Luna

Hood River

Fall

Trillium Lake

Double Rainbow

I bought this...and I don't know what it says.

Big green

Sunset in Portland

End of an era people....

Most Amazing Rainbow Ever

Tucker is smiling (we think)

Oregon Coast with Sunshine

Luna at the beach

Luna in the grass

Ecola viewpoint

Ahoy Columbia

Where should we go...

What kind of puppy do you think I am?

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Only in Portland.

How not to teach your dog to stay off furniture

Luna thinks the couch and chairs are her bed. Problem.

Even bigger problem is she is quiet and still when on a piece of
funiture.

We tried placing items on the chair to deter her. Nope she decided to
chew on the fire extinguisher boxes as shown.

Meet Luna

Sick little Luna

St. Johns Downtown

St. Johns Police Station

St. Johns Library

Early morning with fog on the river

View from the top

Frambozen!

Thank you New Belgium.

You can't move in the snow.

It's snowing. No moving today or tomorrow.

Tiny tree

Happy Halloween

Stick a knife in it.

Chicken and waffles at Screen Door.

A spooky endorsement.

Tucker is sick

Our little dude is better now but Tucker had a 106 fever due to a
reaction to his rabies vaccine.

Pumpkin patch

Bike Builder show at WK

USC vs. Portland

Hillery was in town with the USC women's team. The national champs lost in OT to University Portland. Both team were missing their Olympic players. Finally putting the Mark II camera to use.

Nike Human Race Ticker

First big project at WK was all the digital advertising for the Nike Human Race. This was a the outdoor in NYC near Times Square. The ticking numbers in the center square are pulling in from NikePlus website.

The Shaver Curse

It's official - there is curse on successfully getting to and from Shaver Lake, CA. We have experienced the curse for years but this year it is in full effect. Seriously, it shouldn't be that hard to get a vehicle from Long Beach, CA to a lake an hour outside Fresno. But - the past two days that was the impossible mission. I'm sitting here at home in Long Beach still only dreaming of jetsking and camping. I just traveled around the world for 6 months with no problems...but a girl can't get herself to Fresno!

Here's the story: It all started Sunday morning at 5am. We piled in the motorhome and headed off. Eighty miles later we were stuck on the side of the road just outside of Magic Mountain. We blew our Turbo something or other and were forced to call in enforcements to pick us up and tow the two jetskis home while the motorhome was towed to Whittier to hopefully be fixed. We were home by 11:30am. Talk about a bad start, but we were not defeated!

Today (Monday) the motorhome hadn't been fixed and we opted for plan b. After running around all morning to make this happen, my cousin Ashley and I got my sister's big Chevy truck loaded up with all our camping gear and the jet ski trailer. We got a late start at 2pm but hoped we would make it up the mountain before dark. Around 3:30pm our first obstacle struck....flat tire on the jetski trailer. I noticed the tire looked low and before we could even exit...BAMM blow out just before Santa Clarita. We changed the tire and found a tire shop carrying another spare (just in case).

Okay - it's now almost 5pm. Again, we headed back on I-5 and seriously 15 miles later, sparks were flying as our muffler literally fell off and we are now dragging down the highway at 60mph. By this time all the muffler shops were closed and we decided the Shaver Lake curse had won this round too. Since we only made it an hour away from home, we decided to head back with our motor humming and feeling seriously defeated. We even took the same emergency exit road to get on the southbound 5 freeway as we did the day before. It was depressing to break down in almost the exact same spot two days in a row. But...the motorhome could fixed by Wednesday morning and maybe we'll try one more time to break the curse.

If you don't believe me that there is a curse, my sister can recount the dozens of breakdowns, flat tires, motorhomes in vapor lock and bad alternators we've encountered. And I won't even get into the time it took Jim Meirs 36 hours to make it to Shaver. Over the years, random injuries and illinesses that have detoured our trips. And then, even if you successfully make it up the mountain, I guarnetee you something will break. It's usually a broken boat or a busted jet ski. It's always something. Maybe that's why Shaver Lake is so special because it's such a miracle if you make it there and back without a hitch.

190 days later...

We visited Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, India, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Mongolia and China.

Thousands of Photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anntrak/collections/72157603994648055/

Quotable Quotes

In 6 months you have a lot of laughs. Below are some of our favorite quotable moments, we'll be saying this stuff for years.

“Ho Chi Minh, city of motorbikes. You don’t have a motor bike you don’t have a life. You have no boyfriend, no girlfriend, nothing. A while ago they say, you ride motorbike you wear helmet. We say we no wear helmet, helmet looks like rice cooker on your head.”
- Mekong Delta Tour guide

You buy postcard for your boyfriend.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” [Jen’s response]
“That’s cuz you no buy postcard.”
- Cambodian girl selling postcards

“Where you from.”
“Nowhere.” [Jayme’s facetious response]
“Capital Oslo. Population 4 million, minus three. 1-2-3”
- Cambodian boy selling postcards who thought we were from Norway

“Who’s the weggie.”
- Thai hiking guide who can’t pronounce his “v’s”.

“You want more wegetables, you can add more wegetables. You want more carlots, you add more carlots.”
- Thai cooking instructor

“Girls, what are you complaining about! You could have been born with your boobs knocking between your knees.”
- James the Kiwi on women’s rights in India after seeing a female goat.

“You said 60 rupees!!! For 6 people!!!”
- Jen losing it with an Indian cab driver

“It’s a deal, it’s a steal, it’s the sale of the $%*! century.
- Pink Harry on finding 15 rupee Kit-Kat’s in India

“So be that.”
- Danielle on quantum physics.

“Egeszsegedre!”
- Jayme’s words before spilling a glass of white wine on Ann’s lap

"It's a stuuudent thing."
- Our friend Katja on student events in Slovenia

“I need to call China; I have a problem with them.”
- Jen in the Czech Republic on being charge 3 times for her plane ticket home

“I hate you and I hate you and I hate you the most!”
- Drunk guy at 4:30am in Warsaw hostel (best if reenacted by Jen)

“Crem de la Kremlin.”
- Tad cracking himself up in Moscow

“Do you have a flagg...”
- Tad's impression of Eddie Izzard on British colonization

“I pack like Paris Hilton.”
- Tariq on his 60lb backpack for the Trans-Mongolian railway

“When we were young we had no toys; we played with our toothbrushes.”
- Tariq on growing up in England

“Dab a little behind your ear and you're ready for formal wear.”
- Tariq on the smell of smoked Russian fish

“Darling, have you seen how rubbery this is – you could play squash with it.”
- Tariq’s steak in the Russian train dining car

“Mongoowia.”
- Say this in your best Kim Jong II Team America accent

"You have lamas in Mongolia...three toes, they spit."
- Rupert on lamas in Mongolia. The sign in the museum, however, was talking about the Dahlia Lama.

California here we come!

Jen and I depart at 8:30pm Beijing time and arrive at 5:45pm LAX time on Wednesday (yep, we get home 3 hours before we leave tomorrow). Jayme is on a different flight and gets in an hour earlier. Our bags are packed and we'll be singing the theme song to the OC all the way home. First stop will be In'n out near LAX.

Going home is a funny thing, a bit of a time warp, actually. I have no idea what it will be like to sleep in the same place for more than 5 nights or pack a bag everyday and carry it everywhere. I feel like we just left. Two of our new friends (Rupert & Tariq) are headed to Hanoi. If we had the money and the time I'd start over again in a heartbeat.

Chinese Cultural Observations

Here are a few quick observations I've made on China in the past few weeks. Nothing profound just random.

Babies
- There is no so such thing as strollers or diapers in this land. They carry their babies and have built in potty training with crotchless pants. It's one way to save money and pretty funny when you get flashed.

Air Conditioning
- One of my favorite daily sights is what I call "Asian Air Conditioning". This consists of men pulling their t-shirts up and letting their belly's hang out to cool off with the heat. They walk around like this, ride bikes, live their normal lives either with their stomach hanging out or their t-shirt off.

Transportation
- Bikes are cool and even cooler when they are a manual/electric hybrid.

When I grow up...
- Based purely on the number of stores I have seen in Beijing, I truly believe all Chinese teenagers what to grow up to become rock stars. There are more guitar stores (sometimes up for 12 in a row on a block) and hair salons than you could possibly imagine.

Our final test

We had our final backpacker test last night and survived. It was the 12 hour, hard seat, overnight train ride from Xian to Beijing. Yep, it was us and the locals in wagon 5. The train was packed and they even sell standing room tickets. Seriously, 12 hours of standing on a train overnight\- we saw people do it. It was a little packed and uncomfortable to say the least. I think we are the only tourists who didn't buy the scalper sleeper compartment tickets. We didn't get that memo and are way to cheap for that nonsense, so we suffered. It was our last train ride of the journey and a memorable one. I played name that animal or object game with my camera and a 4 year Chinese boy. He got a 100% mainly because I have no idea if his answers were right. Hey - it couldn't be all that bad - there was air conditioning.

Back to Beijing

We've spent 5 nights here in Xian. Saw the panda bears & blue sky, biked the city walls and ate the spiciest meal of the trip (my nose hairs were on fire). Oh and then there were amazing dumplings for 35 cents and don't forget the night we ate at the public health nightmare restauruent. Dishes on the floor, nasty bathroom, teenager help staff and the cigarette butts...but somehow it ended up being one of the best meals in China.

Somehow, I also ended up purchasing a replica of a Chinese MIG helmet the other day. Tad ditched us and found his way to Shanghai to ride the maglift train. We are all reconvening in Beijing (12 hour overnight train) for one last shopping spree and KTV session before heading back to the States.

What Chinese Teens Want

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/ChineseTeens_SeriesHome.aspx

Water Army

Our group of 7 is now in Xi'an, China. It's pouring rain here and hasn't stopped since we arrived 2 days ago. For some reason there are no train tickets available in China and our big dreams of going to Shanghai were crushed at the train station. I'm glad we got tickets back to Beijing.

Xi'an is home of the famous Terracotta Army. We paid a visit to the vast bronze army yesterday (soaking wet most of the day). Learn more about these ancient warriors at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army.

The best part of the evening was the incredible foundation show at the Goose Pagoda. One great thing about traveling in other countries is they don't have rules and there is no thing such as liability. So, instead of watching the foundation show Tad, Jayme, Rupert and I joined in and ran through the foundation terraces. More fun than you could possibly imagine.

It was our last evening with our good friend Tariq, so we headed to the local KTV (karaoke) joint for 4 hours of belting our lungs out. If you want to see Jen sing and dance her heart out, just give her a mic and put on Footloose. Tariq's rendition of Love Shack will go down in history. We love KTV!

7th Wind

Who knew a 22 hour day could give you a 7th wind. After making it to Beijing, there were officially only 8 days left of world tour. Mentality, all I had to do was make it there, so thinking about having another 8 days of travel was a little overwhelming. We ate some bad Peking Duck which added to the downward spiral.

But after our day of hiking the Great Wall and finishing the night at 2am with an awesome hour of KTV as is well.

Walking the Great Wall

Okay, it definitely more a hike than a walk but worth every drop of sweat.

We started again earlier and were out the door by 5:30am for a 2 hour car ride to the Great Wall of China. The hike was 9 kilometers from Jinshanling to Simatai. After the hords of people at the Forbidden city, we thought the Great Wall would be another tourist mecca. Lucky for us, we decided to visit a section further out and had the wall almost to ourselves. Our journey started with a cable car ride up to the top and 4 hours later we ended with a zip line ride down to the parking lot.

The wall snakes along the mountain ridge like a dragon. It truely is amazing site. We walked up and down both restored and unrestored sections. By the end we were exhausted and completely drenched in sweat by some of the super steep inclines.

Beijing Mornings

The alarm clock went off at 3:50am this morning. We all met in the lobby at 4:15am with of goal of starting our time in China off right with the raising of the Chinese flag at Tianamium Square at 5am. This is also when we learned white people are cool and we were the only ones at the ceremony among thousands of Chinese. After the ceremony we took photos with random Chinese people who love people with blond hair as we walked through part of the Forbidden city. Next stop was watching Tai Chi and other Chinese games at the Temple of Heaven.