Sunday, July 29, 2007

Southwest airlines boarding passes

I learned something this week about printing a boarding pass on Southwest airlines. If you have access to a computer but not a printer, you can reprint your boarding pass at the airport (either at the kiosk or with an agent). You don't lose your boarding group assignment or anything. The boarding agent says that when she has to fly but isn't near a computer, she calls a friend to check her in and she picks up her boarding pass at the airport. Just something to know.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

I'm dying here

Today is the day that Harry Potter comes out. I am also at work today. Luckily, I work in a public library so getting my hands on a copy wasn't difficult. I just really, really want to be reading my book right now.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Harry Potter predictions

I predict the following characters will die in the last Harry Potter book:

Neville
Ginny Weasley
Lupin
Bellatrix Lestrange
Severus Snape
Voldemort

Monday, July 09, 2007

Laura vs. the Volcano

We're back from our annual fourth of July trip to a national park. This year, we chose Lassen Volcanic, one of the smallest and least visited national parks in the country. Why would we choose such a place? Well, proximity to gambling is one reason. The other is that we were meeting quite a few people from the West coast for a weekend of hiking and camping.

A scant 2 and half hours from Reno, this national park doesn't really have any "oh, wow" moments like the Grand Canyon. The mountains are in the southern Cascade region, and the namesake mountain, Lassen Peak is only about 12,000 feet. But while it may lack sexiness, this park is still a fun place to hang out and hike. Also, there's an element of danger here too...Lassen Peak is still an active volcano, and it last erupted in 1915, spewing lava and volcanic rocks all over the place. If you're a badass (which I'm not), you can even hike up the volcano.

This was a fun trip, mainly because we were with such a great group of people. Despite the fact that I like to camp with at least one former Eagle Scout and none were present this time around, making fire was not too complicated, thanks to the dry conditions in California. Actually, I'm surprised that there weren't fire restrictions in the campground.

There was one really scary moment when a few of us got lost in the wilderness, literally. We were following a trail that just seemed to kind of die off, so we wandered around aimlessly trying to figure out where to go. Finally, we heard cars on the main road so we made a beeline for the road, only to discover that we were about a mile from the trail head.

One of the great things was the big, blue sky. It was such a brilliant blue, and for most of the time, there was nary a cloud in the sky. At night, the stars were out in full force, and it was amazing to me that there were so many. Matt even saw a few shooting stars.

It was a welcome change from big-city life (although I really missed the food...the one time we went into town we had a crappy experience at the local pizza parlor/bar), and I would gladly go back.
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