That's the way it should be

Things I did last weekend to try and get over being "subdued."

Hiked to a waterfall. No, I didn't propose to anyone there. This time.

Drove to Bear Lake and spent some time on the beach, followed by a raspberry shake before heading back home.

Went on a very hot, very dusty hike to Lake Blanche. Might have done some damage to my knee along the way, but it was still worth it.

Went and looked at dinosaur bones. Didn't see my own there, so I guess I'm doing alright after all.

And of course, I self-medicated with candy. Lots and lots of candy.

No, you can't have any.

Open your eyes and what do you seeeeeeeeeee?

Hey look - Fall!

I need some air that no-one's been breathing

I seriously don't know where the time goes anymore. I went on a hike last weekend, and meant to post about it before now, but better late than never I guess.

It all started when I posted one of the pictures from the drive I went with on my brother on Facebook. One of my old high school friends commented on how gorgeous it was, and then said that the next thing I needed to do was meet her and her husband for a hike the next morning. I haven't seen either of them since high school, but it was a hike I'd been wanting to do all summer long, but thought there would still be too much snow to make it up that high. There was still snow, but she said they'd heard it was passable, so I joined them. It wasn't a hard decision to make. I'm really glad I went. It was nice catching up with the two of them, and the scenery was simply phenomenal. Here are some of the pics I took.

It's been a relatively cool summer, so there were still plenty of wildflowers:



As expected, we did have to cross a few snow fields:



The view from the other side of the first snow field wasn't too shabby:



And it just kept on getting better. This is my favorite picture from the hike:



Here are some hikers and their dog that were crossing another snow field in front of us:



The scariest part for me was that I'd lost my sunglasses, and was worried about getting snow blindness. I had to squint my eyes as much as possible while walking across the snow so as not to burn my retinas. I think I did sunburn my eyelids, even though I'd applied sunblock, but better the outside of those than the eyes themselves. Luckily, everything turned out fine.

We eventually came up along a ridge just before making our final ascent to the summit. The view was pretty good on both sides of the trail:





The summit was pretty cool too:





But perhaps the funnest part of the entire hike was when we were crossing one of the steep snow fields, and decided to follow someone else's slide rather than walk back down. Here's a picture that shows you how steep the slope was:



And here's one of the slide itself:



We also saw a commode that has a view that rivals any:



No, I didn't use it.

At some point during our ascent, my friend told me that I hadn't changed a bit since high school. She added that she was glad that it wasn't weird hanging out again after all this time.

"Really? I think I've changed a lot since high school."

"Yeah?" she asked, "How so?"

I answered, "I'm way more cool now than I ever was back then."

All in all, it was a good day!

You are not easily swayed if swayed means moved

Oh. Hi there. Remember me? I'm the guy who never posts on his blog anymore. But if you can find it within yourself to forgive me, I have a perfectly good explanation. I've been busy trying to enjoy summer. See?

It all started with my boss asking me to go on a collecting trip. Five days through some gorgeous areas: Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Well, they're all gorgeous except for Wyoming. The only good part of Wyoming is the Grand Tetons:



And Yellowstone National Park:



The rest of Wyoming is pretty desolate. Here's a picture I took of Wyoming's most populated area:



Colorado was pretty cool, except for the suicidal deer we encountered.



I have a picture of the deer too, but won't make you sad by posting it. Luckily, the car was still drivable and we were able to finish the trip. We even made it until the last night before getting pulled over for missing a headlight. The cop let us off with a warning, but then, ten minutes later, we got pulled over again. The second cop just laughed at us, told us we had two more speed traps to make it through, so to drive slowly through town, but then to run like hell once we made it past those. He was alright.

Sure, I've been back for over a week now, but I've been doing some other things. Like going on hikes to mountain lakes:



And waterfalls:



It's all part of my master plan to actually start enjoying my life again. It's sort of working.

Turn around, turn around, there's a thing there that can be found. Turn around, turn around, it's a human skull on the ground.

Last week a girl I know texted to say I should go hiking with her over the weekend. My brother texted me a few days later to see if I wanted to go hiking with him. Being the amazing accommodator I am, I asked both of them if they'd mind hiking as a group. They both agreed that would be fine, so the three of us set out on Saturday morning to try and make it to a lake in the mountains.

My brother told us that he'd tried to hike it with his two youngest last year in June, but couldn't go all the way there because of the snow. Even though we were attempting it a month later, we also had a lot more snow last winter, so we ran into the same problem. We eventually got into enough snow that the girl and I decided to turn around. After all, I was wearing sandals, and she was wearing shoes with very little traction. My brother decided to go on ahead. He didn't want to make an attempt to get there twice in a row without making it all the way up. He made it and took some gorgeous photos. It kind of made me wish I'd dressed appropriately, but oh well. There's always time to go up when the snow is gone.

Before we parted ways, my brother had made mention of his previous attempt to hike it with his girls a few other times on the trail. I only bring this up so I can tell you this conversation that occurred when we were about halfway up the trail and he pointed at a weird looking root.

Him: Dude, I think that's a bone.

Me: Yup.

Him: Seriously. I think it's a human bone.

Me: I'm sure it is.

Him: You're not even looking. Look at it.

Me: Looks like a jaw bone. It's probably from the hooker you killed the last time you came up here. When you said to your girls, "You guys go on ahead. Daddy's got some business to take care of back here."

Girl: Jesus Christ, [Native].


Hey, at least I always leave an impression.

You can't go back and see it the way you saw it then, nobody can

You'd think that I would've had enough of the great outdoors with my mountain biking trip last weekend, but one of my friends is moving to Alaska on Friday and she wanted to hike to top of a nearby mountain. How can I say no to that?

Here are some of the pictures I took while on the trail.

Some fall colors:




On the forest floor:


Some gnarly roots:


Meadow on the ridgeline:


Dead wood:


Steep cliffs:


If there's one thing people have always been good at, it's leaving their garbage lying around:


The summit that we wouldn't make it to:


Because of this:


It wasn't so much the rain, but the thunder we were hearing that made us turn back. We didn't want to be the stupid hikers that got struck by lightning. It was probably for the best as I was so sore I could hardly get out of bed this morning. It was apparently too much for an old man like me to do in one day (we hiked ~15 miles with a 4000 foot increase in elevation). Still, it was totally worth it. Next time, I'll make it to the summit.