Waking up, my eyes burned with lack of sleep. Maybe that horror movie late last night wasn’t such a good idea. We stagger to the dining hall for a quick breakfast, before we head out for our adventure.

We climbed into our cars and drove the two hours out to Palouse Falls in southeastern Washington. It took us a while to wake up, but eventually we were singing along to the radio at the top of our lungs, as any road trip goes, naturally. We drove through the rolling brown and green fields dotted with the occasional tree or farmhouse. The sky was a bright, clear blue, something we hadn't seen in a while, and the few clouds looked unrealistically white and fluffy, like they were out of a painting.

We made it to the falls pretty quickly and did some ooh's and ahh's at the 'normal' outlook. But we weren't going to settle for just the one beautiful view. We could see a few little trails close to the waterfall from where we were, so we went meandering into the wilderness. The fences disappeared, the cliffs got steeper, and we passed a sign that said something like "Hike at your own risk." We explored around awhile, and it didn't seem like there was a safe way down to the trail we had seen from the top. And we were right. But that wasn't about to stop the more adventurous individuals in our squad from finding a way down.

We found a steep crevasse in the cliffs that looked... relatively climbable, so we made it happen. It was a rough time and there was a lot of hesitation and skepticism involved, but we made it.

After a few moments of relief staring up at what we had just accomplished, we continued our adventuring. Eventually, we made it to the top of the waterfall, where we milled about at the edge of huge cliffs, took lots of cool pictures, and had the best possible view for lunch.

Then we had a decision to make. There were still some more visible trails that would take us to the base of the waterfall, but it looked a little tough to get there. Tiny pathways, steep cliffs, a mudslide to the bottom, all the really fun stuff. But after some slight hesitation, we went for it anyway. Lots of loose rock, an old rope, and a few hundred feet later, we were at the base of the falls.

We skipped stones, took some more cool pictures, and then found our way halfway back up the hill we'd basically slid down. But we weren't going to back the way we came because there was more exploring to be done. We found another trail that could maybe possibly get us back to where our cars were. So why not, right? We came across another crevasse that looked promising as a way up, so we sent one brave soul to test it out. Once we knew it would get us up, we climbed through the rather claustrophobic, echo-y cavern to our cars, singing "Misty Mountains" from The Hobbit all the way like the true nerds we were.

We hopped the fence at the top, and ta-da, we were back at our cars and had survived a hella sketchy improvisational hike. But the adventure was still going.

We drove a few more minutes to an abandoned bus we'd heard about before. It's just off the highway in an empty field, surrounded by broken glass, old clothes, mattress springs, spray paint cans, and all manner of weird, gross, probably diseased things. But the bus itself was amazing. It was covered in decades' worth of spray paint, words, phrases, and pictures ranging from the extremely profane to the incredibly profound. And to my weird word-loving soul, it was beautiful.

"Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes."

This was the biggest, most obvious quote on the bus, and it reflected a lot about what this artsy abandoned bus stood for. So, yeah, I thought the bus was pretty cool.

Naturally, like the five-year-olds we were, we NEEDED to be on top of the bus. So we made it happen and got some great pictures out of it.

After a while spent climbing on the bus and proceeding to fall off of it, and waving down cars and trucks and hoping they would honk, continuing the theme of childish fun, we climbed back into the cars and reluctantly started driving home.

We spent the trip singing, sleeping, or sticking our heads out the windows... Or just contemplating the wonders of life dramatically while staring out the window. Because that also happens on long car rides. There was also the small hiccup of our two cars being pulled over, but the cop was nice and said that we had better things to spend our money on, so that was a relief.

Eventually we all made it back to Whitworth. We were tired, dirty, and really happy with how we had spent one of the last good fall days. In the end, I think there is one anonymous quote that sums up how much I appreciated that day with those people:

"I think that one of my favorite feelings is laughing with someone and realizing halfway through and realizing halfway through how much you enjoy them and their existence."

I enjoy existing in the same world as these beautiful places and beautiful people.