And OR Fun

As I mentioned previously I recently went up to Bend, Oregon to check out the OSU-Cascades Campus.  I had Dad drive up with me so that we could do the drive in one shot, it’s about a twelve hour drive.  He drove over here on Wednesday then Thursday morning we hit the road for the long haul.  We then drove back down on Tuesday.  Luckily we had a rather uneventful drive up and we really only hit construction once while I was driving but we only had to slow down to about 45mph.  The drive back down was equally smooth though we did have to slow to 25mph for about a quarter mile at one point.

I love being able to ride shotgun through beautiful areas because I don’t have to watch the road and I can take about 20 photos with my phone so that I can get one pretty good shot of Mt Shasta.  We ended up getting a lot closer as we drove the 5 but by that time I was tired of getting photos of the trees along the side of the road.

Friday we checked out the OSU-Cascades campus and then did a tiny bit of scoping out of where the nearby apartments are and what the areas look like.  We didn’t do too much looking since there’s no need to do too much until I get in for sure!  (Here’s hoping!!)

That evening we then went to Bend’s 6th annual Brewfest for a few hours.  Over thirty breweries were represented with two brews each available to taste.  Of course there was food too and apparently an area had foosball and ping-pong but I never did see that area.  I think they were misleading us.  I had four 4oz tastings and my favorite by far had the best name: Skip and Go Naked, and it was brewed by Mt. Shasta Brewing Co.  It was a light, strawberry ginger ale.  I also chose to snack on a super yummy blueberry lemon crepe.  Sure I ended up with powdered sugar on my jeans but that was a badge I was proud to wear.  I would have bought another if we were there long enough.

The beer in the photo was not Skip and Go Naked, but one I didn’t care for very much, Moose Drool a brown ale by Big Sky Brewing Co.   And if you were wondering, yes I do get to keep my mug.  In fact, it’s chillin’ in my freezer now.  Ha, get it?  Chillin’ in my freezer?!

Sunday we got to really hang out with my uncle Kris.  We went out to his place and then Kris, Jan, Dad and I went to Three Creeks Brewing for drinks, food and to play pool.  I was going to be driving home so I sampled their soda selection and enjoyed the Pepsi that they had on tap.  One of the things that we ordered was a starter, Cheese & Crawfish Dip, and it was so good!  I’ve never had crawfish before but the flavors in this dip were to die for.  After our food we relocated to the pool table and Kris, Dad and I played quite a few games.  Turns out that despite some really good shots I’m not good enough to beat Dad.  We would play winner and Dad never lost but I always beat Kris.  Sure quite a few games were won thanks to a scratch on the 8 ball or calling the wrong pocket but hey, we were having fun so it didn’t matter!  I have no photos of this because I was silly and didn’t take my purse which had my camera inside.

Our last day in town the Grandparents drove us on a very large loop of the mountains and lakes to the west of Bend and it was beautiful!  We stopped at Elk Lake to stretch our legs and have some ice cream (I opted for blackberry) and I was able to get some photos.

Doesn’t this seem like a beautiful place to spend a summer day?

It’s ok, take a mental vacation here for a moment.  There’s plenty of seating available!

Loves.

Summer Homework

Nobody on summer break wants to have homework.  Especially when it’s self-assigned homework.  That is what I’ve been slowly but surely working on this summer.  Two different self-assigned tasks.  The first one was by far the most fun and the second one is much more time consuming and important.

The first was working on a “Best Of Santa Barbara” guide for a friend at work who is transferring to UCSB this fall.  I thought that it’d be nice for her to have a quick cheat sheet for finding the best hangouts or restaurants.  I think that every school should have a welcoming committee for transfer students with a best of guide.  I know that I would have found one useful transferring to CSUB.  For the longest time I was driving to a post office 3.5 miles away when there’s one 1.5 miles in the other direction.  Oh well.

Today is her final day at work before she moves to SB so I gave her the guide yesterday when we both worked.  It ended up being about 10 typed pages which I broke up into different categories such as “Food & Drink”, “Going Out”, “Hobbies & At Home Entertainment” and “All About You”.  Then I had some fun with stickers.  So in the end it ended up being pretty cool looking and she was so surprised that she ended up tearing up a bit.  Go me, mission accomplished!  Not that my mission was to make her cry, more of to surprise her with something that she’d really like and be able to use.

My second homework assignment has been to investigate graduate programs for my masters degree in counseling psychology.  Quite a few graduate schools have psychology programs but about half of those are doctorate programs or are research based degrees.  So right there, I lose a lot of options.  Then I don’t want to live in Los Angeles so again, a reduction in options.  Anyways, I’ve been trying to determine where I want to go to school next and then potentially begin my career.

Right now my number one pick is Oregon State University’s program.  Their program is not on the main campus in Corvallis, Oregon (south of Salem) but in Bend, Oregon (east of the mountains).  Last week I was able to check out the campus.  Dad and I drove up in one day to my grandparents’ place in Bend and stopped by the school the next day to check it out and talk to a woman on campus about the program.  I was surprised at the size of their campus.

That’s basically it.  One big building.  But it is on the Central Oregon Community College campus so they apparently share resources such as the student union, library, and bookstore.  But the plus about there just being one big (and did I mention nice?) building is that in the winter I won’t be schlepping from one building to another.

Hopefully this will be a common sight this next school year.  And my “Don’t Be Trashy, Recycle” bumper sticker would be more congruent with the attitudes of Bend than those of Bakersfield.  But I won’t get into that now.

Loves.