A journey through time..

Come my friends and join me on a journey through time... to a place in the past when clouds scuttled the base of mountains on rainy days...

... and the world in which I lived was filled with dancing cows, guys playing air guitar and I was still recovering from climbing a mountain that left my legs feeling like jelly and hating the person who invented stairs. *insert the sound of windchimes here*

...

Ok, so my legs were in pain for five days post mountain climb but I was still stupid enough to join in an Ultimate frisbee match with some University of Utah students (aka the Utes) with my cousin Helen. Hillarity ensued as my cousin continually tackled people to the ground (its a non-contact sport) and I fell over every 15 minutes as I wasn't used to running without cleated boots on. The whole situation didn't help my sore legs issue, but did improve the grass stains on my knees. Bonus!

The week followed with movies, tie-dying, guitar hero, a tonne of good food, church, the blessing of one of the cutest babys (and quitest), a plethora of relatives to impress with my wit and double dutch skills, jet skiing, experiencing what life would be like if I was in a family with 6 kids, cheese cake, more kids and relatives to play with, more cheese cake, balloon baseball, pottery, oh, and more cake (what a birthday I had, thanks everyone for the love and tummy filling goodness of all the baked goods :)

Oh, and lets not forget the turkeys, cows, rabbits and goats of the animal farm...

(Lily and Tommy make some new friends)

From here we journey into the curious world of Twilight... otherwise known as the state of Washington and Seattle with its cloudy, rainy days and weather predictions for the possibility of 'sun peaks' as apposed to an actual day of sunshine. The place is so lush and green that more often than not you can't see more than 100m in any one direction.

It really was a world I could imagine living in, with the patter of rain to soothe the soul and the closeness of world around you. Makes you feel all warm and cosy :)

Noteworthy Events

Event Number 1:
I witnessed an avalanche at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada.

Event 2:
I became friends with a chipmunk while at 2000ft above sea level.

Event 3:
I slept through the biggest earthquake Washington DC has ever experienced! Yes, you heard right. I slept through it!!!! How crazy is that?

Thought of the day

"I was orbited by several flies today. I now have some inkling of what its like to be a proton."

Not to mention the full baffet lunch I provided to all of the mosquitoes next to Kootenay River. I'm up to 22 bites and counting.

San Diego and Salt Lake City

Keeping a blog up to date is a lot harder than I thought. Especially because I'm also keeping a personal diary, updating my facebook page, and sending a lot of personalized emails still. It gets difficult to do all of that, and not get bored with my own repetiveness. I will however, attempt to provide a brief overrun of some of the things that I have seen and done up until now.

I will return now to my days in San Diego... *insert time warp here*... I did manage to check out San Diego Zoo which entailed running from one enclosure to the next for most of the morning, and still only seeing about a third of the entire complex. This included seeing pandas, polar bears, hippos, raccoons, winter foxes, a puma, and some very cheeky gorillas. The one animal that i really wanted to see however, i couldnt find. And that would be the pengolin. The two things that i remeber the most was the hummingbird hovering above the huge silverback gorilla, and the two flights of escalators that take you up through the jungle canopy. Other than that, the zoo was very similar to others I've seen, excluding the variety of animals. I still think that the Night Safari in Singapore was far more thrilling. But seeing the hundreds of squirrels around the place made it worth it :)

San Diego also included a beach ultimate game (which i couldnt play due to my cold), and a four hour sojourne through the S.S. Midway. A naval air craft carrier. It was a mini city unto itself. There were also numerous cardboard cut outs of naval crew around the ship, which when you turned a corner in one of the passageways, proceeded to scare the crap out of you on many an occassion. *shakes fist at stupid cardboard cut out people*

My adventure now moves on to Salt Lake City where I have a wealth of family. According to some cousins though, they can only a handle a day of being my guide due to the amount of walking which is often involved in the activities I choose. (Thanks Taylor!) Some highlights include exploring Timpanogus Cave and having ranger Andy correcting Taylor about 50% of the time on his so called "knowledge"... An image of Taylor walking/climbing down the one and half hour path from the cave. Oh, and the view from the canyon :)I also loved the 7hr sailing voyage in the Great Salt Lake with 'pirates'. Lance, who was my skipper (even though I spent most of the time steering), was dressed like a pirate as the whole trip was supposed to be a historical reinactment of french (and other) sailors going to battel in the lake... or something to that effect. Then the most amazing, and exhausting was my climb up Mt Olympus, which is over 9000 ft high. It's pretty much a continual steep climb to the top which took us 4hrs, with a hand and foot scramble for the last 500m. In total it was about 10km straight up and down, with the poor thighs caning for 5 days there after. But I would strongly recommend my family to give it a go. I mean, you guys live there, how is it possible that you havent seen the top yet? I do however, think I scared off my 17yr old co-climber from ever wanting to set foot up a mountain ever again. More from the pain associated, as apposed to me being bad company.Thats it for now. Other adventures soon (eventually) to be put to print.