Sawtooth Serenity

Rette, my father, my brother (who just got back from a two year mission to Norway), and I went on a 3 day backpacking trip to the Sawtooth Wilderness area. Here's a little photographic journey for you to enjoy.

Wearing the appropriate clothing is a must for any backpacking trip. Here Wes demonstrates the European look that is all the rage in Norway, while I try and show off my new pants

We hiked the 18 mile Toxaway loop which was absolutley beautiful. We spent a night a Alice Lake and also at Toxaway Lake.

Some of the fish were biting, unfortunetly the hungry ones weren't much bigger than 6 or 7 inches.















The 2nd day we headed up over Snowside Pass. Our timing wasn't great because just as we were reaching the top of the pass a thunder storm came rolling in on top of us.



Thanks to some quick steps and some classic Disney songs, we made it over the top and down into some trees in time to throw up a tarp before we got soaked.


Even though we got a fair amount of rain it was still bueatiful when if cleared. Plus it kept all the streams and waterfalls flowing.



















Unfortunately for Rette her heels didn't like her boots very much, or maybe it was visa versa. Either way she still toughed it out and managed to walk out of there without being carried.

I managed to get one of the worst cricks in my neck that I've ever gotten and couldn't turn my head for a full two days. So in short summary it was the best trip ever! Seriously though, despite the rain, the bugs, Rette's heels and my neck this was a great trip to a beautiful area and we'd all do it again.

What's Wrong With This?

Here's a great question that was posted to Craig's list from a women in New York. Just click on the news strip to see it larger.

I really love this post and the response is spot on. Of coarse there is the chance that this was just a joke, but I don't think it is. We've all know girls or guys (usually looking for something other than money) like this which is what makes the girl's question believable. The thing that strikes me about this woman is that she doesn't understand why she can't attract the right guy when any guy that's smart enough to make $500k is smart enough to stay away from her, hence her problem. It just blows my mind that their are people out there who think its worth it to marry just for money, not that marriages are that hard to end these days.

Just some food for thought. Leave a comment, I'd like to know your thoughts on this one.

For America!

What's more American than apple pie? How about an M1 Garand or about 5,000 personal fireworks and twice as many bottles of beer? That's what you get when you spend the 4th of July up near Crouch, Idaho.

Every 4th of July Crouch opens up its main street and shuts down the gas pumps. Hundreds of people come out to watch the town firework display and then head for the center of town to try their own. I learned a couple of things that night.

1. Ground bloom flowers work under water.

2. When intoxicated some people will try to light fire crackers in their mouth if you don't stop them.

3. Little kids can still sleep on a street with hundreds of drunk people lighting off fireworks.

4. When you run out of fireworks you can just start burning the used ones.





I wouldn't suggest bringing small children there, but that place is a blast literally. Rette, Quin, and I joined in the fun. I tried tossing a couple of flowers into the air and I must say I did laugh when one ended up going under a camp chair that some guy was sitting on. Normally I'd feel bad, but if you didn't want to be harassed by fireworks you shouldn't have come to Crouch.

One thing I got a new appreciation for was how hard it would be to fight a war with a black powder rifle. My father-in-law, Bart, let me and Quin shoot his and it's quite the process to reload those things. We only got off 5 shots in about 8 minutes, luckily there were no red coats around or we would have been in trouble.

Rette handled the M1 Garand well even though it was almost her size and weight.

All in all it was a great 4th of July. We got to raft, bridge jump, rope swing, shoot stuff, blow stuff up, eat Dutch oven cooking, and be American!

Arnold My Computer

I've been inspired to start a blog, partially from the suggestions of my sister, and it reminded me of something that happened long ago. One of the earliest memories I have is of my sister creating a computer "costume" for me and us singing along to an obscure song called 'Arnold My Computer.' To wear this outfit I would kneel down and stick my face (which was cute at the time) through a hole cut in construction paper which made up the screen. Taped on to the bottom of the screen was more rectangular paper to represent where all the circuits of the computer were and a keyboard below that, covering my knees. We both thought that this was quite amusing especially since I got to sing the part of Arnold in my best robot/computer voice.

What strikes me is that this was back around 1986 before personal computing got started. I had a thought that this little girl that dressed me up like a computer and made us sing songs about computers in our heads wasn't to far off from what would be happening in the future. Technology has come a long way and it really is progressing to the point where we live more and more of our lives inside computers .

It's kind of a strange intro but starting up this blog just reminded me of that for some reason. I guess now more than ever I feel like I'm inside the computer. Well, look here in the future for more childhood stories, pics of our adventures, and maybe reflections on life. Thanks for stopping by.