Post from Samable

 Please view the original post on Samable

Photo from 2018/2019

    "New year, new me". A sentence said by many, sometimes repeatedly throughout their lives, and now it is my turn. Or my year. 2024 is forecasted to bring many exciting adventures, changes, and hopefully improvements for me and my family, but before we get into that, I think I should start with where I've been. 

     Last year was a year of getting established and getting grounded. After the years of COVID, 2023 felt like the year of starting over or returning to pre-pandemic days. We went to several of our friends' weddings, went to baby showers, and started to experience life again. Roy started working again and quickly excelled while I returned to my true passion for fitness and recreation. New lifestyle changes, new apartments, new cars, and most importantly new adventures all to read about. The most exciting part about last year was our travels to Saudi Arabia. 

     Of course, if you'd rather skip the reading and see the picture timeline, you can see it on my Instagram, or you can see a quick highlight video on my TikTok.

     Let's start at the beginning; a month-by-month play-by if you will. At the beginning of the year, Roy started personal training again and is still currently in the process of building up his online presence. Readers, if you have some time we would both appreciate it if you could give his platforms some love: | Website | Instagram | TikTok | Youtube | He also does some training at a local gym and continues to enjoy training and building up his social media. 

     In the early spring, we took a weekend trip to the coast to attend the wedding of one of my friends. We took the opportunity to spend some time at one of our favorite towns, Lincoln City, and searched the shoreline for glass balls. Unfortunately, we didn't find any glass, but the weather was good and we made a fun road trip out of it. The wedding took place in Newport, so we also got to spend some time seeing the attractions of Newport. 

Red Sea

    A month later we packed our suitcases, checked our visa, and took a month-long trip to Saudi Arabia. Since the direct flights to Saudi were not available, we had to take a slightly longer route and a short detour. Our flight to Saudi Arabia went to Qatar first and we had a six-hour layover in Qatar. Since we didn't have enough time to leave the airport we wandered the Doha airport and enjoyed the beautiful indoor garden they have. Doha even has an indoor pool, but we choose not to swim, although, next time I might have to (just for the Instagram picture). We arrived in Jeddah late at night and went straight to our rental. 

     We traveled during the month of Ramadan and while Roy had informed me that the day would be quiet, I was surprised by how different observing Ramadan was in a truly Muslim country. Like many, we spent our days inside, resting and fasting, then explored the city at night after Iftar. However, I did drag Rowaid out of the house for a few days to go take Instagram pictures with me. Especially in Old Town Jeddah, Al-Balad. The beautiful architecture and experience of Arabian culture at night were busy, with people enjoying games, food, and re-enactments of life and other various Ramadan activities, but during the day, while everyone was fasting the streets were empty. Same with the beach. In the photo, I am along the beach at the Jeddah Corniche, a waterfront park with sculptures and events. Typically it is very busy, with lots of people enjoying everything to offer, but the first few days we were there during the month of Ramadan it was quiet and setting up for a festival. 

     For Eid, we traveled to spend time with Roy's family. I got to see other parts of Saudi Arabia and visit Roy's childhood memories. Other places we visited while in Saudi, included KAEC -King Abdullah Economic City and Thuwal. While in KAEC we visited more of Roy's family, swam in the sea, and explored the city. In Thuwal we went to the fish market. We got to select our fish, and after they cooked it to our liking we got to enjoy a traditional Saudi sea dish. The fish market was probably my favorite part of the trip. Not only is seafood a favorite of mine, but it was a great experience of the culture and a great bonding moment with Roy's family. 

Eid

     To return home from Saudi, we took the same flight route home, with an added layover in Seattle. Once we returned home, we quickly fell back into our routines and let life carry us away. My work became really busy, really fast and I let it consume most of my time. At the end of the summer, we were able to escape to attend our first Renaissance faire, and take another trip to the Oregon coast. On our summer coast trip, we had allotted ourselves a little more time and were able to make a week of driving south to Florence, and slowly driving back up north. 

     The coast trip is one I hope to repeat again in the future, maybe in the opposite direction, but it gave us a good starting point for exploring our state. We started in Florence and spent two days between Florence and Reidsport, meeting a family friend and playing in the sand dunes before driving up to our favorite town, Lincoln City. We spent the days there relaxing and sitting on the beach before continuing up to Seaside. We went during the Hood-to-Coast race, so we enjoyed the various vendors and new attractions put up but left for Astoria before the crowds came in. 

    The final stretch of the year was filled with busy work schedules, a move to a newer, bigger apartment, and time to prepare for the new year. Now that it's 2024 there have been some big changes, the first being that I'll be starting a new job at the end of the month. We also have some big plans lined up, and if you haven't already guessed, my New Year's resolution is to get back to Samable and keep you all updated/entertained. Let me know what you want to read more of this year!

Wedding!!!!

 Read the full story at: Samable

Now for the moment you've all been waiting for. The wedding! With COVID-19 continuing to be a problem in our lives, Roy and I were having a hard time trying to plan a wedding, especially with the logistics of international travel. After many discussions, with many parties we decided to have a true COVID-19 wedding. A small elopement ceromony broadcasted over zoom and instagram live, filled with family and friends. We began the night with everyone gathered around for Korean Fried Chicken from our favorite place, Chimcking. Following dinner my parents joined us for the rehersal and the ceremony. My closest friend in Portland graciously got ordained and performed the ceremony dressed in his otter onesy. Our other friends Sunho, Asme, and Jean joined the celebration as well as my parents. My father gave me away, my mother gave me her veil and we closed the ceremony with champagne and better than sex cake.

    Hopefully in the near (covidless) future we will be able to have our larger reception, filled with everyone and filled with dancing. Roy has already accepted the fact that I will be making a him participate in a choreographed and propably slightly over the top first dance. More to come on that next year.

     Like any newly weds we had a honeymoon, a COVID-19 stay at home honeymoon, filled with finalizing moving in and officially making the apartment, "our home".  Roy is currently taking the time off from work to focus on his career goal of personal training, and his personal goal of personal training himself... and me when I put up with it. For the time being that means we will be fighting the gender cultural norms and I am the bread winner of the household. 

     Currently our plans for the upcoming future include a small Halloween celebration - although we haven't decided on custumes yet, Thanksgiving plans, Christmas in the works and New Years on the drawing board. More to come in the months ahead!

    Eventually I'll get back into a regular posting routine.

Sam Can Now be Found at Samable!

Hey all Geology Blues fans! 

    The last time I wrote on this blog I was in middle school (I had to double-check it was so long ago). Now I am here once more to shamelessly promote my new personal blog Samable. I made this blog this year to share all my adventures as a college student.

To catch everyone up on where life has taken me: 

    I am a student at Portland State University studying Health and Fitness. I chose this major after one year of being an architecture major. I enjoyed architecture and liked the creativity of designing, but I realized that my true passion was in recreation. Now I am working towards the goal of becoming a recreation program direction. If I achieve my perfect goal, it would be to develop more after school programs for teenagers. For the fall semester of my third year, I am actually taking a break from health classes and studying abroad at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. The only class I am taking here is Korean. When I return to the United States I will jump right back into my courses and keep considering that I really want to return to South Korea for graduate school.
   Other fun events that have happened include my very interesting summer job in Minnesota on Lake of the Woods. I have spent the last two summers working as a Wilderness Canoe Guide for teenagers. This job has allowed me to combine my love for the outdoors with my passion for afterschool programs for teenagers. It has also left me with many stories and adventures to tell.

    I'm keeping this post short and sweet, but I hope a few of you will look at my new blog and follow my new adventures!

The 10 most incredible places I have stood

In celebration of Earth Day, Geotripper started a series of blogs where he identifies the most [geologically] incredible places he visited. In his opening blog, he encouraged his readers to play along so I started making my list. I found the endeavor harder than it seems because for I lived in Utah, and each and every place in southern Utah that I visited could have been part of this list. In refining my list, I tried to include places that were more than just incredible for their geology, but also hold special meaning to me.

Here is my list (unfortunately I don't have pictures of some because many of the places were experienced in pre-digital camera and pre-geology days so my limited images are often not in  focus or focused on the geology):

10. Black Box Canyon, San Rafael Swell, Utah - There are a number of slot canyons I could have chosen, but in the end it came down to this one because it had all of the slot canyon features (and was one of the most rugged hikes I had ever been on). Although not as narrow or deep as a some of the other canyons of the San Rafael Swell, the rugged nature of this canyon makes this the only slot canyon I have visited in Southern Utah that we saw no other groups (It was also one of the most exhausting day hikes I have ever been on, 12 hours with several sections we had to swim, and early on there is 15-20' drop that makes you commit to the whole canyon.) In addition to the slot features, I was impressed by the snags and logs wedged 20-30' above the canyon bottom from flash floods.

9. Eagle's Rock, Lake of the Woods, Ontario -Eagle's Rock is not much more than a high cliff on one of the islands in Lake of the Woods. But geologically it is part of the Canadian Shield. Recent ice ages have removed all the overlying sediments exposing Archean Aged grandiorite. These rocks represent some of the oldest rocks on the surface.

8. Silver King Mine, Park City, UT. I tried to think of one of the places I had been under ground, the two that were most memorable were an old copper mine near Watersmeet, MI, and the Silver King Mine in Park City UT. Although the copper mine was still actively being mined for pure copper, for this list I choose the Silver King Mine which is until recently was open as a tourist attraction. Parts of the mine are still being dewatered today as part of the water system for the Park City but unfortunately the tours of the mine are no longer available to the public. The highlight of the tour was when the tunnel we were in (on  a railroad cart) goes past a long straight drainage tunnel. This tunnel was completed in the 1920's by miners boring through the hard (mostly granitic) rocks from both directions, but it is so straight that as you go past it you can sere the opening into daylight over 1000 feet away.

7. Lassen Peak, California - I have climbed on two of the Cascade Volcanoes and both  were incredible experiences. I would have chosen Mt. Shasta, but the altitude got me before making the final summit. So Mt. Lassen it is.

6. Yosemite Valley, California - Truly a majestic place and the last two time I have been to Yosemite it has been in the winter or early spring. The snow in the valley keeps the number of people down, but it also muffles the sound running through the valley. In the winter the water falls are sometimes barely a trickle, but the ice cones at the bottom and the frost from the sprays is a beautiful scene.

5. Many Glacier Valley, Glacier National Park, Montana - I spent a summer working as a concessionaire for one of the hotels in Glacier national Park so there are several memorable moments and places within the park, but to me the most incredible place is the Many Glacier Valley. Many Glacier Valley is really the junction of three glacially carved alpine valleys, and up one of them Grinnell Glacier still is (barely) holding on. The valley is full of alpine glacier features such as Aretes (The Garden Wall), Truncated spurs (Grinell Peak), Paternoster Lakes,  hanging valleys, cirques and tarns. The place I chose was the top of Swiftcurrent pass, standing on the narrow arete of the Garden Wall, looking down the Swiftcurrent Valley.

Near Artist's Vista, Makoshika State Park

4. Makoshika State Park, Montana - For four years we lived in Montana, we had Makoshika State Park in the back yard of the Community College I was teaching at. Makoshika is a badlands park with extraordinary sedimentary features with the added feature that the K/T boundary runs right through the park so has you drop down into the many coulees and washes you enter into the Late Cretaceous age and dinosaur fossils are abundant. (Most of the fossils are bone fragments and chips but I did run across some ceratopsin frills and a jaw bone). But for some politicking in the 1930's Makoshika might have become a national park. That it didn't is a mixed blessing because it is much less busy than the nearby (and entirely Cretaceous aged) Teddy Roosevelt National Park, but at the same time many of the paleontological resources are being lost because it does not get the attention (money and personnel) as it would if it were a national site.

Lake Baikal

3. Shore of Lake Baikal, Siberia - As an undergraduate, I was fortunate to spend a summer doing a language program at University of Siberia. At the end of the program the group took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Lake Baikal. Unlike the American Great Lakes, there was almost no development along the shores with near pristine landscapes to the north, barely visible across the lakes were snowcapped mountains just visible through the clouds.

2. Ice Cave in the Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska - While in college, I participated in the Juneau Icefield Research Program. Before heading up onto the icefields, we took a day trip to the toe of the Mendenhall Glacier. Where a stream was exiting the glacier, a large ice cave had been carved, and inside the light was filtered into an eerie glacial blue. 

1. Goblin Valley State Park, UT - The first time I went to Goblin Valley, Halloween was on a weekend and near a new moon, so my friends and I saw the name and figured it would be the perfect place to go celebrate. I was immediately taken in by the strange hoodoos and desolate feel and it has been my favorite place ever since. The story I often tell is that even though I lived in Utah for over 7 years, I never made it to see the Grand Canyon. On 5 separate occasions, I set out planning on going to the Grand Canyon, but I would make it to Goblin Valley the first night, and then never get much further.  A couple of years ago we had the opportunity to go back, and though it is a fair bit more developed it is still my favorite place.