Washington Apples… and Apes!

So Saturday was completely spontaneous! I got up early, and checked my email to discover that one of my friends and a group of his friends were headed up to Mt. St. Helens in Washington State for the day and leaving in an hour. So, before I knew it, I too was on my way up to the spectacular Mt. St. Helens national park…

First stop, Yale Lake… absolutely gorgeous. I want to come back!

Next, we made our way to “Ape Cave.” Now, this cave was formed over 10,000 years ago, but was expanded with the Mt. St. Helens eruption in May of 1980. It’s actually the world’s largest lava tunnel! And, at 2 and ¾ mile, I’d say it’s pretty long! Once in the cave, it was 40 degrees and complete with dripping water, mysterious water puddles, stalagmites, jagged rocks, cave slime, and random glimpses of light in the openings far above your head. Most of the time, you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face, so a flashlight was a necessity. And, there were 10 major rock falls we had to scramble up, and a few we had to go down. There was also a 9ft rock wall we had to climb with a rope, and a space so narrow, the only way you could get through was to crawl on your belly and pray you didn’t scratch the hell out of your body! Needless to say, after two hours of careful maneuvering through this eerie cave, I was ecstatic to see the glimmer of light shining down indicating we had reached the end!!!! Thank God!

Oh… but the fun was not over! Once out of the cave, we had to hike 2 miles back down to our cars… through the snow. Yes, that’s right snow. It was 97 degrees outside, with snow on the ground!

Next we stopped at the Washington side of the Columbia River…

And then we headed back to downtown Portland for a fabulous Thai-dinner. They sat us in the back room all to ourselves. Possibly because we were so dirty, they didn’t want us to scare the posh downtown Portlanders away! Haha.

Anyway, next week is 4th of July!! No concrete plans as of yet… but, I’m sure it’ll be an adventure whatever we wind up doing. Especially since I am friends with a bunch of Indians, and you NEVER know where you’ll end up with them planning the trips! Haha. Sorry guys!

oh.. p.s.: this is what your legs look like after traversing through jagged rocks for 2hrs...

Columbia River Gorge and Hood River

Ok, so get this – my company gave all the interns a day off and sponsored a trip to the Columbia River Gorge and Hood River! How bloody cool is that?! Man I love this place! Oregon definitely has got it going on! From fabulous nightlife that can rival the scene of bigger cities, to exquisite culture and museums, to probably the most breathtaking vistas, mountains and waterfalls I’ve ever seen!

So, first stop… a lookout over the famous Columbia River Gorge. The CR Gorge is actually a canyon up to 4,000 feet deep and stretching 80 miles through the Cascade Mountains forming the boundary of Washington State and Oregon! The gorge is the only water connection between the Columbia River Plateau and the Pacific Ocean and has over 77 waterfalls (and that’s only including the ones on the Oregon side)!!

Next, we hit Latourell Falls! It’s a 249ft waterfall in the national park. Obviously taking pictures from afar was not good enough for us… so, we hiked down to the bottom to get a better look – and a little wet from the spray!

After that, we hit Multnomah Falls!! This is actually the most visited natural attraction in Oregon, and at over 620ft, it is the 2nd highest falls in the United States, and 6th largest in the world!!! Amazing! So, being all “outdoorsy” now, I HAD to climb to the top of this waterfall to get a better view! We had only 40 minutes to get up to the top, and back down… this is usually a 90 minute hike – but, we figured if we power-walked up, and ran down, we could make it back before the bus left – and that is EXACTLY what we did! The view from the top was breathtaking (or maybe that’s because I was so out-of-breath by the time we completed the mile hike completely uphill in less than 15-minutes)! Haha, regardless – the view was spectacular.

On the way to Hood River, we passed my many other falls, but didn’t get a chance to stop. So… when we hit Hood River – some people went into town to shop, and me, being the water-lover that I am, went straight down to the banks of the River for a little sunshine and R&R. This 25-mile river is formed from the melting snow cascading from Mt. Hood, and is a tributary to the larger Columbia River. So flipping beautiful, because you have the water, and then the huge 11,000ft Mt Hood looming in the background!

Anyway, this “intern excursion” was priceless, and I’d whole heartedly recommend visitors to Oregon to hit up the Columbia River Gorge. Absolutely spectacular. Now, can’t wait to see what the rest of the weekend has to offer...

Chillaxin’ in Suburbia…

So this weekend was a little bit of a bummer as I had to foil all plans involving outdoor activities (which was pretty much everything) due to a cold that escalated into a respiratory infection complete with wheezing and rattling in the chest! So, since I didn’t really listen to my body in Europe – living off of no sleep, Tylenol, Motrin and Ricola cough drops, I figured now is not the time to make myself sicker, so I’ll just rest, and hopefully recover.

Ok, ok - so you didn't think I was actually going to stay in ALL weekend! Ha ha - yeah right!! I actually just came back from a little walk where there were no signs of any rattling or wheezing!! Success! Tomorrow, we jog!







So, did you see Spain hold off Italy in the Euro 2008 quarter-finals??!!! Woo-hoo!!! Spain Reign baby!!!!!!!!!!! Now, Spain needs to defeat Russia to make it to the finals! VIVA ESPAÑA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Germany plays Turkey on Wednesday for a shot at the finals. Now, as much as I love my Nuri don’t Worry Turkish Delight, I love my Germans more… so go Germany!!!!!

Work is going well – the more I dive into the project and the more I chip away at it, the more I realize I have to do! This is going to be a monster – but damn it’s going to be good ;)

Ok… next week is a busy week so best get some rest.

Cheers!

Oregon Trails - Part 2 - Sort of...

Alright, alright – so I know I am supposed to be exploring OTHER trails, but I loved Silver Falls so much I just had to come back! In fact, I love it so much – that we even got turned around and wound up hiking 15 miles! Haha. Oh well – after the hike we stopped in a fabulously-Latino town called Woodburn and had amazing (and quite authentic) Mexican food!

Check out the pictures below…

This weekend will be a little boring as I had to cancel all fun plans so as I could “rest.” Turns out ignoring you body when you need to rest can turn into respiratory infections! Oops!

Oregon Trails series - Part 1

Ok – so this place is so awesome, that I have vowed to go hiking as much as I can! There’s so many great trails and beautiful scenery to check out around here!

The first trail we did was “Silver Falls.” It’s a 9-mile loop winding up and down, under, around, over and below some great waterfalls, scenic vistas and breathtaking trees! Check out the pics below!

Not one copy yet!

Wow – talk about a whirlwind week, phew! Nothing compared to staying up for three nights in a row finishing up finance, accounting and marketing projects, then staying up all night celebrating the completion of those projects – then heading straight for the 5:00 a.m. train to a new country in Europe, only to stay up for two more days straight trying to tour as much of that city as possible in a short weekend – haha, but this week was pretty busy as well :)

My internship is shaping up to be pretty cool so far. I am working under the product marketing team – who basically are the ones responsible for interfacing directly with the engineers! We are the “geekier” than normal marketing people who can speak the “tech talk” and can chat directly with the engineers free of rhyming and other lame marketing lingo!! Haha. Man, are they a different breed of people! Thank goodness I’ve had my share of experience dealing with them! The guys (literally – as my entire team is all dudes), are great people from a mix of backgrounds! There are the funny ones, the quiet ones, the geeky ones, the drivers, the nice ones, the skeptics – you know, the usual players on a team! My boss is a cool guy – very athletic – very smart – very all over the place. Haha, it’s hard to pin him down. But, that’s because, like any company, everyone is buried up to their ears in work. However, unlike every company – Xerox encourages employees to live a well-balanced life with work, exercise and friends and family. How cool is that?!!! Totally the opposite of my last company. Sure they “said” they encouraged well balanced lifestyle, but made it pretty damn-near impossible to do that.

So let me just say, that the “campus” (clue number one that the office is fricken HUGE that they have to call it a campus), is so large that it takes me about 15 minutes just to walk to the next building over. They have about 5 organized football, soccer, frisbee, and baseball games going on at lunch in the grassy fields in between the buildings, and even have “community bikes” that you can ride to get to the buildings a little faster when pressed for time! Haha. And, there are about three giant cafeterias on campus! Complete with my turkey wraps!!! Woo-hoo!! Oh, how I have missed these wraps! And, within each building, there are is a grid system with letters and numbers mapping out each building! Thank god! Because, if these numbers were not there, I’d be SO lost. Maybe by the end of my three months here, I’ll be clear on exactly where everything is. They should have map!

The project I’m working on is quite fascinating and timely and has the potential to have a big impact on the company! I’m excited to be working on it! Not sure how much I can disclose, so I’ll just leave it at this for now ;) But, I will say, everyone from other managers, to directors, to VPs, to even the presidents have been so helpful and responsive in working with me on this project. Everyone so far has been wonderful! I’m excited to work with these folks!

And no, I have not had to make one single copy :)

Bienvenidos!! Welcome to Wilsonville...

So, my morning started off quite interesting in route to Oregon. First, the shuttle was 30 minutes late picking me up, THEN, when it finally rolled up, of course it was packed and the only guy talking was obsessed with ridiculous facts about the city of Chicago. In fact, did you know that Chicago is known as the “windy city” not because of the weather, but because of politicians having to be quite long-winded in order to get funding shifted from Springfield to Chicago back in the 1900s. This is according to the freak in the super shuttle, so not quite sure how reliable of a source he is! Anyway, so when we finally pulled up to the airport, I have no less than one-hour to spare before my flight takes off. Well, the not-so-efficient folks at USAir were not going to let me make it to the gate with that much time to spare… so, I had to wait in line for 40 minutes (actually two lines), one to check my luggage, and another to pay for extra charges since my bag was overweight… how stupid is that?! Two lines for one transaction. So with 20 minutes left before wheels up, I ran through sky harbor knocking over just about every small child and clueless old person not quick enough to dodge by bags as I sped by. Somehow made it through security in about 5 minutes, and arrived to my gate, sweating and all just in time for last call! Phew! Well, ladies and gentlemen, the fun couldn’t end there… oh no! I sat next to possibly the most obnoxious little kid ever! Even with my iPod cranked full blast, I could still here her talking in her “baby” voice, even though she was 8 years old, and her mother irately yelling at her to talk normally. So all three hours to Portland she was talking, practically in my lap looking out the window and just all around being as annoying as she could possibly be. All my annoyance quickly vanished as we flew by Mt. Hood! In the words of “Frank Barone” from Everybody Loves Raymond… HOLY CRAP! Breathtaking, to say the least. All 11,239 feet of it.

Anyway, fast-forwarding to Wilsonville (a small suburb about 20 minutes southwest of Portland), this is where I am living. Xerox is located in this small town of 17,000 people. Ok… San Diego State is over two times bigger than this city! Haha. But, such a beautiful place! The trees are huge! The people are so nice! Everything is so green! There’s even deer on the trails!!!! Its insane! I feel outdoorsy just by association of living here! Again, I’m going to let the pictures do most of the talking here…. But so far everything is great. I like my job, my project, my team, my manager and even my location. It’s going to be a wonderful summer!!

Corporate Lauren vs. Outdoorsy Lauren...

This is my office. I swear we work in a fricken forrest. The campus is huge. It takes about 15 minutes to walk to the NEXT building over.





This is what I see on my trails... beautiful trees, deer!!, barns, more trees, and even more trees!

This is how I roll here in Wilsonville. Kia all the way ;)

My apartment complex, and my room!!