Wow. Long time no see blogosphere... It's been quite a while! Wow, I really should be updating this a BIT more often.... I see that one post in a few months is just not acceptable. Well, not much has happened since the last post.
Okay, haha, THAT was a lie. A lot has happened since 4/5/15. Let's see... Well, my birthday to start off! That wasn't much of a celebration, but eh, I'm "a year older" now! And there was summer vacation!
Summer vacation was epic. I mean, aside from not having excessive HW for 2 or so months, I enjoyed other things as well. I went to Canada, for one.
I will be posting about my summer vacation (narcissistic much? XD ) in three parts, cos one post for this three part vacation is just not enough. :)
So, I didn't exactly spend the whole time in Canada. We drove up from LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION and we sight-saw on the way there. Although everything my family and I did there was interesting, I don't think I'll ever forget the time I went to the Acadia National Park.
It started as a normal day, and then, don't they always? My family headed to the park for the second day, because one day is never enough. My dad and I decided to climb the Beehive Trail up to "The Bowl", then take the Bowl Trail down. This equates to 1.5 miles of hiking. Well, 1.5 miles is really easy for a hike, usually, but this was crazy. The Beehive trail always went up, and there were so many rocks. Then we started actually climbing up the mountain, and that was probably one of the scariest things I've done in my life. It was fine most of the time, but for a great duration of the climb, I was right next to the cliff, meaning that one misstep could send me tumbling down. Also, my dad and I kept going at different speeds, and it made me really nervous when we were at each others' heels. Well, the work paid off, and we reached the top. The view, obviously, was breathtaking, and you could see everything from up there. I mean, I was able to see the beach, the forest that stretched on for forever, and it was just wonderful. Of course, my dad's phone ran out of battery. Because that always happens. *sighs* Anyways, some people offered to take pictures for us and send us those pictures once they were done. Haha, we never got those pictures.
So we climbed down. The Bowl Trail was much easier. There weren't cliffs or smooth rocks that were about six feet tall that we had to climb. So we got down, back to the parking lot, and I checked my watch. We spent about 56 or so minutes for the whole climb, and I felt really accomplished for even staying alive.
My dad called my mom, who was on the beach with my little sister, and told her to come back to the parking lot. When she did, everyone climbed in the car, and we drove off to see more of the park.
After seeing some awesome sights, we made decided to make our final stop at Bubble Rock. We parked, and my mom didn't want to come. She wanted to wait in the car. My dad offered her the keys, but she didn't take them. And so we began to climb.
Well, I didn't know there was a hike up the the rock at first. I thought it was close by. So I just kind of shut up and dealt with it. But after such an intense hike that day, I quickly tired. I started walking slower, but I was never out of sight of my little sis and my dad. We made it to the rock in about 20 minutes, took a quick picture, and because it was starting to get dark, we hurried back.
We walked for a while, and I started getting a bad feeling. Like, a really bad feeling. I wasn't able to quite place it, until the trail just became completely foreign to me. I didn't recognize a thing. The trail was much harder than the walk we took when we were heading up. I was begging to go back so we could find the right way, but my dad said it was too late, and that we should continue walking. We did, guided by blue lines along the trail. We walked a good 10 to 15 minutes, and we still couldn't make heads or tails of where we were. Then, we came across a body of water. When we walked across the bridge to the other side, we stood there for a while and thought of what we were to do next. My dad urged us to keep going, and like soldiers, we continued marching. Due to the fact that I had used up a lot of self motivation on the hike before, I was beginning to feel a little mentally hysterical, and I got scared. We remembered that my mom didn't have the keys to the car, so she really couldn't leave or even turn on the heating.
We walked and walked, and we went under a bridge. Well, my dad said that bridges were good because bridges equal roads equal cars equal people. We continued on our way, and a short while later, we hit a road. Not an asphalt road, no. We weren't that lucky. We DID, however, hit a carriage road, where only horse drawn carriages went. Well, better than nothing, right? So we walked. It was getting late, and the sun was setting. Remember, my dad's phone was dead, and even if it wasn't, the signal there was horrible, if there was a signal at all. I suddenly became grateful that I had decided to wear a sweatshirt and that I brought a camera. There was one point where we saw another road... On the other side of a valley. We screamed and shouted, and I sent flashes to catch the attention of the cars that were driving over that road to no avail. A little more discouraged than before, we put one foot in front of the other.
We were thinking of what we'd do if we had to stay the night, because that was becoming a possibility. Every so often, I took a flash picture to see if there were any signs leading the way to someplace that possibly had people. I caught a picture saying that Jordan Pond was just ahead, and my dad recognized this. We started to jog so we could hurry up a little. By that time, I was only barely able to see my dad and my little sister, and the road ahead was pitch black. We were quickly tiring. We heard the sound of water, but no people. We could only keep walking.
Walk we did. And with dumb luck, we met two joggers. EVERYONE, EXERCISE IS GOOD. YOU SHOULD TRY IT SOMETIME. We asked if we were close to any place that may have more people that could help us horribly lost tourists. Yes, yes there was. The Jordan Pond House. Straight ahead. Five minutes. We asked if we could borrow their phones to send a message, but they said that the signal was horrible. Thanking them, we headed on with our way, and they on theirs. They were pretty fast joggers, so we knew that we would take about 10 to 15 minutes to reach the Jordan Pond House.
I joked once they were out of ear-reach and said, "Haha, what if there was a fork in the road?"
I had to jinx it, didn't I. There was a fork in the road. We were slightly worried, but I took flash pictures with my camera, and we decided on the path that seemed slightly straighter. We walked that way, and we noted that if we didn't reach the Jordan Pond House in 15 minutes, that we would double back and go to the left (we came from the right). One more step. Another one. Come on, keep going. Somehow, just by seeing that we were not the only people left outside, my self motivation increased. I walked faster, and even jogged a little more.
It was impossible to miss the lights. It was about 9:00 by that time, and the sun set. We crawled towards the light, and we ran around the building to see if there was anyone inside. No, there wasn't, but there was a bus stop! And a road! We weren't too late for the bus! My dad told my little sister and I to wait at the bus stop because, you know, the bus wasn't good enough. Cars were passing. My dad ran to the road, intent on stopping the next car. I was just starting to wonder and joke about if this area had any serial killers or kidnappers with my little sister, and we just kind of laughed. But it was pretty dark. And it was kind of eery. Anyways.
My thoughts were rudely interrupted with a loud, "STOP! STOP!"
I saw my dad run in the middle of the road and wave his arms like a madman. He stopped a truck!
We sat and waited a few seconds before I had a brilliant idea. Children always help with appeal. It's true! I know you're laughing now, but once my little sister and I ran over to the truck and put on our best "scared" faces. The woman driving the truck immediately agreed. We piled on in the back (because there was no room inside), and she drove us to somewhere close-by that had MORE PEOPLE. AND THEY WERE PARK RANGERS. THAT DAY JUST KEPT GETTING BETTER AND BETTER. We knocked on the door, explained our situation, and they agreed to drive us to the parking lot. It took them about 20 minutes to get ready, but considering how long we had been gone, this was nothing. The woman who drove the truck said that she had a job interview that she had to get to. We (well, I) wished her luck, we thanked her a million more times, and she was off. The park rangers drove us to the parking lot. I checked my watch and realized that we were gone for roughly an hour and a half. When we got to the car, we saw that MY MOM WASN'T IN IT.
We looked inside, and saw a note saying that she was with some rangers. The rangers that we were with at the time radioed in, and my mom was back in no time. We explained our story once more, and after a while, we drove back to the hotel, stopping at a McDonald's on the way, because we were starving.
We got back to the hotel. My little sis and my dad ate their burgers, and I took a shower. You know in those action books how they say that taking a shower is, like, the thing that makes you feel the most normal? Trust me when I say that it is. I felt so good because at that time, I was caked in sweat and grime. When I felt clean enough, I put on my jammies, and shoved the burger down my throat like a ravenous wolf. I felt hungry still, but I thought that food was better than no food, so I was just plain old hungry. We worked out the path that we took, and we figured that we walked about 2.5 miles. Well. That was the most tedious 2.5 miles I've been through.
The next day, I checked for my AP score, and I was delighted to find that I got a 5. It didn't even feel like I got lost in the middle of the mountains the day before.
Okay, haha, THAT was a lie. A lot has happened since 4/5/15. Let's see... Well, my birthday to start off! That wasn't much of a celebration, but eh, I'm "a year older" now! And there was summer vacation!
Summer vacation was epic. I mean, aside from not having excessive HW for 2 or so months, I enjoyed other things as well. I went to Canada, for one.
I will be posting about my summer vacation (narcissistic much? XD ) in three parts, cos one post for this three part vacation is just not enough. :)
So, I didn't exactly spend the whole time in Canada. We drove up from LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION and we sight-saw on the way there. Although everything my family and I did there was interesting, I don't think I'll ever forget the time I went to the Acadia National Park.
It started as a normal day, and then, don't they always? My family headed to the park for the second day, because one day is never enough. My dad and I decided to climb the Beehive Trail up to "The Bowl", then take the Bowl Trail down. This equates to 1.5 miles of hiking. Well, 1.5 miles is really easy for a hike, usually, but this was crazy. The Beehive trail always went up, and there were so many rocks. Then we started actually climbing up the mountain, and that was probably one of the scariest things I've done in my life. It was fine most of the time, but for a great duration of the climb, I was right next to the cliff, meaning that one misstep could send me tumbling down. Also, my dad and I kept going at different speeds, and it made me really nervous when we were at each others' heels. Well, the work paid off, and we reached the top. The view, obviously, was breathtaking, and you could see everything from up there. I mean, I was able to see the beach, the forest that stretched on for forever, and it was just wonderful. Of course, my dad's phone ran out of battery. Because that always happens. *sighs* Anyways, some people offered to take pictures for us and send us those pictures once they were done. Haha, we never got those pictures.
So we climbed down. The Bowl Trail was much easier. There weren't cliffs or smooth rocks that were about six feet tall that we had to climb. So we got down, back to the parking lot, and I checked my watch. We spent about 56 or so minutes for the whole climb, and I felt really accomplished for even staying alive.
My dad called my mom, who was on the beach with my little sister, and told her to come back to the parking lot. When she did, everyone climbed in the car, and we drove off to see more of the park.
After seeing some awesome sights, we made decided to make our final stop at Bubble Rock. We parked, and my mom didn't want to come. She wanted to wait in the car. My dad offered her the keys, but she didn't take them. And so we began to climb.
Well, I didn't know there was a hike up the the rock at first. I thought it was close by. So I just kind of shut up and dealt with it. But after such an intense hike that day, I quickly tired. I started walking slower, but I was never out of sight of my little sis and my dad. We made it to the rock in about 20 minutes, took a quick picture, and because it was starting to get dark, we hurried back.
We walked for a while, and I started getting a bad feeling. Like, a really bad feeling. I wasn't able to quite place it, until the trail just became completely foreign to me. I didn't recognize a thing. The trail was much harder than the walk we took when we were heading up. I was begging to go back so we could find the right way, but my dad said it was too late, and that we should continue walking. We did, guided by blue lines along the trail. We walked a good 10 to 15 minutes, and we still couldn't make heads or tails of where we were. Then, we came across a body of water. When we walked across the bridge to the other side, we stood there for a while and thought of what we were to do next. My dad urged us to keep going, and like soldiers, we continued marching. Due to the fact that I had used up a lot of self motivation on the hike before, I was beginning to feel a little mentally hysterical, and I got scared. We remembered that my mom didn't have the keys to the car, so she really couldn't leave or even turn on the heating.
We walked and walked, and we went under a bridge. Well, my dad said that bridges were good because bridges equal roads equal cars equal people. We continued on our way, and a short while later, we hit a road. Not an asphalt road, no. We weren't that lucky. We DID, however, hit a carriage road, where only horse drawn carriages went. Well, better than nothing, right? So we walked. It was getting late, and the sun was setting. Remember, my dad's phone was dead, and even if it wasn't, the signal there was horrible, if there was a signal at all. I suddenly became grateful that I had decided to wear a sweatshirt and that I brought a camera. There was one point where we saw another road... On the other side of a valley. We screamed and shouted, and I sent flashes to catch the attention of the cars that were driving over that road to no avail. A little more discouraged than before, we put one foot in front of the other.
We were thinking of what we'd do if we had to stay the night, because that was becoming a possibility. Every so often, I took a flash picture to see if there were any signs leading the way to someplace that possibly had people. I caught a picture saying that Jordan Pond was just ahead, and my dad recognized this. We started to jog so we could hurry up a little. By that time, I was only barely able to see my dad and my little sister, and the road ahead was pitch black. We were quickly tiring. We heard the sound of water, but no people. We could only keep walking.
Walk we did. And with dumb luck, we met two joggers. EVERYONE, EXERCISE IS GOOD. YOU SHOULD TRY IT SOMETIME. We asked if we were close to any place that may have more people that could help us horribly lost tourists. Yes, yes there was. The Jordan Pond House. Straight ahead. Five minutes. We asked if we could borrow their phones to send a message, but they said that the signal was horrible. Thanking them, we headed on with our way, and they on theirs. They were pretty fast joggers, so we knew that we would take about 10 to 15 minutes to reach the Jordan Pond House.
I joked once they were out of ear-reach and said, "Haha, what if there was a fork in the road?"
I had to jinx it, didn't I. There was a fork in the road. We were slightly worried, but I took flash pictures with my camera, and we decided on the path that seemed slightly straighter. We walked that way, and we noted that if we didn't reach the Jordan Pond House in 15 minutes, that we would double back and go to the left (we came from the right). One more step. Another one. Come on, keep going. Somehow, just by seeing that we were not the only people left outside, my self motivation increased. I walked faster, and even jogged a little more.
It was impossible to miss the lights. It was about 9:00 by that time, and the sun set. We crawled towards the light, and we ran around the building to see if there was anyone inside. No, there wasn't, but there was a bus stop! And a road! We weren't too late for the bus! My dad told my little sister and I to wait at the bus stop because, you know, the bus wasn't good enough. Cars were passing. My dad ran to the road, intent on stopping the next car. I was just starting to wonder and joke about if this area had any serial killers or kidnappers with my little sister, and we just kind of laughed. But it was pretty dark. And it was kind of eery. Anyways.
My thoughts were rudely interrupted with a loud, "STOP! STOP!"
I saw my dad run in the middle of the road and wave his arms like a madman. He stopped a truck!
We sat and waited a few seconds before I had a brilliant idea. Children always help with appeal. It's true! I know you're laughing now, but once my little sister and I ran over to the truck and put on our best "scared" faces. The woman driving the truck immediately agreed. We piled on in the back (because there was no room inside), and she drove us to somewhere close-by that had MORE PEOPLE. AND THEY WERE PARK RANGERS. THAT DAY JUST KEPT GETTING BETTER AND BETTER. We knocked on the door, explained our situation, and they agreed to drive us to the parking lot. It took them about 20 minutes to get ready, but considering how long we had been gone, this was nothing. The woman who drove the truck said that she had a job interview that she had to get to. We (well, I) wished her luck, we thanked her a million more times, and she was off. The park rangers drove us to the parking lot. I checked my watch and realized that we were gone for roughly an hour and a half. When we got to the car, we saw that MY MOM WASN'T IN IT.
We looked inside, and saw a note saying that she was with some rangers. The rangers that we were with at the time radioed in, and my mom was back in no time. We explained our story once more, and after a while, we drove back to the hotel, stopping at a McDonald's on the way, because we were starving.
We got back to the hotel. My little sis and my dad ate their burgers, and I took a shower. You know in those action books how they say that taking a shower is, like, the thing that makes you feel the most normal? Trust me when I say that it is. I felt so good because at that time, I was caked in sweat and grime. When I felt clean enough, I put on my jammies, and shoved the burger down my throat like a ravenous wolf. I felt hungry still, but I thought that food was better than no food, so I was just plain old hungry. We worked out the path that we took, and we figured that we walked about 2.5 miles. Well. That was the most tedious 2.5 miles I've been through.
The next day, I checked for my AP score, and I was delighted to find that I got a 5. It didn't even feel like I got lost in the middle of the mountains the day before.