Brian and the Bear

Yellowstone was spectacular. I really enjoyed the park. After arriving I checked out the park headquarters in Mammoth and then headed off on a hike in the Northwest corner of the park. Since the trail was near the HQ I figured it would be a pretty popular trail, and there were a good number of people on the first 0.3 miles. But after that point it emptied out and I didn't see anyone the rest of the hike. I climbed about a 2 miles up the trail until I reached a clearing where the forest had been destroyed by a forest fire and many trees were burnt out and fallen. I spent a few hours up there exploring some ponds and hilltops. I saw deer and elk and many birds but and best of all, not another human.

Gardnier, WY

As I began my decent back down the trail I stopped to sit on a log and drink some water. I heard what I thought was another hiker coming up the trail. As I looked over, I saw it wasn't a human but it was a momma black bear and her cub. The cub scurried up a tree about 150 feet away while the momma bear just stared at me. I tried not to panic and grabbed my backpack and retreated to about 300 feet away from the bear which was still sitting there watching me.

On top of the mountain

I found a somewhat protected point and then fashoned two spears out of deadfall, in case it came to that. Since I pack light I didn't have a hatchet, machete, bear spray or a pistol. I got my phone out to make a video to document my impending death by mauling in which I'm embarrassed (em-bear-essed) to say I made more than one bear pun.

There is a bear somewhere in there.

After about 5 minutes the bear and her cub wandered off. Unfortunately they wandered off right down the trail I was also trying to descend. After giving it about 10 minutes I slowly started making my way down the trail afraid I was going to catch up with it. I made lots of noise, and was praying I'd run into another hiker. It wasn't until I got about a tenth of a mile from the trailhead that I saw someone else. It was a solid hour of an adrenaline rush.

Bison on the road!

After getting back to the HQ I treated myself to a chicken sandwich, ice cream and a cool beer to take the edge off.  I then drove south to the Norris campsite where I made camp. I got into camp early which was nice and got everything set up and a nice fire going. It pretty much drizzled all night but the campfire kept me warm and I had a few blankets for the tent. It got down into the 30's during the night but didn't freeze my water bottle.

This morning I woke up packed the site up in the rain and got in my car. I stopped by old faithful to see the eruption. It was very cool but my phone crapped out so I didn't take any pictures. Then I continued driving south through the Grand Tetons which looked gorgeous but the low cloud cover made it hard to truely appreciate it.

Now I turn back west to head to San Francisco for the weekend.

Montana

I crossed the Continental Divide for the first time

I'm sitting in a McDonalds in Livingston, MT writing this. In the 15 minutes I've been here I've had 2 sets of Michigan Grads walk in and talk to me. Which is great because yesterday I was feeling a little lonely.

I woke up in Idaho and hit the road early. After some mega-blogging in Coeur D'Alene, I got to drive through Northern Idaho which I remember from my drive out west 4 years ago as spectacular. It did not disappoint.

I then turned onto the country roads in Montana to drive up to Kalispell. Even the two lane country roads in Montana have a speed limit of 70MPH, so the Camaro really got to hug the roads. I drove up next to Flathead lake which was georgous before stopping in Kalispell fol lunch. From there it was on to Glacier National Park. The going to the sun road was still closed with snow, but I went as far as I could from the west side of the park. It was spectacular but driving through Highway 2 to the east side I think I would have really enjoyed that portion of the park even more.

From there it was more country roads all the way to Great Falls and onto my campsite at the Lewis and Clark Nat'l Forest. I made camp at a roadside campsite which was very unlike the campground I had stayed in the previous nights. Instead of having 30+ campsites packed with people and crying babies, I was the only person at this 6-site campground situated between the road and a mountainside. I also didn't have a cell signal which made me acutely aware of just how alone I was. I ended up retreating to me tent early.

This morning I woke up around 5:30 and packed up camp and after a few rainy hours on the road ended up at this here McDouglass's. Today I explore Yellowstone! Upwards and Onwards!

First post from the road

Great tune by an underrated band.

I'm writing this from a bagel shop in Coeur D'Alene, ID that is open on memorial day for some reason. It's been a good journey thus far, but it has only begun.

On Saturday I got all packed up and said goodbye to my roommate of 3 years. It was anticlimactic except for him standing in the driveway watching me drive off into the sunset. I then hopped on the ferry one last time and went into Seattle to stay with my girlfriend. We went out to my favorite sushi place and then meet up with friends for buckets of High Life.

The state park I stayed at last night

Yesterday morning I slept in and then hit the road. I drove over the lush cascades and down into the dryer Yakima valley. As I was driving I began to think about cool things I could do on the trip. I really thought it would be nifty if I had a dashboard camera and could make a video of my drive condensed down to a couple of minutes. But I don't have a dashboard cam. But I did start taking pictures as I drive that I may compile at the end into a video.

Martin Stadium

I also decided to visit as many college football stadiums as possible, which luckily I decided in time to veer off route and head to Pullman, WA (Washington State) and Moscow, ID (U of Idaho). It took me a bit out of my way and I didn't make it to the Coeur D'Alene National Forrest like I planned, so instead I camped at a state park south of Coeur D'Alene.

THE KIBBIE DOME!!!!

Today I'm off to Glacier National Park and hopefully will be making camp beneath the giant ponderosas of the Lewis and Clark National Forrest.

On Minimalism

Pack it up

Today was the second time in the past two years that I've helped clean out a house of someone who has died. The first was a hoarder whose house was unhygienic to say the least, and today's subject was a ex-coworker's fathers house who had lived in the house since 1971. Both were big shockers about just how much stuff people accrue throughout their lives. I'm afraid that I've been on the same path, and when I moved from my townhouse into the house I'm now living in I realized just how much crap I owned.

Now I'm tasked with packing for the next 4 months bringing only what I can fit in my Camaro. This is a familiar process as 4 years ago I also packed everything I needed into my Camaro to drive out here. But surprisingly I've not had a very hard time so far. I think it's because I'm going to leave most of my belongings here, so I don't need to get rid of stuff, I just need to figure out what I need the next few months. There are only a few things I think I'm going to miss not having this summer, mostly my inner-tube so I can float the Huron.

I've also to become a minimalist beyond just my possessions. I've had to look at the things I spend money on and minimize them too. My Netflix account and Xbox Live account also were cluttering up my life and costing me money for services that I wasn't getting fulfillment out of. So I removed them as well. I've reduced my bills down to just phone, insurance and rent.

The one thing that has helped me is my growing interest in minimalism. After helping clear other people's houses it really dawned on me just how much crap people tend to own - especially in this country. If you get a chance check out this photo documentary. I think the concept of minimalism isn't 'not having things', it's 'only having what you really need'. I've always felt much better after removing clutter from my life, and I think that's what I should strive to do. It's a conflicting view to my long held desire to make lots of money and buy a big house and fill it with cool and interesting stuff. Maybe there is a happy medium with just buying a house that fits all the things in it that makes me happy and not much more.

I think most of the stuff I have I use, which helps justify having it. I have a few college textbooks that are hanging around that I probably could get rid of. I'm proud to say that I find it easy to dump things if I don't see a real use for it. I think as I age I'll want more things because I feel I'm at the point in my life where I should really own my own wok, or tuxedo, or shoe buffer. I'm going to try and fit the materialistic urge and live my life focused on things other than my possessions.

Also being poor should help limit the amount of crap I own.

Some Inspiration

You knew it was coming eventually

From my office wife Bunny who sent me this today.

Granted, Mr. McCandless's adventurous spirit eventually was his own demise. I read a book written about him once, and while I enjoyed it greatly I did not recall this passage until Bunny sent it to me along with some words of encouragement. It joins the likes Thoreau and and Jack London which has provided inspiration thus far. I even found some inspiration from the Helen Keller Quote  "Life is a grand adventure - or it is nothing" although I heard that she never actually said this (she was a mute, lol). I also fancied a high school yearbook quote by one of my good friend; "don't lose the dreams inside your head, they'll only be there until you're dead." Later I realized that it was lifted from a Dave Matthews Band song and it lost some, but not much meaning.

My Road Trip back to Ann Arbor

The song I listened to on my road trip out to WA 4 years ago

I've been working the past few weeks on my trip back to Ann Arbor. My plan is to drive back to AA stopping along the way to visit with friends and family and camping at national parks along the way. I'm planning to leave on May 25th and arrive in Ann Arbor on June 7th. This map should detail my route.

You probably need to zoom out.

Some highlights of the trip:

Hiking in Glacier National Park

Visiting TJ in Montana

Camping at Yellowstone and driving through the Grand Tetons

A wedding in San Francisco

Camping at Sequoia National Park

Seeing some old friends in Phoenix

Catching up with a college buddy in Kansas

Chicago (enough said)

Back home to Ann Arbor

It’s a quick 4,900 mile, 76 hour jaunt. I'm planning to mix in the camping with staying with friends. It should be a good trip. But we’ll see how much I can fit in the camaro with all my camping gear, I might have to put together another post on how I'm going to pack for all this. I'm afraid I won't have room for my framed Conan the Barbarian Poster.

Funding My Unemployment

More easy listening.

Deciding to take a few months off work takes some planning, and some foresight. Which means before I resigned I probably should have ran some numbers to see if I had the funds to pull it off. Better late than never, I suppose. My objective is to determine my allowable discretionary cash burn rate.

·         I know how much I’m going to have to pay for my cell phone and car insurance.

·         My parents say I have to get health insurance so I've gotten pricing just for some basic high-deductible catastrophic insurance.

·         I've roughly mapped out road trips so I can calculate my gas.

·         I've gotten a sublet in Ann Arbor which will be $320 a month, and I’m going to pay my roommate here $50 a month to store my stuff. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do for September and October. Since I’ll be in Europe for a portion of September I might bum around that month. Hopefully by October I’ll be starting a new job, but right now it is kind of a guess.

·         I've factored in lodging for campgrounds and $1,500 for a trip to Europe. That would be more but I’m getting free flights to and from the continent.

So I subtracted all that from my starting funds, and found out how much is left and then divided that evenly over the 6 months to determine how much I discretionary spending I will have.  It worked out to $900 a month or $30 a day for food, drink and necessities. Luckily from my college days I’ve found out that $20 split between Taco Bell and Malt Liquor can go a long way, leaving $10 a day for toilet paper from all that Taco Bell and Malt Liquor.

I know what you’re thinking. What happens at the end of October when you have no money? The story there is that my starting amount is just what I budgeted for this endeavor. I have a reserve fund that could last me another 6 months without a job, but by that point I would probably find something to do even if it was menial. Otherwise I can use my reserve fund to set up in a new city once I figure out what I want to do.