Wednesday Justin and I made cookies and took them to the Steenson family. They just moved in and based on Facebook, I could tell Tara was having a hard time! So we sought out to find them not knowing exactly where they live. Mom said they moved into a neighborhood "behind walmart" so with that knowledge we set out to find them! Turns out it wasn't very hard, and it was good to visit with them for a while. Justin has started playing floor hockey with a pick up group and he's really enjoying it.
For Independence Day we drove to I.F. and used some of our in-store credit to buy arm bands for our phones to exercise with. We ate lunch at Gator Jacks in Rigby, then headed to Trisha's house for festivities! Chase and Rachel joined us and we played at Rigby Lake for a few hours. From there we had burgers and hot dogs in Trisha's backyard with baked beans, watermelon, chips and pop! Yum! We made a sign for Keaton at the airport tomorrow, but I couldn't get a good picture of it so I'll have to take a picture tomorrow when he actually flies in! So exciting! Justin and I left early before fireworks because I was sick and had a big hike the next day.
Friday I got to school at 6 to head to Yellowstone for our big hike to the Fossil Forest. There are other fossil forests on earth, but this is the only one where the trees are still standing upright. I was totally prepared for the heat and didn't even think about rain...and guess what it did all day? Thunder and rain ALL DAY! At the trailhead there was a sign about bears, and then we started seeing signs of bears like bear scat and bear claws on trees...I have never seen such things before in real life and it was kind of freaky being in the backcountry of Yellowstone in bear territory! We hiked two miles up a canyon on a well developed trail, and then we took a sharp left into the wilderness. We blazed our own trail through fallen trees and lush for about a mile, then headed straight up. The rain started while we were still hiking at the bottom, and I could hear thunder from the west coming our way. Great! By the time we got to the uphill part I was soaked. The rain lightened up as we continued to about 8,500 feet where we stopped for lunch and instruction.
Bear claws!
Beautiful country!
Our "Trail"
Volcanic Breccia
Pretty view
Petrified wood forest
After that the plan was to finish the hike (get to 9,000 feet) and come down a different route through an area called "Specimen Ridge" where there are really well-preserved plant fossils, but the weather disagreed with us. We were climbing on the ridge of the mountain, and I kept looking to the west at the thunderstorm. While my teachers discussed what we should do (go down now or keep going up) I was DYING inside...really? This should be a no-brainer. We should hike down now, obviously, before we get struck by lightning! We were exposed on an 8,500 foot ridge thank you very much! My teachers finally decided we should hike down but everyone was taking forever to eat. I wanted to be like, "Move now and eat your lunch at the bottom!" But I wasn't in charge so I kept acting like it was time to go so people would get the hint. Meanwhile thunder was cracking right above us and we were standing under a very large tree that one of my teachers pointed out had been struck with lightning because half of the base was gone. How very comforting to know as we wasted time eating while the storm got worse! I swear...the rain and hail began and we finally set off down the mountain. On the last steep part, one of the ladies there slipped and dislocated her shoulder. Luckily, her husband is a nurse so he made a make-shift sling and we hiked the remaining three miles in more rain and continuous thunder. At least we were off the ridge now! The lady who dislocated her arm was super tough. When we got to the bottom we headed straight to the "hospital" in West Yellowstone which was a community health center that gave her some pain medication. My teacher got us to Rexburg in record time where we dropped the couple off at the emergency room. What a crazy day, but I felt healthy the whole time and we didn't get attacked by any lightning or wildlife. Yeah!
Quartz growing on petrified wood. So sweet.
My teacher let me use his jacket eventually
Rachel and I
Saturday Justin and I biked 10 miles and ran 2 miles right after that. It's part of my training for my triathlon and Justin is a good sport so he did it with me. The rest of the day we just relaxed, and then spent the evening with Trisha again playing games. There was a huge lightning and thunder storm to the north and we watched some sweet lightning all the way home.
That is it for this week. Next week is the tournament for Ultimate. I'm hoping my team can pull out another championship! We hike in the Tetons next weekend for my class so that will be an adventure. Now it's time for Justin and I to do a few last minute things for Keaton's homecoming at the airport tomorrow. We are making picture signs of the Boise families to hold on popsicle sticks (Trisha's idea!) since they can't be there. Just one more day!
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