Kern River

Last week I took the annual trip (12 years!!) to the Kern River with my family, Jerry, and a lot of family friends. Since the water was so high this year everyone was able to go innertubeing, rafting, kayaking, and just floating down on your back.


A definite highlight of the trip was the natural slide rocks. Our friends usually go up every year but this was the first time my family decided to take the hour trip. The location of the slides was pretty amazing, the entire drive up I was looking out the window at hundreds and hundreds of acres of burned trees due to a recent fire, but as soon as we arrived at the slides I noticed healthy giant redwoods surrounded the area like silent sentinels protecting the natural rock formations.

Another highlight of this years trip was very unexpected, Dungeons
& Dragons (DnD). I can truthfully say I never expected to play DnD I always thought it to be a lame game for nerds and geeks, oh how wrong I was... I believe it was our first night at the River, Jeremy, Ian, Ian's friend Max and I were sitting around the campfire conversing about everything from presidential conspiracies to the 11th dimension and somehow we got to talking about our favorite games. Before I knew it we were actually playing DnD and we were all having a blast to my surprise!! We played almost everyday for an hour or two and all walked away with some great memories and an unfinished adventure. Some quotes I will never forget include "Space elves are gaaaaay" "Roll for my virginity!!" "Lesbian seagull" and so many more, through DnD I learned that lifes all about trying new experiences and breaking stereotypes.

But the most memorable experience in my opinion was meeting all the amazing people at the Kern. Every year I go up I make it my number one objective to try to meet all the kids my age at the campground, usually I'll meet one or two cool people but this year shattered previous years. The first kid I met was Max, Max was Ian's close friend from school.(Ian's family and my family have been coming up together every year for the past 12 years) At first glance I thought Max was a trip with his long black hair and crazy t-shirts but after talking to him i quickly learned how smart and funny he was. I could listen to him talk for hours about his ideas on politics, religion, science, and many other topics. I noticed some family a couple sites over and a lot of kids were with them. I was very quick to make friends with all of them and had a great time playing all sorts of games with them almost every day and night, cya next year guys! The coolest kids up there tho were definitely "the mohawk family". Which consisted of about 7 kids on bikes riding around the campground on bikes all rocking sick mohawks and the two girls that were with them. Each kid had a hilarious personality and kept me in stitches the couple of days I was with them. I also had the pleasure of meeting Marissa and Andrea, the sickest girls I've ever met while on vacation. I had the chance to chill with them their last night and it was astounding probably one of my best nights at the Kern River. They are also the only people I've wanted to keep in touch with, and I have been staying in real good touch ;) <3