Permutation Nation

Morgantown to NYC to Bpston

permutationnation — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:28:00 +0000

It’s been a long haul. I’m hungry and homeless. But I’ve seen and done a lot.

So far
So good

Minneapolis

permutationnation — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:09:13 +0000

It was a long drive today to get to Minneapolis. We ended up camping out last night since all of the hotels were booked for sturgis. Tomorrow Chicago.

One picture for now. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, one of our brief stops this morning.

Billings

permutationnation — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:03:27 +0000

Driving through a cool lightning storm in Billings Montana. Passed this refinery.

Drinking with Hell’s Angels

permutationnation — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:47:30 +0000

A lot has happened since I last posted and I took more pictures than I’d care to upload from my phone. So here’s a stationary post from Apryl’s house.

We left from seattle in hopes to swing by a recommended great sushi place. Unfortunately we didn’t consider the possibility that they were closed between lunch and dinner. Unfortunately, they were. We googled around for a different sushi place and ended up in one of those sushi boat places where the plates are color coded and you just take what you want. It was a fun concept but the sushi was only so-so.

Stomachs full we headed east towards montana. I napped most of the way but woke up for some great views of eastern Washington. Around Spokane we started looking for a hotel, but they were all booked. We kept driving east and still, every hotel we passed was boooked. We ended up grabbing a campsite around midnight in St. Regis (not really a town) in Montana.

The next morning we woke up and headed towards Glacier National Park (about a 3 hour drive). The park was amazing. We drove about 30 minutes in and then went on 2 mile hike up a mountain to a “hidden” lake which was fed by four waterfalls descending from a glacier up in the mountains. The lake was cold (as a lake fed by a glacier should be) and clearer than any water I’ve seen in recent memory. We hiked around the other side of the lake and went back down the mountain. Headed south through an indian reservation towards Missoula and stopped for dinner at a nice BBQ place.

Funny story about dinner. We strolled in behind a large group of 9 or so and the hostess was trying to seat them but didn’t have a table large enough. Thinking we were part of their group she said in our direction “If only I had some strong boys to help me move this table *nudge* *nudge*” we couldn’t be rude and tell her we weren’t in that party, so obliged and moved the table. She was pretty embaressed when she finally realized we weren’t with that party and offered us a free round of beers at the bar.

After dinner we continued the short drive south to Missoula and drove straight in to Apryl’s house. It was pretty awesome that she happened to move out here 3 weeks ago and our road trip effortlessly passed through. We showered and headed downtown to a local bar that was blazing some fantastic western blues. It turns out that Hell’s Angels were in town this weekend (possibly why all the hotels were booked) so we saw some pretty sweet looking Harley Davidson’s everywhere. After a few rounds of beer we headed home and had a great night’s sleep in Apryl’s studio apartment 4 blocks from downton.

In the morning we slept in and headed to a coffee place a block away and had some fresh croissants. A quick stop at a bookstore and now we’re at home enjoying the internet and a break from the road. Here’s a bunch of photos and a map with our updated route thus far.

Berkeley, CA; Portland, OR; Mt. St. Helens, WA; Seattle, WA; St Regis, MT; Glacier National Park, MT; Missoula, MT

On our way to sushi

permutationnation — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:15:47 +0000

Schuyler and I got into seattle last night around 4 and headed steaight downtown. We hung out at the pier, got some food, and walked around in rain (for the first time in months). Tara arranged for us to stay at one of her friends house, but we had to wait until he got home from work before we could head over. To kill time we went to a cool sculpture garden and to the first ever rei store.

Then we went back downtown to jameels house (taras friend, MIT 05). he had grabbed some extra wrist bands from work to get us into a conference party at work (microsoft). This was on the pier, a short walk away, and was completely decked out with tents full I food and an open bar.

After we had our fill we headed back to his place and then Schuyler and I went out to see a local dj playing at a nearby bar. The dj wasn’t bad bit the bat was pretty dead so we didn’t stay long. Came home and fell asleep.

In the morning we packed up and said goodbye to Jameel. Then we walked a few blocks to get some good breakfast and a few more to get to the space needle, experience music project, and the science fiction museum. The museums were great, I took a nice picture of a toy robot collection in the sci-fi museum.

After this we got in the car and drove up to the university of Washington to walk around and look at the campus. It was really beautiful and pretty much the opposite of MIT. Now we are on are way to get some, supposedly, really food sushi, but we are sadly stuck in traffic.

P.S the diddy dozen that began out trip 5 days ago has officially been consumed.

Volcano

permutationnation — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:57:37 +0000

Mount st. Helens is an active volcano between Portland and Seattle. It last erupted in 1980. Scientists are eagerly waiting and watching for it to erupt again.

Headed to seattle

permutationnation — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:12:15 +0000

Mostly just wanted to post some photos. Headed to Seattle today by wayof mount saint Helens.

Leaving san francisco

permutationnation — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:09:30 +0000

Well, today we hung out in Berkeley. Checked out a good pizza place, walked around UC Berkeley for a bit (absolutely beautiful campus). Then we went to Schuyler’s friend Noah’s house where we’re staying tonight and just sort of relaxed, took showers, caught up on e-mail etc. In the evening we all went to trivia to meet up with my friends John and Tiffany from MIT. Afterward we just came home and sat around and talked about traveling for a while. All this traveling and talking about it really makes me want to go abroad and spend some time visiting other countries, etc, etc. Maybe next summer we’ll live in Mongolia…

I’ve posted another map with our route from yesterday and today. Tomorrow we head up to Portland which should be a hike. We’ll also be spending our first night in a hotel which is too bad, but I think the stop in Portland will be worth it.

Palo Alto to Haight St. to Berkeley (1 hour 20 minutes total)

San fran

permutationnation — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:14:56 +0000

Last night I had drinks with john over near his neighborhood, but I was afraid to take the bus home alone so I grabbed a cab lol.

This morning we grabbed breakfast at a nice French cafe on haight street (first picture). Then Schuyler and I walked down to the mission and checked at some sweet graffiti murals.

Now we are headed over to Oakland to visit more friends and berkley!

Photo post

permutationnation — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:24:20 +0000

Just wanted to post real quick to put some photos. Schuyler and I went for a great hike today across the bay over the golden gate bridge. Funny story though, schoyler wanted to change his into pants before the hike, so he took the bags out of the car and went around to the other side to change. Meanwhile I ran to the bathroom nearby and he met up with me outside. So we went for our hike and in the way back we come down yhps overpass that overlooks the parking lot, and I’m like “hey, Schuyler, did you leave a bag outside the car” he said of course not, but upon looking closer agreed that it was possible. We walked down to the parking lot to fund that not only was my duffle bag on the ground, hit the back door was wide open!!

We are not really sure how that happened, but we were pretty thankful that absoluteley nothing was stolen; probably because people thought we were nearby I’d something.

Anyhow, alas, pictures. First of the golden gate bridge. Next some cool old world war one military gun bunkers we passed in our hike. Finally a view if the ocean from the top of the hill.