Please share to Facebook
Remembering Austin
  • Home
  • 12 Days
  • Pix
  • Stories
  • Memorials
  • NASW
  • Team Austin

John Vaughen

3/22/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Feeling exhausted from grad interviews, I was tempted to spend a lackadaisical day off between courting schools; just sleeping in the snazzy San Francisco hotel, ordering room service, and lazily reading sounded like heaven.

Then nudged by Austin, the night before I decided I would take an adventure. What followed was the most wonderful day of the quarter. Everyone at UCSF told me that I absolutely should see Muir woods, the closest Redwood Forest- with this destination firmly in mind, I set off for the buses… only to realize that the next one wouldn’t come for four hours (oops). Fine- what would Austin do? Obviously, it would be to take 4-5 hours to walk there! With this rudimentary “plan” in mind, I spent an enjoyable hour getting lost in SF, wandering up and down hills, stopping at a fruit market, taking in the sights of the city and bay… it was a beautiful day to walk and soak in a different place.

Finally arriving at the Northern part of the city, I noticed that I could take a ferry across… or rent a bike. A few minutes later I was whizzing along, joining the mass of tourists and muscled athletes crowding the path and roads. Then the Golden Gate Bridge- first, not golden (reddish!), second, much larger than expected, third, overlooking such beautiful hills; breathtaking terrain, absolutely incredible.

After much “I-live-in-Illinois-this-is-bloody-hilly” effort, I made it up the narrow, winding roads coating the mountains that ensconced Muir Woods’s valley- biking down into the valley, descending into the weighty realm of the Redwood forest, with the wind whipping away-- I hadn’t felt this alive in ages. And the Redwoods- behemoths, staggeringly beautiful and grandiose, humbling to think of my snapshot of time, theirs, all of ours.

Thanks, Austin. Best day of my year. I know you would have eagerly walked the 20 miles to the woods and then happily hiked there, too.  

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Collecting stories so that everyone can see who Austin Hudson-Lapore was to each of us.

    Archives

    June 2016
    December 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013

    Categories

    All
    Albquerque Academy
    Childhood
    Experiences
    Kind Thoughts
    Kind Thoughts
    Memorial
    Uchicago
    Unm

    RSS Feed

Austin Hudson-Lapore, we miss him so much