The coast came and went, and by Thursday evening we traveled inland towards Eugene, Oregon. The bus was met with applause and thumbs up as we traveled further into what we now like to call the hippie capital of the United States. After a quick quinoa dinner (admit it boys, you liked it!), we made our way to Luckey’s Saloon for a concert by Eugene locals, The Long Hello. What great female vocals and jazzy guitar! Ellie Schmidt, our good friend and Colgate graduate, arranged for her cousin, Mac, to meet up with us and hang out at the concert. Nice to meet you, Mac! We hopped on the bus late that night and began the journey towards Cougar Springs, a local hotspot (literally) that we had been turned onto by a passerby in Mill Valley. That morning, we hiked in along the beautiful coast of Cougar Reservoir and were met by a series of cascading pools fed by a cavernous hot spring. We made friends with an older woman who captured our imagination with tales of her young life living in the Haight in the 1960s (quote of the week: “I saw the Beatles a lot back then, but I don’t really know what they were like. I was on too much acid!”) and luxuriated in our newfound natural spa. We then jumped into the more temperate waters of the reservoir, jumped off some boulders, swam under a waterfall, and ate lunch while listening to a man play guitar on the cliffs near our parked bus. An afternoon for the books, we’d say. And off to Portland we then went!