Road Trip: California - Day 2

Did I say tomorrow? Here's the thing. When we reached a hotel, I entered the SS stage of exhaustion (Sleepy and Stupid) as you could tell from my previous post in which I said a lobster was 8200 years old. He was not. He was 80 to 100 years old. I have changed it, but really, what was I thinking?

At the wax museum, there was a figure on Johnny Depp.
Apparently people love touching his face. So control yourself...Anna. ;)

Anyway, I'm going to do the day by day breakdown as planned because there's too much for one blog post. I'd lose you. If I haven't already.


Day two was Newport, Oregon to Crescent City, California. This was mostly sightseeing. First thing to note about Newport is that there is a lot of fishing going on. I am not a fisher, so the smell of fish and ocean makes me want to gag. So the first step out of the car was pretty brutal for me. We got tickets to see three things: Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museum, Wax Works Museum, and Undersea Gardens. All were cool, and pretty dark so not many pictures.
Undersea Gardens isn't all that interesting. And it's hard to capture fish in the dark.

Next, though, we went to the Sea Lion Caves in Florence, Oregon. Totally awesome. And I mean awesome as in I was practically in awe. It was miraculous! All these sea lions in their completely natural habitat. The cave was there naturally and people just built an elevator and little fence-thing so we could see the sea lions without slipping on the rocks or charging toward the Sea Lions, attempting to kill them all.

Double-Eyed Guy. Sounds like a superhero...or a tongue
twister.

Another cool thing about the Sea Lion Caves is that I saw my first whale. A whale. Now, I don't want to hear it from those people who see whales every day. Just let me gush. It wasn't even up close. We were up really high, walking to the elevator. Beside us was a majestic, vast ocean view. Then my mom, a fan of whales, looks out and sees a gush of air spew out of the ocean. She says, "Is that a whale??" And it was. True, all we could see was the spouting, and it never breached or anything like that, but it was breathtaking nonetheless. Keep your bragging to yourself. If you're reading this, I've probably heard it before anyway.

After the elevator ride, there were two things I noticed. One, it's almost chilly when you're this for underground. And two, sea lions are not a pleasant thing to smell. I'm not even sure what I was expecting to smell. Cool, brisk air I suppose. But no, I smelled sea lion manure. And a lot of it. But after that initial "yuck" the next thing that overtook me was the sound. Sea lions are quite loud. Not so loud that you can't hear yourself think, but loud enough. They were chatting, bickering, shouting, all that good stuff. Reminded me of high school. Only, not as smelly. But only slightly.

Here's what it sounded like:

That was pretty much all that happened that day. Oh, but while we strolled through the gift shop of the Ripley's Believe it Or Not/Wax Works gift shop, we stumbled upon Charlie (left). Charlie is a very cute stuffed sea lion. I'm sure he would have loved to sea his family members, but we had to leave him in the car. At least, I think he's a sea lion. That's what the tag said. But after visiting Ocean World (next post) I'm not positive. But let's just call him a sea lion and spare his feelings. Oh, and that's a Swedish Fish in his mouth. No, he did not come with it. Naming him Charlie was actually my brother, Finn's, idea. I don't normally name my many stuffed animals (anymore) but Finn looked at him and said, "He looks like a Charlie." And so he be named Charlie. Later I found out Finn actually named him Charlie after Charlie the Unicorn. Nice.

Road Trip: California - Day 1

One day of driving accomplished. We are settling in a hotel in Newport right now, listening to the ocean. But let me start from the beginning.

Ok, we were all up at 4:30 AM, left around 5:30 AM, ate breakfast at McDonald's and went on our way. The road trip has begun!

The funny thing is, is that road trips always result in me looking at the world differently for a short time. I always forget what Washington really looks like. I always forget about the pretty parts. Here are a few pictures of the drive before we reached Oregon.

That little white thing in the distance is Mt. Rainer.
My cell phone doesn't do it justice.

Then we reached the part of Washington that no one likes to talk about. The clear cut parts. The land that used to be beautiful, but was torn down to build more houses for people. All stumps and saplings. It's sad to look at really. I mean, sure the loggers plant new trees. But they aren't going to wait fifty years for the tree to get as tall as the original one was.

As we drove past all those cleared areas, I started to wonder how many animals were there originally, and where they are now. Probably roaming through people's yards, looking for a decent garbage can. Then everyone freaks out and shoots the animal, not understanding why it was there in the first place. Car conversations revolved around that for awhile.

But then we reached Oregon and forgot about all that.

At the border!

Seaside (kinda looks like 1st street, doesn't it? For my
Snohomishians.)

Since it was nice out, Seaside was very touristy. We stopped at Pig N' Pancake for some food, and then went to this little aquarium that was nearby. Seal pups were born just last month. And they filled my heart with adorableness.There was this gate around them and they wouldn't stop moving, so pictures were difficult, but I snapped a few. I'm not sure if it's pictures of the babies or not, but it's cute nonetheless.

The rest of the aquarium was interesting.

Wolf eel: The most depressed sea creature

"Mommy, I found a star fish!"

"Maybe if I remain perfectly still...they won't see me...."

This is (was) Victor the Lobster. Someone tried to kidnap
him, and when they tried to catch the guy he dropped Victor
and left. Victor died later. He was about 80 to 100 years old!!

More driving, and driving. This mostly consisted of passenger-sleeping and/or music listening. My music of choice was Basshunter (obviously), The White Stripes, Sara Bareilles, and then one song each from various other artists. This went one for a couple more hours. We got out occasionally to stretch and whatnot, but this part of the journey consisted mostly of space-out time.

Then we got to the ocean! I always forget how gorgeous the ocean is. Always.

This is the view from our hotel. U jelly ;)

Now, we're all just resting in Newport. That's all for today. Everyone's kinda zonked out right now. Although it'd be nice to go swimming, I don't want to be falling asleep in the pool. I think I'll just crash for now.

More tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Things I'll Never Get: Why Communication is Such a Problem

<disclaimer>I'm not trying to give really sound advice here. There is a reason this is titled "Things I'll Never Get" and not "What You All Should Do." This is a rant, mixed with common sense, opinions, and probably illogicality and flaws. If you base your parenting or teenager-ing around this post, then you are not allowed to sue me. So there.
Oh, and no this did not all come from my head. The following comes from several years of advice from people and other sources and watching relationships fall apart.</disclaimer>

<preface> This post could easily turn into another post about romantic relationships, which will only leave me tense and irritated with life. I'm going to try and keep romance out of this as much as possible, because writing is supposed to help me release feelings, not create new ones. </preface>

To me, unless logic comes in to prove me wrong again, the biggest problem with any kind of relationship is communication. Lack thereof always ends badly. Which is probably why distance causes problems so often. Phone calls is not the kind of communication I'm talking about. It's face-to-face. And although I am a huge fan of technology, this is one of the biggest downsides to it. Talking to people face-to-face is the most difficult and inconvenient way of communicating. So as soon as there is a barrier of any kind, people bounce on it. I mean, why would you go through all the trouble to get in the car, waste all that gas, and see your friend when you could just text them? The same reason you use a remote instead of getting up to change the channel manually. Convenience. And when you use optimum convenience to try and maintain a relationship with someone, things can turn sour easily.

Next to romance, I believe that the relationships that lack the most communication are between parent and child. While romantic relationships simply end when they don't work out (physically anyway), you can't "break up" with your parent, so the relationship with them becomes worse and worse to the point where the child doesn't consider that person they live with their parent anymore. Besides their failed romances, the thing I hate teens talking about is how "horrible" their parents are. That is a generalization, I know. There are some parents who really are terrible people, but teenage offspring often talk about actual bad parents in a different way. That is, they don't. Not usually anyway. Real problems remain hidden most of the time. The people that I've met that have bad parents will hardly ever bring them up until I talk to them for a long time about things totally unrelated.

<additional information>There are those teens that as soon as you talk to them they'll say stuff like, "You know, I'm, like, totally abused by my parents, like, all the time." Then you find out the "abuse" they're discussing is how their parents got angry and yelled at them once or they took away their cell phone last week. I'm not talking about those teens.

Or those teens that, once you get them talking, go on and on about how horribly their parents treat them and how depressed they are because of it. Then you find out they aren't depressed at all and just want sympathy and that they really didn't consider you a friend in the first place. I'm not talking about those teens either.

The teens (or any person at all, really) I'm talking about are the ones that seem perfectly content. All the time. Not super-duper happy to the point where you're suspicious, but just content. Then suddenly you find out that their parents are alcoholics and this teen has to care for their four siblings all the time, leaving them emotionally drained. Or something like that. That was not an example of someone I know or anything, although I have met people that as soon as I start asking about their family, or their struggles with parents, they immediately put up a wall of "I don't want to talk about it" and/or "I don't want to worry you." Then when I try and ease it out of them somehow, I get very little information. It's their right not to talk about it and I don't want to get too pushy. But those experiences have led me to the conclusion that when people have actual problems with parents, a lot of times, they don't want to talk about it, and if they do, they talk to the wrong people about them (i.e. someone their age who can't do anything). Those people I cannot help, and it bothers me when they view me as someone who can, and then get offended when I bring up professional help like therapy or something. But to the rest of people who rant about their parents who aren't actually bad people at all I can give sound advice to.</additional information>

Let me just get this out here right now. I wholeheartedly believe this, but just so someone doesn't smash me down, I need to word this properly. In my own experiences, I have found that good communication is the key to every type of relationship. Period. If you think you are doing well in the relationship, talking about it can enforce that. If not, talking about it can help fix the problem. In romance's case, if you think the relationship isn't going to work out, talking about it will give a greater chance of both parties to end on good terms.

Now, I mention good communication because, technically, arguing counts as a form of communication. Especially if you're going to break up with someone, never raise your voice when having a serious talk. There is a greater chance of this not happening if you avoid the Deadly Phrases like "You always" or "You never" in a negative way. Blame is never good. The last thing you want the person to think is that the relationship is falling apart because of something they did (even if you think it's true). Why? Because they may think they can completely change (which normally they can't) and fix everything. Even when it's between a parent and a child, you can't expect complete change (especially from the parent). Think about it: The parent definitely isn't going to change, and by the time the child reaches eighteen or so, they probably aren't either because their personality is pretty much set. Both parties can try and get the other to change, but they probably won't get far. But, not all hope is lost.

Before you go and bash me, saying that you were a brat and you had a complete turnaround or something like that, let me make something clear. To me, there is a difference between changing and improving. Change is simply an alter or modify, while improve is to bring about a more desirable condition. This is what makes all the difference, and where communication comes in. I don't think having a conversation with your child about changing will have as much as an effect on the child's mind as a conversation about improvement will. This does not mean, however, to walk up to your kid and say "I want improvement" and walk away. Remember: Good communication is the key to every type of relationship. This means to be specific and at the same time avoid the Deadly Phrases. I have found this gets your child (or parent) in the right mindset.

Of course, there is one more vital ingredient in order for this to work out. That is maturity. If the parent has a mature conversation about the improvement needed from the child to go on with life in the best manner possible, and the child gets up and leaves in a huff, that isn't going to bring about the wanted results for either party. If the child does find a problem in the said needed improvements, they need to communicate that with their parents in a mature manner. If not, this will only lead to bad communication: arguing. In turn, the parents need to take what the child said into consideration and respond in a likewise mature manner. Then both parties can negotiate, compromise and settle the issue on good terms.

<the point of the blog post>The thing I don't get is why more people don't do this in platonic, romantic, and parental relationships. People shouldn't be as terrified by the words, "We need to talk." I can't say communication is incredibly easy for me and you should be learning from my example. Because texting someone to say I was offended by something they said (which I have done multiple times, sadly) is much easier than talking to them about it face-to-face. So all of the previous words I typed I need to keep in mind as well.</the point of the blog post>

<conclusion>So, really, this isn't one of those "Things I'll Never Get" that doesn't apply to me at all. Let's face it, everyone gets shy. This wasn't supposed to be a rant about "people with no common sense." It applies to everyone, at least some of the time.

It's always the most important things that are the hardest to accomplish. Like, communication and respect. And healthiness. But, the reason I type all these coherent and incoherent sentences was to put this in your mind at least for a little while. Even if you don't do anything about it.

That's what this is here for. </conclusion>