2023 recap update
Alright so, so much has happened since my last update. After leaving Southern California I went back to my parent’s house to deal with some things at home, work as a dogsitter for my old boss (who I still work for every now and then), went on some local adventures and then was invited to go to Japan with my friends. I told myself I would focus on working this year, but who the hell turns down Japan?!
The only travel plans I had was to visit my friend in Chicago, IL and go to my storage unit in the East Coast and my other friend (who I went to Japan with) would help me store my stuff (from my car when it broke down) at his place and mail some stuff back to California. While talking about the trip to the East Coast to help with my storage unit situation, he then invited me to his journey in Japan. How could I say no? xD
After flying to Boston, MA to hangout with my friend Rich (https://www.youtube.com/@Broke-But-Rich) and settle my storage unit situation, I headed to Chicago to meet up with my friend and spend time with him. I must say, I had so much fun in both Boston and Chicago, I had more friends in Boston and my friends from California were also visiting so we all hung out and walked around exploring- reminded me so much of the old days hanging out with friends. I made new friends, and made lots of new memories with this group of people. In Chicago I got to explore more, but not as much as I wanted to. Guess what! My last day in Boston I was having a really bad tooth ache- only it wasn’t a tooth ache…MY WISDOM TOOTH DECIDED TO ERUPT?! So I flew to Chicago angry as fuck and in pain and immediately had to find somewhere to help me out with that… and figure out if I had insurance or not haha.
So if you get surgery with stitches you’re not supposed to fly. But I was going to Japan regardless, I didn’t give a fuck. I told my situation to one of the many dental offices I contacted. Most couldn’t take immediately but this one office who thankfully took both my medical and dental insurance, asked me to come in that same day. I’m forever thankful, the desk lady was so sweet she said she’ll get me in that day because she has a son my age and can’t imagine letting him fly with stitches. And so I got my wisdom teeth surgery, all four removed, recovered in bed for a week while my friend took care of me, and flew out to Japan to meet up with my friends that were already there.
My story for Japan will be on my “cassie overseas” page :).
After I came back from my amazing adventure in Japan, I had to come back to work (I promised my boss I’d be back, and that I won’t make travel plans for that month, so I had to keep my promise even though I wanted to stay forever in Japan lol). I had a relaxing time working for my boss in California, and while I was there my friends in Southern California requested my existence, so after working I went home, finished a cosplay to attend the Genshin Concert in southern California, and stayed with my friends here again. It was all perfect divine timing- as always. The Genshin Concert was absolutely spectacular, and my first time wearing a cosplay in public (I usually just take pictures and never been to a convention before, or anywhere in public while dressed in character). I had such a fun time and held back tears. It was such an amazing show! I’m also a huge Genshin nerd. So it was heaven for me! I’ll add a video of my cosplay below, I think I did a pretty damn good job.
As of now, I’m still in Southern California but my friend here got me sick with whatever long cough thing is going around. This cough is terrible and I haven’t done shit. I’ve just been resting and trying to heal, and honestly I don’t feel sick but the cough is sticking and it’s a pretty bad one so I doubt anyone wants to hang around someone coughing like this.
On my way down to Southern California, my friend in Norcal actually invited me to go camping. Since where we were going was already going south, I decided to bring my car. It was starting to get cold as we’ve just entered winter, so I car camped in my car and he car camped in his. We first went to hit the hot springs down the 395, and camped out there. My friend has an offroading truck and found a cool camp spot. I can’t believe I drove my mom’s car I’m borrowing (Toyota Corolla 1996) down so many roads it shouldn’t have gone down LOL. But we did have a super cool camp spot and I felt safe with him there with his car and we cooked outside and watched the stars. The next day we headed to Alabama Hills and experienced the notorious Movie Rd, and I found a camp spot that my car was capable of getting to inside the park. It was one of my favourite spots to camp. There was no reception but the whole area out there is mesmerizing. I’ve never seen anything like it! I’ll share some more videos below.
Unfortunately Instagram took away “guides” so I’ll have to integrate my California Hot Springs Guide as a page here. Anyway after day 2 of camping in the cold, my friend drove back up north and I continued my journey south. I found some hikes, took myself on a solo adventure tapping into what i used to do and love. I then decided to car camp by myself along the river in the Sequoia National Forest for free, and then was supposed to head straight to my friend’s place. After I awoke, I wanted to hit a nearby hot spring, and ended up making friends with more hippies there and spend a large part of my morning/day there. I just love being butt naked out in nature in hot springs, it was right along the river so I was able to cold plunge too. Some of the other hippies there were drinking cactus juice (if you know you know) and it was so nice connecting with other people on the same frequency as me. I felt like an adventurer again!
As much as I wanted to stay and camp forever, I had to get to my friend’s place in time and also have time to settle in and get ready for the Genshin Concert. I feel like I haven’t done much since I’ve gotten sick, but the first couple weekends I partied and caught up with friends. I’ve been sick for a couple weeks now and going into my third week of having this stupid cough. At least I finally have time to update this site ( as i should instead of playing Genshin…) lol. I’ll try to update some more but that’s my life right now! I still don’t know what my holiday plans are, I was planning on being in Thailand at this point but so much has happened I’m not sure if I’ll get to be out of the country this year. Hoping for January I’ll be able to continue my overseas travels since I had a lot of plans to go.
Oh and one terrible thing that happened before I went on my trip down south and working for my boss, my ex-best friend and his new girlfriend invited me on a road trip to go back up to Washington where they live. After a couple days, they straight up decided to dump me at a train station in the middle of Oregon. Sure I agreed, what choice did I have? But the moral of it is totally fucked up. Sure they paid for the ticket, but that doesn’t justify dumping a small fragile girl in the middle of an unknown state and forcing her to get on a train and go home just because someone decided not to like me. Instead of seeing things through, working it out and talking in a safe space, they literally just dumped me at a train station. I was heartbroken that someone who’s supposed to be my “best friend” would agree to something like this, and go through with it. I was in too much shock to process how fucked the situation was, and still to this day he hasn’t checked on me or anything. He didn’t even ask if i got home safely.
My heart was so shattered, I cried belligerently at local bar nearby the station. I ended up getting blacked out drunk on the Amtrak, I bought myself a bottle of wine to survive the long ride, and luckily my angels were watching over me and everyone I met was a very kind soul. It probably looked really weird on the outside viewing me. I went to the observation car to view the scenery and get drunk and numb my pain, where I ended up chatting it up with some other passengers. At some point I blacked out and when I came back to consciousness I woke up to my bags (that were at my assigned seat in my assigned car) was with me in the observation car, phone was charging, 2 empty wine bottles, 2 empty water bottles, and many guys consoling me. LOL, like I said, sounds super weird! So I drunkenly spilled the whole story of everything that happened on that roadtrip and how I ended up on the train in the first place, pretty sure the whole train knew of my story… anyway so 1 guy bought me another wine, 1 guy bought me water (because obviously I was blacked out drunk), 1 guy gave me his jacket because I was cold in the car, and 1 guy cooked me a fucking vegetarian ramen MRE and made boiling water out of a bag and let me eat the ramen for dinner (I know, wtf lol) and about 5 guys were hugging me and consoling me telling me i didn’t deserve all that LOL.
At a certain point, the lady that was in the assigned seat next to mine in the assigned car, actually came and found me. She said she was worried that I had gotten kidnapped and was happy that I was safe. She then offered me a ride home from the station since we got off at the same station. I was very grateful, but even more grateful that I had a friend back home who already said he could pick me up and drive me home as I cried on the phone drunk at the bar at the station earlier. She was very nice. She also told me that another woman on the train called security to go find me because I never returned to the car and she genuinely thought I got kidnapped. I clearly must’ve made a huge scene on the train…
Slowly, 1 by 1, the friends I made on the train got off at their stops and I was all alone with my torturous thoughts. I cried my eyes out and one of the remaining guys offered to run away with me in Chico. LOL I said no. I’m honestly surprised that lady thought I looked safe being in the arms of 5 random guys i must met on the train LMAO. Anyway after bawling my eyes out and screaming in the observation car, I felt lonely and went back to my assigned seat where the nice lady was sleeping. She woke up and talked to me for a bit til we got to our station. She waited for me to get picked up safely, and I thanked her for everything. It was quite the adventure, and probably quite dangerous. My angels were definitely protecting me that day.
On a happier note, I realised who my real friends were that day. every person that called me, checked up on me, and tried to help me find a way home. I was shocked at the amount of people that cared for me, honestly when things like this happen, I’m usually all alone. And being solo traveler for so long, it’s easy to mark people as friends but not actually communicate often enough to get close enough for someone to really care. So the amount of love and help I received that day, actually made me really happy that so many people were there for me. It was very surprising to me, and very uplifting.