Corvallis and OSU in (a few) photos

So here is a few photos of places around Corvallis and Oregon State that I go too. I figured I'd keep this to things that I actually use or go to instead of showing you a bunch of nice looking places that I don't ever frequent. 

 This is actually a simple photo of the start of downtown Corvallis, this is where I turn off of Van Buren and head down 2nd street. Downtown Corvallis essentially runs through 1st through 5th street and starts at about Van Buren and runs about 6-8 blocks down.

The Squirrel Tavern is a bar that Rob, one of the older graduate students, recommended since not a lot of undergraduates go. I met up with a fellow new grad student there for a pint one afternoon. Its laid back and yes, no younger folks which is nice.

This is a picture of the downtown location of American Dream, which is the local pizza place that I probably would say due to its amazing pizza, drink selection and atmosphere is my favorite place in Corvallis. You can kind of see on the left hand side a "Gelato" sign, Dad and I had ice cream from there one night and its was really good.

Block 15 Brewery is where Dad and I went for our last lunch together. They make their own Root Beer, which Dad really enjoyed. They also make a mean Chili.

This is the sign for Darkside Cinema, they show Independent Movies that you wouldn't see at major theaters. They are the movies that premiere at Sundance or Cannes Film Festivals.

This is a picture of the East Lawn that I parallel, usually on the other side of the lawn though when I walk to my building. Its one of the few places on campus, and really in Oregon in general, that is not filled with huge trees.

This is the backside of the Memorial Union, which is the student union for OSU.

This picture and the picture above are of Student Legacy Park, a huge athletic park in the heart of campus devoted for all students, it features 2 massive multipurpose fields for soccer, touch football, softball and kickball. It also has bball and tennis courts, along with a 1/3 mile track.

A picture of Dixon, the student gym essentially.

Another photo of Student Legacy Park.

The point of this photo is the baseball diamond they had put on 2 of the four corners on each field for softball and kickball, a really cool concept.

Reser Stadium, the football stadium.

Gill Coliseum, home to the basketball, volleyball and wrestling teams.

Milam Hall, a.k.a., the Home of the Human Development and Family Sciences department.

A front view of Memorial Union.

This is the Hallie Ford Center, which actually just opened a week ago. It was built solely for purposes of researching things dealing with healthy children and families, and houses a good chunk of Family Studies, Nutrition and Public Health professors and graduates students.... including me. That is where my desk is. Amazing building.

This is Bates Hall, which hosts the Child Development Center (kind of like a preschool) and this is where more Family Studies people are at. It is right next to the Hallie Ford Center, which is kiddy corner to Milam.

This is a picture of (left) Bombs Away Cafe, which is a bar/cafe that a few professors and graduate students have recommended to me. On the right is the campus location of American Dream Pizza. Both are less than 1/4 mile from Hallie Ford Center.

This is the Brew Station, which is both a coffee shop and a chill place for a beer. As you can see, its really nice to read and have a coffee or beer (depending on the time of the day).

More of photos of places that are on Monroe Street (which also includes Bombs Away Cafe, American Dream- Campus and The Brew Station). Young's Kitchen is a Koren place which has awesome food. Dad really like Big Town Here, the sandwich shop on the right.

This is still on Monroe Avenue, Cafe Yumm I heard is amazing and Yogurt Extreme is awesome, its a buffet style with 10 different types of frozen yogurts and like 40 topping choices. Dad and I really liked it, I'm actually there enjoying a Maple Syrup Donut frozen yogurt with bananas, pineapple, coconut, strawberries, cherries and sprinkles right now haha. On the far right is McNammins, a nice bar/brewery with super good food. That is where they took us potential students in February when I came for my interviews.

This is Clodfelters, a bar close to Yogurt Extreme

This odd looking complex houses Roxy Dogg, a Mediterranean cafe, Pita Pita, a Mexican place, a Thai place, a dance club bar and a Hawaiian Grill (which is amazing). Its got a good variety of businesses.

So that was your brief tour of my OSU/Corvallis!

Saying goodbye & a chaotic week

Well its Friday, Dad got on the train in Albany (the neighboring town) in route to Southern California for a few days before heading back. This whole week flew by quicker then any week ever and also seemed to last a lifetime in the matter of how much got done.

Sunday was a great day, we got up and drove through the cascades and into Seattle for a Seattle Mariners game and to enjoy the city. The baseball stadium is right by the tracks and the port, and also next to the football/entertainment district. Really cool area. I'm glad we made the time to get up there before driving south into Oregon for the night.

A view from out hotel parking lot on Sunday morning in a town nestled in the outskirts of the Cascades in Central Washington.

Driving through the Cascades Sunday morning enroute to Seattle.

View of the Seattle skyline from the upperdeck of Safeco Field, home of the Mariners baseball team.

Dad and I in Safeco Field, which overlooked the ports and the mountains.

Sunday morning I got a alert saying Comcast was coming Monday at noon, not Tuesday, which made our Monday really interesting. We stopped by at 8 a.m. Monday morning a Target to get a t.v. so Comcast could set up my cable, drove into Corvallis and picked up my key and started unpacking the car. We even got to "The Sleep Center" before noon and purchased my bed. Comcast came and we then headed to another neighboring town to get more stuff from Walmart and Target, such as storage bins, t.v. stand, dining room table, and many other things. We had a nice italian dinner before settling into a hotel for the night.

Tuesday was another long day, probably the longest of the trip. I went to campus early and took care of a ton of paperwork while Dad was a hero, doing tons of laundry and unpacking a bunch of stuff. The bed was delivered around 1:30 and then Dad and I went into Portland to get my sofa bed, bookcase, coffee table, side table, microwave cart, rug and a few other things. Traffic was awful and we didn't get to, in and out of Portland until 5:30. We rolled into Corvallis at about 7, having some pizza from the town's famous pizza place "American Dream Pizza." We then unpacked the car and built the sofa bed so Dad could sleep comfortably. Around 11 p.m. we called it a night.

Wednesday was another day of building stuff, picking up odds and ends and another day that just flew by. We walked to dinner and then to ice cream since I live 1/2 mile from Downtown Corvallis where all sorts of bars, breweries, cafes and everything in between is.

Thursday was Dad's day, the day he was waiting for, since he was able to take the car and go train chasing. I did errands and road my bike around to various spots, testing how long it takes and if I can make it too and from with a grocery bag and all that. Got a lot of city exploring in. Thursday night was grabbed Pizza again, at the Campus American Dream before going to a self serve yogurt place, essentially a buffet style yogurt place where you pay by the ounce.

Today Dad and I walked to a few stores and did a few errands, enjoying a good lunch at Block 15 Brewery. Dad had a root beer made fresh by the the brewery (a lot of breweries in town make their own cider and root beer besides just beer) and I had my Mango Summer Seasonal Ale. Finally it was time to sadly take Dad to the train station. It was tough to see him go, but I'm happy he gets to enjoy a few more days of train riding and train chasing before he gets back Wednesday night.

A

A view of the house my apartment is in, the bottom of the two photos has a better look at where my apartment is. My apartment has the two side windows and the right two windows at the front of the house.

 My bedroom is the only "work in progress" still. I won't really have much in there but my entire set of clothes was in vacuum sealed bags and all need to be washed, so it will be messy for a while haha.

P.S. thank you to you all. As you look at those photos many of you gave me things, or money, or both that went into making my new apartment my new "home." You can't see it but there are pictures of all of you somewhere in there.

Road Trip Day 4

Well its Saturday Aug 27, ala Day 4 of our road trip. Quick breakdown of the trip so far:

Day 1 (Wed. Aug 24): Woodhaven, MI to West Des Moines, Iowa- 614 Miles
Day 2 (Thur. Aug 25)- West Des Moines, Iowa to Rapid City, South Dakota- 618 Miles
Day 3 (Fri. Aug 26)- Rapid City, SD to Billings, Montanta- 389 Miles
Day 4 (Sat. Aug 27)- Billings, MT to Ellensburg, Washington- 710 Miles

Its been a real great journey so far. Dad and I both agreed that we wish we could have took photos of the landscapes but they were so vast and so expansive that photo would be useless as it wouldn't do the landscapes justice. Iowa after Des Moines is surprisingly hilly. South Dakota was beautiful.

We decided on Wednesday night in the hotel to drive farther then planned on Thursday, driving to Rapid City instead of Kadoka, SD so we could stop by Mount Rushmore real quick Friday morning before getting in on our journey west.

Wyoming was just amazing to see because there was hills and fields that went on as far as you could see. There was literally nothing but nature for miles and miles and miles.

Friday night we stopped in Billings, Montana. The Billings Mustangs, a minor league team for the Cincinnati Reds, are located there and when I was mapping out our trip plan I saw that they were home that night so we took a nice break that night and went to the game. It was really nice overall, park was small but great and the weather was nice besides a few rain minutes of rain to start off the game.

Saturday was drive day, as you can see from the millage above. We only planned to drive to Spokane, WA, about 540 miles. But we felt good and wanted the easier drive to Seattle on Sunday morning. Montana was by far the most beautiful state to drive through so far. The mountains, the hills, the lakes and everything was just stunning. Simply stunning. You can't make it up how nice those scenes are. Idaho was only a short segment of the drive but it was similar to Montana because Idaho's part of the trip and the western part of Montana both are part of the Rocky Mountains. Although there was some obvious white knuckle type driving through the mountains they were some stunning scenes. Eastern Washington (between the Rocky and Cascade Mountain ranges) is actually funny because it is flat and is the picture of what you think you would see in Nebraska and Kansas. It was pure fields. We stopped for the night about 110 miles from Seattle and we are now in the Cascades. 

The scenes from the journey have stuck out to me, it has just been amazing to see Mountains, fields, lakes, rivers and everything inbetween that stretch on for the horizon. Hopefully Sunday and Monday finish out the driving part of the trip in a great way.

Some photos from the journey so far.....

The photo above is dad on our drive through Wyoming on Friday, he had us stop a few times so he can get random railroad photos (big suprise.....) haha.

Dad and I at Mount Rushmore early Friday morning (as you can tell by us squinting as the sun is right in our eyes). It was really nice to see, and we were both happy that we were able to make it down there.

When walking up to the lookout post for Mount Rushmore (which is where the photo of Dad and I was taken above) you walk through these posts with all 50 states flags. The whole setup of the park was nice and well planned, put together and overall just clean.

Dad and I at Dehler Park, the ballpark for the Billings Mustangs. Yes Dad's eyes are open, he is just really bad at taking pictures haha.

Getting ready

I guess I should prelude what I think, maybe hope this blog will be about. I have a lot of great people in my life and those people I want to remain in contact with for years to come. Like many, I think this blog might be a good way to at least portray a tad of what is going on in my life and to see what I am seeing. I don't want this blog to be a "like how grand my life is" or "my life is important because I am (insert place here)" type blog. I really want to just keep in contact as much as I can with the people I love and I think this is a good way (mostly since I am horrible at describing things, hopefully pictures will help).

Anyways it is the night before Dad and I leave for the trek to OSU. The car is packed (almost), and to the brim at that. Every inch is being used. Our hope is to make it to Des Moines, Iowa on the first night. We'll see how it goes, I know its going to be a memorable drive, no matter if it is stressful, peaceful, chaotic and/or everything in between.

It is still hard to believe how quickly tomorrow has come, seems like the last week sped up so quickly on the time to go. I gave away my rabbit to a co-worker at PSP today, I'm glad it went to a good person and I'm also glad my dad doesn't have to stress about taking care for it, specially given his constant travels.

It has been hard saying goodbye (until December) to a lot of people, sometimes even harder realizing that some people I just never got an opportunity to see one last time before heading out, but that is how life goes sometimes and our paths will cross again.

I know I will make it out in OSU, mostly because I don't let myself fail. And I have the people in my life that don't let me stop until I am finished with whatever goal I have and no how to get me through any hard obstacle. But obviously not having my dad, brother, girlfriend, best friend, family, and my wonderful friends from CMU, home and scattered across the state/country will be hard.

It is going to be an interesting journey and I look forward to not only how much I change in the coming weeks, months and years, but more importantly talking and emailing with family and friends to see how their lives have changed. I think it is always amazing hearing a family member or friend who graduated, is starting a new job, getting married (or sadly divorced), having a child or anything in between.

Enough for today, time to enjoy one last night as a permanent Michigan resident.