in me going to sleep. Besides, I wanted to spend as much time with these people as I possibly could before having to head back to reality. So Taylor, Nate, and me committed to staying up all night. Of course we had story time and played scrabble with our own rules. As I recall in a state of delirium we actually started playing with the bugs that flew in and tried to make them our pets. Don't judge, we were tired. Anywho we decided to go on a walk at sunrise and we went spelunkering down by the lake. We tried skipping rocks but we weren't to good at it so we just threw rocks in the lake and made a symphony. It was beyond fantastic.
Day 6
Woo hoo! We had our graduation today! We were all dressed up and there was a ceremony and everything. It was so so nice. We held hands and someone read "There's Something in These Hills." Yep, there may have been a few tears in my eyes...that one gets me every time. Then we stuffed our faces with pizza on the bus and headed back to Clemson. I didn't want to get off that bus! I didn't want the experience to end. But I know it won't, I'll even stalk these people down if I have to.
Final Thoughts
Leadershape was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. Not only did I gain new leadership knowledge, but I learned so much about myself and others. Diversity is seriously one of my favorite things and it made me so happy how much of it there was at Leadershape. I cherish being able to listen to different people's views and thoughts on things. I was also able to reflect about what I really believe in and I was able to share that with a group of people who I knew would appreciate it even if they didn't feel the same way. After attending Leadershape, I feel like a brand spankin new person. Well actually I guess I feel just purely Healy. I was able to get rid of all the clutter that's built up and clouded my sense of self and now I'm exactly me. And it feels fantastic. I guess I went into the experience hoping I'd learn a little somethin somethin about leadership and make some new friends. Little did I know that at Leadershape, you don't make friends, you make family.
