O-R-E-G-O-N!

UEA! UEA! It’s my favorite holiday! For all of the non-Utard readers (aka none of you), UEA stands for Utah Education Association. We all have a week in October where some teachers go to some meeting and stuff happens. For all of the ten years that my mom has worked in this school district, she’s never gone to any of the meetings. So, my family usually goes out of town every year. However, this year was different, even though we did go out of town, we did something school related. I know what you’re thinking, “Oh that sucks,” but it was actually really fun because we went to tour colleges for my older brother (he’s a junior).

From left: My dad, me, and my brother at Canon Beach

After school on Wednesday, my family and I flew to Eugene. We were all exhausted because we got to the hotel at 12:00 am (1:00 am Utah time), and my brother had a huge four hour test at school. The next morning, we woke up bright and early for a 9:00 tour. Well, it was bright and early for me because I’m definitely NOT a morning person. Our first tour was at the University of Oregon, the biggest college in Oregon. The campus seemed huge, but it was actually not that big. I really liked it because there were so many trees and old looking buildings, and the entire college LOVED sports. Now I don’t play a sport, but that doesn’t mean I’m not an athlete, that’s a whole different post for another day (maybe next week). However, I’ve grown up in a family that revolves around sports, whether it’s going to any of the thousands of my brother’s sporting events, watching football on Sundays and Thursday nights, or when I’d always go to Rockies games with my grandpa. This is why I’d like to go to a big collage with awesome sports teams, like the Ducks. After the tour, we went to an AMAZING Chinese restaurant, then drove two hours to Portland. We stayed the rest of the nights at my aunt and uncle’s house, where they have two cats and an adorable Bernese mountain dog, named Bodi.

That Friday, we drove another two hours to Canon Beach. If any of you have seen The Goonies, my favorite 80’s movie, this is the beach that the pirate ship comes out of the huge rock. We had lunch at a pub in the town of Ecola (my dad calls it Ebola), then walked on the beach for a couple hours. The

Canon Beach with Haystack Rock

thing about the Oregon Coast is that this beach is not one were you can wear a swimsuit and sunbathe, you actually need to wear at least two layers if you want to survive, and you CANNOT go swimming, unless you want to die of hypothermia. So what’s so special about Canon Beach, it’s gorgeous there. There is always fog over the water, you can (most of the time) spot whales, and there is just a lot of wildlife. By wildlife I mean too many seagulls and washed up jellyfish. After walking on the beach and trying to convince my dad that touch the top of a dead jellyfish with your shoe won’t make it sting you, we got coffee and then headed back to my aunt and uncle’s house.

The second tour that we had was at my parents’ alma mater, Lewis and Clark. I was too sick to do anything, so I stayed in the car and slept. After that, we went out to lunch with my aunt and uncle and the family of one of my dad’s colleagues, at another brew pub. Being close to the coast, I had fish and chips. They were delicious, but not the best I’ve had which were salmon fish and chips at a fish market in Ecola. I would’ve gotten them at that market again, but we didn’t have enough time. On Sunday, we flew back to Salt Lake. I spent the day unpacking and studying my butt of for the finals that I’ve had this week.

So that’s that. My UEA break was pretty fantastic, besides the fact that I got sick and my head felt like it was going to explode. My challenge for you this week is to sigh because first quarter is over! One down three more to go. That really isn’t challenging, so my real challenge is try not to eat the candy that your mom bought for Halloween before Saturday, you’re all going to fail (myself included). I’ll now leave you with my quote of the week, “Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes”- Jim Carrey. Mmm-k bye.

~Rachael