PS

MY CAMERA IS BACK! And better than ever.  Just thought you all might appreciate that knowledge.  

Peace.

Capitol Reef

As you all hopefully know, this weekend was Memorial Day.  Brian and I decided to take advantage of our day off of school and enjoy a little camping with our cousins.  On Friday afternoon, Brian and I drove down to Capitol Reef National Park.  I really don't know exactly where it is--south about three hours?  That's pretty descriptive, I know. :)  We got to the park at about 6 pm and there was sign outside the campground announcing, "campground full".  We knew that was a possibility but it still sort of caught us off guard and we weren't sure what to do. Luckily, we didn't let ourselves be deterred by the sign and continued on into the camp.  One of the sites had just been emptied and they hadn't had time to change the sign!  So we got it.  It was great.  

We've kind of been thinking about buying a tent for awhile now and we found a good deal the other day so...we bought a tent!  It was pretty exciting.  The only problem, the tent guaranteed to keep us dry but...it didn't.  More on that later.  Brian kept dropping hints to the people taking this picture that we were siblings and not married.  It was pretty funny.

It was just Brian and I that night because our cousins weren't arriving until the next afternoon.  So we played a little frisbee and I got a bruised lip...

And Brian did a superb job cooking our tin foil dinners.  It was rather impressive.

That night, we went to the camp amphitheater and listened to this retired professor from Indiana University talk about some space probes that have been around our solar system.  It was actually pretty good.  And he had some neat pictures.  It started raining at about 10:30 that night so we stayed up for a bit playing cards in our tent and then went to bed.  It rained non-stop until about 1 pm the next day.  Yeah, how's that for awesome?  So we spent about 12 hours in our tent, mostly sleeping.  When we finally decided to brave the weather, we realized that our trusty no-leak tent had sprung several leaks.  So Brian went out in the rain and tried to fix the fly with me directing him from inside the tent for about 20 minutes.  It didn't really help.  So we resorted to using towels to soak up the puddles.

Finally, we realized that getting at least a little wet was inevitable.  I hate rain, but I tried really hard to embrace it.  We went on a scenic drive and even hopped out to take a few pictures of the scenery that was beautiful, in spite of the rain.

It stopped raining just in time for Mark and Jamie to arrive.  They brought their 20 month old Charlie and also two of Jamie's brothers came.  It stayed dry long enough for them to set up camp, rained during lunch and then stopped long enough for us to decided to venture out on a hike.  When we were almost to the top, guess what happened? Yep.  It started raining.  

The funny thing is, we had a pretty clear view of the scenery until...we reached the top.  Suffice it to say, by the time we reached the bottom, we were drenched.  Sopping wet.  I wish I'd gotten a picture of my shoes.  They were totally caked in mud.  At first, I tried to avoid it, but it soon became clear that it was a waste of my time.  I might be bad at embracing rain, but enjoying the mud was a little bit easier. :)  This picture fairly accurately displays my feelings at this moment.  Jamie's brother Micah is standing behind me.  And another fun fact--those shorts I'm wearing?  Turns out they're really see through when they get wet.  Yeah.  Didn't know that.

So after we got drenched on our hike, the rest of the night cooperated fairly well for us.  It started sprinkling again when we were trying to make dinner and we must have looked really pathetic because this man came over with a canopy and told us that they weren't using it if we wanted to.  Bless his heart.  That canopy rocked.  We successfully made dinner that night, went to another slideshow by the astronomer, stood by the fire for a bit and then called it a night.

Sunday morning was...sunny!  It was a miracle.  We had a delicious breakfast and then took off as early as we could to try and enjoy as much of the nice weather as possible.  We hiked to Hickman's Bridge and through Cohab Canyon.  They were both really great hikes.

This is Hickman's Bridge.

Jamie told us that you could get on top of the arch so for about half an hour, we followed Micah through the craziest "trail" in an attempt to walk on top of the arch.  Finally we got up pretty high and looked down at the people below us.  We heard this little kid (one of those people at the bottom that you can barely see) say, "Mom, I want to go up there!" and...that's when we decided to just give up and head back down.  It was worth a try.

This is one of the views through Cohab Canyon.  That's Brian and I with Jamie's brothers, Micah and Adam.

The rest of that afternoon threatened rain so we spent it exploring the visitor's center.  We watched a pretty great movie about erosion and listened in on some french people's conversations.  You know, a productive afternoon. :)  It cleared up later so we went to the park and threw a frisbee around and then decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go on another quick hike before dinner.  It rained again after dinner that night but we got a sweet double rainbow out of the deal so all in all, it was worth it. :)

The canopy donated to us by that kind, kind man.

And a lovely view of the double rainbow.  If you look closely, you can see it.

Monday morning was sunny again so we picked up camp and hiked Chimney Rock on our way out of town.  It was a pretty great view.  You can see it behind Brian and I in this next picture.

I decided to include this one to prove that Mark, Jamie and Charlie were actually there.  This was taken on the Chimney Rock hike.

So in spite of the rain, we had a great time.  It was really fun to actually be able to spend quality time with some extended family (something we never do) and to be in nature for a few days.  Can't beat that combo.  The goal for now--survive the rest of the term.

Lens Error

There is only one person who will fully appreciate this post--Stefanie Tanner. 

The other day, I got my camera out to take a picture.  This one as a matter of fact.

It was a fairly inconsequential picture.  Brad and I just happened to be eating a very large amount of tater tots at a rather late hour.  FYI--in case you're wondering this was not a good idea.  Playing racquetball the next morning did not feel so good...

So after my faithful camera took this picture, the unthinkable happened.  It made some really ugly, uncomfortable grinding noises and then beeped and flashed to me the angry message, "Lens error.  Restart camera."  Well, it's sort of hard to restart a camera that is never truly on or off but in limbo because its lens won't close.  To all of you who aren't Stefanie, in New Zealand, Stefanie's camera (which happens to be the exact model I have now...) had a "lens error" and then...it was no more.  So I was pretty worried.

Don't you worry though--this story has a happy ending.  With some coaxing from friends, I realized that I have not yet had my camera for a year and it is most likely still under warranty.  Well, it is and I called Canon and this nice man from India helped me ship it off to Virginia to be worked on for FREE and returned to me within 7 business days from yesterday.  Holla.

So take a few deep breaths.  This picture hiatus will only be temporary.  And hopefully when they resume, I'll have something more exciting than tater tots to show to you.

Reasons why I love Utah

Welcome to spring in Provo.  Granted, it may be slightly more enjoyable if I wasn't taking classes but was making money instead.  But what can you do?  Classes aren't swamping me yet, which is always a good thing, and I'm finding time to do everything I love about spring in Utah.  Here's just a few examples (sorry ahead of time that I don't have pictures of everything):

• Hiking.  I love to hike.  It's really just walking for a long time, uphill, if you think about it, but there's just something inexplicably fantastic about it.  I think most of the enjoyment really comes from the views that come when you get to the top.  

• Bonfires.  You just can't beat a good bonfire.  On Friday, we hiked up rock canyon about two miles to a fun little cave and had a bonfire.  It was a great time.  Fire, hotdogs, mallows.  Those three things in one place basically spell happiness.

• Mountain Biking.  Last spring, I took a mountain biking class.  And it was awesome.  This year, my roommates and my brother are all taking the class so a friend and I decided to audit the class so we could go with them on all their rides.  Mountain biking is probably the most physically demanding and terrifying thing I have ever done.  That's probably why I love it so much. :)
  
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• Rock Climbing. Thanks to Ben first of all, for having the equipment needed to make this awesomeness happen.  I love rock climbing.  We went for on Friday for a few hours and took some pretty great pictures.  I'm really not very good but we've already gone a couple times this spring so I'm hoping we'll keep going pretty regularly throughout the summer.
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  Oh, and rock climbing also provides sweet views.  As demonstrated below (not above...)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Intramural Sports.  Ok.  You got me.  These are fun all year round.  But only in the spring do they have...kickball.  Our first game was on Thursday and it was a pretty good time.  The best part is, very few people (and no sane ones) take the game of kickball too seriously.  So it's really just a bunch of college kids reliving 5th grade.  What could be better than that?  Sweet action shot, huh? :)

• Ultimate Frisbee.  I haven't gotten around to playing this yet but the day is coming and I can't wait.  Frisbee is another thing that I'm really not very good at.  Actually, I'm really not good at all, but heck, it's fun, and it's spring, so I'm going to play. :)

• Camping.  Haven't done this yet either but you better believe that I will.  Hopefully I'll sleep better than my last experience sleeping in a tent when we all woke up feeling a little bit like this...
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  But again, somehow, it's fun.
  
  
  
  Ok, my apologies for the spastic bullet points in this post.  I think this is the last time I'll ever try to use bullet points in a blog post.  Maybe I'm the confused one, but it feels to me that blogger is just throwing in bullet points whenever it wants to.  And the spacing is a little off...  Anyway, the point is, it's spring and I'm having a good time.  I'm excited to keep enjoying the outdoors and the good weather.