Sunday, December 12, 2010

Ragnar Fun!










Well, considering that this happened almost two monthsago, I guess it is now high time for me to write a post about it!

I like running, I think it is a great time for me to just go run and relax and use my body that God has given me. I thoroughly enjoy running outside, but usually am not motivated to go by myself very often unless I have some stress I need to run out. Joseph was working on getting a team together to run in the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay this year. I decided that I would join the team, David was running in it as well, and we needed more people, so I invited my friend Micquellyn to come along and enjoy the fun that Ragnar is. It was David's, Micquellyn's, and my first time running in one, so we had no idea what to expect. So hence begins the chronicles of the Ragnar relay, since I enjoyed this one so much, I plan on running one again in the future, if not more than one.
The relay happened to be the exact same
weekend as midterms for me, and I had three tests that weekend to finish, as well as three lab reports to turn in and on top of all that I got sick that week with one of th
e worst colds I'd had in a long time. So I had the lovely time of getting everything done before thursday that weekend so I could leave to run on friday and saturday while I was sick. I asked my hometeachers to give me a blessing though, and that greatly alleviated the stress that I was feeling at the time. It was great fun let me tell you. I did fine on my chinese culture and biochem tests, but sad to say I did not fare as well on my quantitative chemical analysis class. I studied for it with the intention to take it on wednesday so I could leave early thursday for it, but I came to the sad r
ealization that it would not be possible for me to do that, so I woke up thursday morning and took it as soon as the testing center opened, hoping it would only take me two hours, sadly it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes and I got a 67% on it, the lowest test score I've had pretty much ever.

After the test I came home and hurried and grabbed my stuff, and then took off to go pick up Micquellyn. She was ready and waiting patiently for me. After shutting my jeep off to pick her up, I went back outside to go, but my jeep wouldn't start. Luckily I know how to hotwire it and within minutes we were on our way to Shelley to pick up David and switch to mom's car to head out. We picked up David, but could not find his gps so we left without it and without a map as well. No worries though, it was all in the sense of adventure. We hadn't had lunch yet though, so we went to the classy establishment of Mr. Pizza's to get a delicious lunch special and head out on our way to Vegas.

The trip through Utah was nice, I drove most all of the way. We stopped in the wonderful town of Beaver, Utah for some overpriced gasoline and then continued on the way. We then continued to drive and be entertained in the car, trying to take pictures of how far it was to Vegas to document our trip. We stopped for dinner in St. George and I ate at in n' out for my first time. It was alright, I wouldn't say its my favorite burger place. The next strip of highway was then unfamiliar territory to me, although it was really gorgeous driving through the virgin river gorge in the corner of Arizona at night.

We continued to drive, just knowing that we were supposed to meet up with Joseph somewhere by Lake Meade and the Valley of Fire state park, so I texted google for directions on my phone, which it kindly gave. We then continued to make the drive through the dark in unknown parts of Nevada. I mistakenly thought that the valley of fire state park would take us to the beginning of the race, and to Las Vegas Bay, which is where Joseph said he was camping. After driving through the entire Valley of Fire State park, I realized that it was clearly not the way to where we wanted to go, and we had to back track. David spent most of this time asleep in the back, while Micquellyn and I were trying to find where we needed to go. We finally found the road that we needed to drive on, but sadly were in an area without any cell phone coverage so we had to drive and drive to get to where we needed to be. The road was brand new though, it looked construction on it had just been finished, and there were reflectors in the middle of it so it was lit up the entire time by the headlights of the car, so we were following the golden light to get to where we needed to go. I forgot to mention that during this time we hadn't seen another vehicle for at least two hours it seemed. We finally found some cell phone coverage and were able to call Joseph and find out where we needed to go to meet up with him so we could get some sleep that night.

The next day started the adventure of running the relay. We were in the second van, so we didn't have to start running until about 4 pm. Which put my leg at about 7 pm so I had the
pleasure of running my first leg in the dark. I ran about 8:30 minute miles which I was pretty pleased with. The end of my first leg was funny, because a guy tried to pass me at what he thought was the very end, and pushed really hard to beat me, but it turned out that it was not the end so he spent all of his energy and I was able to cruise on past him to the finish line, but the first van went to the wrong checkpoint, so we had to wait for them to show up to pass off the slap bracelet. That was pretty funny to say the least.

After that it was about 8 pm and we were pretty hungry, we went to Fazolis and got some pasta and then we went to the next major exchange point so we could get some sleep. It was rather warm sleeping in the van, and I definitely did not get enough sleep, but it was fun. We then started having our van run their second legs in the Ragnar relay. Joseph was first and I was out supporting him while he was running. David was next and ran super fast. Micquellyn did really well on her leg, which was straight and flat and on a closed road, which was nice. My leg was rather challenging for me, as I started running it at about 4 am in the pitch black and it was on a rough and bumpy four wheeler trail in the dark and it was 6.2 miles or so on the dark path, luckily I did not stumble or fall but it wore me out, and my last mile and a half on the pavement killed me.

After I finished my part we got in the van and literally drove through the middle of nowhere Nevada to get to the next major exchange point where we could get some more sleep in the van. Then it was time to run our last legs. I was so ready to be finished, but I was the last runner out of our twelve person team and I got to run the last 4.5 miles of our 195 mile adventure. I was so tired running it, but a nice guy caught up to me and talked with me and we paced each other to the finish line. He was a really great guy and I was glad for his support during that last run, or I would have started walking it.

It was so nice to be done running when I got to the finish line, I had run almost 19 miles throughout the relay, all without showering, and in a two day period. I was so grateful for a good burger from the food court area at the casino/hotel we stayed at, and for a hot shower in the hotel room. I promptly crashed for the night, and then woke up early the next morning to head back home. We stopped in Mesquite Nevada for church, limping our sore bodies into the church building to change and go to sacrament meeting. It was that wards primary program that day, which was thoroughly entertaining to watch. I love little kids and all the funny things that they say. They sang "follow the prophet" as one of their songs, and I just realized that if an investigator were to have been there watching, he totally would have thought we were brainwashing the kids! That was one of my favorite songs when I was little though. After attending the primary program we then hit the road. We stopped at Micquellyn's house in Mountain Green, Utah for dinner then Micquellyn drove us back to my house in Shelley. Then after getting some pie and apple cider we headed back to Rexburg.

It was quite the adventure running the Ragnar Relay, totally worth the medal and the experience of running. I would definitely do it again, and may be hitting up the family members to run it with me next time, so get ready to go run!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Fall Hunts





10-16-10

I took a break from homework on a Saturday to go hunting with Dad, David, and Richard. We decided to go to the Kelly Canyon area. Although we didn't even see any game, we did have a good time hiking through the woods. I also had a good opportunity to take some nice pictures of the fall colors.

More updates on Adventures



So, to follow my current trend, I'll be trying to make updates on the recent adventures that I've had since school started, currently I will be posting about my temple to temple relay adventure.

9-18-10

So the school put on a relay where we ran from the Rexburg Temple to the Idaho Falls temple. I decided that I wanted to run in it, so I worked on putting together a team since I didn't know anyone whose team I could join. I found 7 other friends to run in the relay with me so that we could have fun together. We each ran one leg, and totaled about 40 miles. I ran the longest leg, which was 7.2 miles. My goal was to finish in under an hour, which I did even with forgetting to wear my knee brace. I also met some fun new friends on the relay. It was enjoyable, it also gave me a little bit of an idea what running the Ragnar relay in October would be like. I really enjoyed running relays.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Borah Borah!









9/2-9/3

Brent, Aaron Harker, and I decided to go and hike Idaho's tallest mountain, Mount Borah. None of us had ever done it before so we thought it would be fun to go and do it. We drove out there on a lovely thursday afternoon and then spent the night at the trailhead after eating delicious tinfoil dinners that Brent's mom had so kindly prepared for us. We decided that we didn't want to worry about setting up a tent and having to take it down before we went up the trail the next morning so we just slept out underneath the stars on our mattress pads. It was so cold when we woke up the next morning at 5:00 am to get a good start up the mountain. We started hiking in the dark and had a lot of fun. Aaron had just gotten back from living in Texas for two years, so he was trying to adjust to the altitude change and performed like a champion. We made it up and down with a total hiking time of 7 hours. We hauled a loaf of bread, peanut butter, honey, and bananas up the mountain and had a great lunch on the summit. We passed several groups of hikers on our way up, and were barely beat by a group that had started an hour before us. They were a group of three guys. Two older gentleman in their 60's and one middle aged man. The older gentleman were from Australia and New Zealand and the middle aged man was from Salt Lake City. It was a fun trip, and most enjoyable. It was nice thinking that for a couple hours we were higher than anyone else who was on the ground in the state of Idaho. We were even higher than a few airplanes we saw flying in the valley.

Return to Waterfall Canyon!










8/27-8/28

Brent, Tyler, and I planned on making a backpacking trip before school started back up. We decided that we would repeat the backpacking trip we had done three years prior, before Brent and I left on our missions. We had fun, and ended up hiking about 26 miles in total for the two days we were there. We went off a rope swing into the freezing cold upper palisades lake. We picked huckleberries on the slope on the way up to Waterfall Canyon. We also made a return to sheep creek peak to see if our student ID cards were still there from three years ago when we were there. Mine and Brent's were not there, but we found Tyler's in the rock cairn where we had left them. It hailed pretty hard on us while we were hiking to sheep creek peak to look for our ID cards. We then power hiked back to camp and hiked out while it was raining most of the way back. We had fun. I love that hike and I love being up in waterfall canyon. It was the second time I was up there this summer.

Backpacking With Dad

Well, is been far too long since I've updated my blog, so I'm working on updating it all right now.

8/20-8/21
Dad and I went on a fun backpacking trip. We loaded up our gear and then drove off to the Centennial Mountain range by Kilgore Idaho. We stopped at the store there and Dad bought me a soda and told me when he and grandpa stopped there almost 5
0 years ago when he was a kid. We then continued driving and found the trailhead. We loaded up our packs and grabbed our fishing poles and headed up the trail.

It was a really nice trail and was pretty short. We found some huckleberries along the trail on the way up. So we stopped and took some breaks to pick and eat huckleberries. The total hike was about 1.3 miles until we got to Aldous lake. It was a pretty little lake and looked like it had quite a few trout in it to be caught. After dropping off our packs and getting a quick snack, Dad and I pulled out our fly-fishing rods and started seeing what we could catch. We fished for an hour and a half without any bites at all. I took a break to set up the tent while Dad kept on fishing.

After finishing setting up the tent I went back to fishing with Dad. We worked our way around the lake, and when we got near the north side of the lake, where some scouts were camping, we started catching fish. Also by the North side of the lake there were hundreds of little frogs all along the shore. It was a lot of fun catching the fish. I caught the first one, and then Dad started hooking them and ended up hooking more fish than me. I kept two fish, and Dad kept one. That day was the first day I caught a fish with a fly rod. I really enjoy fly fishing and had a lot of fun fishing.
The next day we woke up and cooked oatmeal for breakfast, and then broke camp. We fished for a little bit, but didn't have any luck catching any fish. We stopped a lot along the trail on the way out to pick huckleberries. We picked quite a few and had a lot of fun. I really enjoyed going on the camping trip with Dad and spending time with him.


Sunday, August 15, 2010

Spontaneous Camping Trips

I decided to go on a spontaneous camping trip this weekend. It was rather enjoyable. I went rock climbing up at paramount and led a route soy buddy cade and his date could go climbing. Then I had Kenny and Gabe meet me up at paramount where we were climbing. Kenny hen climbed up the route and had a lot of fun. Then we saw that it was getting dark and that the rain was starting to come down.

I had wanted to go up Kelly canyon to camp, but as I looked up the canyon and saw how much it was raining there, we decided to go on a road that followed the river where it wasn't raining yet. We drove up there a ways and found a nice spot to camp. We even lucked out at finding some coals left in a fire pit so we had an easy time starting our fire. We also set up my tent really quickly and got everything ready. We were cooking our hot dogs over the fire when it started to rain. It passed over quickly though.

The next morning we woke up and had a delicious breakfast cooked over the fire that was starred from the same coals we had saved from he night before. After that we packed up and went climbing. Then I drove back to Idaho falls and met up with mom, dad, and David. Then david and I met linden at a park in ammon to go play a round of frisbee golf. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed myself this weekend.

Overall I rate going on spontaneous camping trips as a load of fun :)

Backpacking






I was a male chaperone for a backpacking trip that the girls ranch girls went on. We went on a hike to green lakes up northLeigh canyon on the border of wyoming and Idaho. It was a 5.5 mile hike. We started out on the wrong path thanks partly to my guiding the group up he wrong trail. Luckily it dead ended before we got too far up the trail. It also made for an excellent analogy on if you mess up that it doesn't matter. You can always turn around and get back on the right path. The same applies to our journey through life. If we ever find ourselves going down the wrong path we can always repent and make the change.

The rest of the hike went really well. The girls on the thick were quite fun to go backpacking with. They sing a lot more than guys do and are generally much more willing to pack up the group gear.
When we got up there there were quite a few mosquitoes to go along with the gorgeous lakes that were there. I also realized that I forgot to bring a tent for myself and since I didn't want to sleep in a tent with just girls I made a leanto shelter out of a fallen down pine tree and a groundcloth that was available as well as with some rocks to help weigh it down. It was just big enough for me to fit into it with about 8 inches above my head. I spent the night in this nice little shelter and weathered out a very windy and rainy night. It led to me not sleeping very much, but it was a lot of fun. Overall I reallyenjoyed myself on the trip. No one was hurt and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. On the way back from our hike we also stopped and drank some very refreshing huckleberry shakes.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Hiking the Middle Teton, oh and why not the South while we're there.



Well, I had been wanting to go on a good hike for a while, and had debated about going and Hiking Mt. Borah. I didn't want to go by myself so I asked a buddy and he suggested hiking the Middle Teton. So thats what we decided to go and do. After working all week landscaping, I stayed at the cabin in Victor and Dillon and hislittle brother came up and spent the night there as well. Then Fridaymorning we got up at 2:30 and left to go to Grand Teton National park. We parked at the Lupine Meadows trailhead and started up the trail at 4:30 am. The sky was perfectly clear and there was a mostly full moon to guide us up the trail until the sun roseabout 6:10 am. We made pretty good time getting to the meadows, where we stopped and ate breakfast, and saw a nice doe and her fawn grazing 30 feet from us. We thencontinued on up the trail and made it to the saddle where we could see iceflow lake below us. We stopped there and ate "lunch" at 9:00 am and took a little break. We then set out to summit the Middle Teton. It took us about two hours to get to the summit, where we took several pictures, and made some phone calls and just enjoyed the view. We then decided that since the weather was so nice, and because we weren't all that tired, that we would also summit the south teton as well. So after making it back to the saddle, we continued on hiking up to the summit of the south Teton. After another hour of hiking, we made it to the top. It gave some very nice views of the valley. We then hiked down, and slid down all of the snowfields that we could to make getting out as fast as we could. It was quite the hike, we went up about 7,000 vertical feet, and hiked about 16 miles round trip that day. We got back to the cabin at 9:30 that night, and by the time we went to sleep, we'd been awake for about 20 hours all together. It was quite the ordeal. It was well worth it though.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Mentor Mentor Mentor

Well, I'm back from mentoring at the boys ranch for two weeks. It was a lot of fun, I'm going to miss the boys that I worked with during those two weeks. They were good boys and I learned a lot while I was working with them up there. I also took a lot of pictures and went on some pretty hikes. I returned to waterfall canyon. It was gorgeous and filled with wildflowers. More pictures are on the way next week after I get back from working landscaping again. So until next time, I'll catch ya later!

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Updated!


Well, quite a bit has happened since the last time I wrote. Last week I had fun working at the ranch. We left wednesday night though, so friday and saturday I went and surveyed. Richard and I ended up going to grand teton national park and taking the grassy lake road home. Its 30 miles of dirt road and was pretty fun, we drove the element through several miles of closed roads and got some funny looks from people seeing someone drive an element through there. We made it safely though, and in less time than it took to go the other way, so it was worth it, plus it made some good memories. I also had two dates that weekend. They were fun. Went to the ice caves, and I also went geocaching. this last week I had fun at work again, mowed the lawns twice while I was up there, and also planted a herb garden at the girls ranch. We went climbing twice while there and had fun both times, it just so happened that both times we also ended after the sun had already gone down. This weekend I also had to give a talk in the singles branch. I was glad to have the opportunity to talk because it made me pick something out and study up on it. I was inspired by something Rohan did on friday when he was here. He got his hand covered in used oil in the garage and I helped him clean it off. It was really cute how he had me help him, and how he didn't want anyone else to find out but how willing he was to listen to me. It made me think of Mosiah 3:19 and gave me a good subject for my talk. I enjoyed giving it, and surprisingly spoke for about 20 minutes or so, and didn't even give my whole talk. Well thats enough rambling for today。 I'll post more after I get back from being a mentor on the boys ranch in mid july! 下次見!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Finished!


I finished running the dam half marathon! It was pretty fun this morning. I was a bit nervous for it, but managed to do really well. I ran it in 1:52:26 my first time ever so it was also my PR! I did really well until about 10 miles out, thats when my knee started to hurt, and my mile times were about 10 minutes for a bit. It was a fun race though. I wore my don't mess with texas shirt and everyone was cheering for texas while I was running. It was fun, and I was glad to finish. My knee hurt a bit after my run, but its feeling alright now.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Dam Marathon!



Well, its been a little while since I'veposted so I'll do a quick update. While working on the ranch I had an accident starting a chainsaw which resulted in a bruised knee. Which happened to throw a big monkey wrench into my training plans for the half marathon. I would run on it and after about two miles it would hurt too much to keep going. This week it finally has started to feel better which is good because its race day tomorrow! I'm excited/nervous for it because I haven't been able to run much for training. I picked up my packet for it today though and am looking forward to giving it my best tomorrow morning. This week I bought a knee brace to wear and wore it while running/hiking up a mountain on tuesday morning. It felt good going up, but hurt a little coming down. That day I then worked 12 hours digging post holes and putting up a rail fence and mowing all of the lawns on both the boys and girls ranch. Then after allof this we decided to go climbing that day as well, and still went climbing. It was great. I onsited a 5.7 route leading for the first time after my mission on my brand new quickdraws. It was a really fun day. I was real sore the next morning though. My knee didn't hurt though, so thats a good sign.

Thursday on the way home Matt and I also decided to stop and climb at paramount rock on the way home. It was fun and I lead a 5.8 that I had never climbed before. I also went to instit
ute and really enjoyed that.

Well, wish me luck on my race tomorrow. I hope that my knee lets me run the race alright. It will be pretty interesting running it. I'll update how it went some time soon
.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A walk in the park

Well, this last week I spent most all of it working in the park. Monday morning Richard and I drove up there early, and started grade staking the road. We had 5 Km of road to stake, and wanted to finish as fast as we could. Monday we finished over 1 Km, and same with tuesday. Luckily the weather and traffic up there were not that bad at all. I went up this last week expecting the weather to be bad, because of the weather channel's report, but it wasn't too cold. I worked up there until thursday. Brian and I were 160 meters away from being done when we got called down to the bottom to look at something that the feds thought was out of spec. It wasn't, and then we had to hurry and leave so that we could make it home to go to Levi's wedding reception. It was nice being able to come home and take a shower after working up there all week without any running water, or power unless we hooked the generator up to the trailer. It wasn't too bad though. The stars were gorgeous at night and I enjoyed seeing them. Friday morning Brian and I drove back to the park, they had opened up the road through yellowstone and the pilot lines were pretty long. There were probably 30-40 cars in each line, which was much different than how it had been the rest of the week, with only about 4 cars max in the pilot lines. Brian and I finished grade staking in about an hour, and then just made sure everyone was happy before we took off. The weather up there was gorgeous, the tetons were really pretty as well. Since I finished working up at the park, I'll now be starting working on a boys ranch in Victor. I'm looking forward to it. Thats where grandpa grew up as a kid and I'm excited to be living in the area. I'll need to look up more of our family history from the area.

Well, thats about all I have to put up right now. This weekend I did go rock climbing and had fun, and I also went geocaching and ate at Mr. Pizzas. It was rather enjoyable.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

crazy week

Well, this last week was an interesting one. I came up to Rexburg last sunday and spent the night at Richard and Jessica's. Then 4 am monday morning Rich and I started heading for work in Grand Teton National Park. We were there working all day, in the snow that changed to rain that changed to sleet that turned into a crazy blizzard and heavy windstorm that night. We spent the night in the trailer up there, then woke up the next morning to see several trees blown down across the road. We tried using the level tuesday morning, but it quit working on us because of us leaving it in the car. So we then drove back home that day knowing we would have to come back up later that week to finish it. It kind of put a lot of stress on me, because I knew it would be me going back up there that week to finish checking the control. Also the temperature changes made me sick and not feeling the best. I survived the week though. I took wednesday really easy and didn't do much. Then thursday I spent the day getting ready to head back up to the park for work. I also decided that I was going to buy a ukulele. So I got on amazon and found one that looked good and bought it, paying 3.99 extra for one day shipping so I could have it up at the park for this next week.

Thursday I also went to my friend Parker's wedding reception. It was pretty good seeing him again, and seeing his wife. I then had to drive up with Brian to the park that night so we could finish checking control on friday. It was a fun drive up, and another cold night in the trailer. We started working at 8 the next morning and it was 14 degrees F on top where we were working. it was pretty chilly to say the least. We managed to finish by 3 pm though, and head back on home. Its a really pretty drive and pretty area to be working in. Then saturday I was excited to get my ukulele and play with it. It will be fun learning how to play it.

It was nice being home for mothers day. I'm so grateful for my mom and all that she does for me. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father gave us families. Mine means so much to me, and I'm looking forward to starting my own family some day. I have time still though.

well, this is probably enough rambling on for now. I have to wake up and head to the park again tomorrow morning at 4 am. wish me luck!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Its been a while...

So, due to the fact that I was crazy busy last semester, taking 18 credits and being an overall busy person I did not post on here, and now several of my friends have been starting blogs, so I guess I'm going to jump back on the bandwagon and start blogging again. Hopefully it will be weekly updates, I'll see what happens.

I'll start with mentioning my adventure of getting to Iowa two weeks ago to visit Edwin, Jennifer and their kids. I hadn't seen them since before my mission. It was quite the event getting there. My plane was supposed to leave Idaho Falls at 7:40, but ended up not leaving until 9:30! The plane hit a bird when it was coming in the night before and needed to be checked out. Luckily everything checked out on the plane and we were able to leave. I found a friend in the airport to talk to. She had been going to BYU-I and was on her way home. She had missed her connecting flight in Denver already, and I was close to missing mine. It was supposed to leave at 11:00 and my plane would barely be pulling in to the airport then. I somehow managed to bolt through the airport and board my plane about 1 minute before they closed the doors and started prepping for takeoff. I arrived safely there though! Other than that it was smooth sailing getting there. Somehow my luggage even made it on the same plane I was on. I don't know how that worked, but it was very nice.

Well, thats it for right now. Now I'm going to go and play risk with my little brother and our exchange student. So until next week... this is all.