Long Update - aka I'm terrible at keeping up with this thing

Dear god, I can't believe it's been 2 1/2 months since I wrote anything. I would say I've been busy - and I have for the past few weekends - but come on; I have a friend (Jen) with two kids under 2 and she writes every day - sometimes more!

If you want the truth, I haven't written because my life is pretty sad and boring. Yes, I keep busy, but I do everything ALONE! A few weeks ago I went to a really nice dinner ($75 for just me!) ALONE and a couple of nights later I went to a show at the Paramount ALONE. All the hiking I do - ALONE. Horses - ALONE. I need more friends.... and a boyfriend.

Okay, enough self-pity. So, what have I been up to? Well, the last 3 weekends have been good. On the weekend of Aug 24th I went to Dallas to see my best friend Nicole. We had a great time. Went to a bar and flirted with boys, went to her artist friend's studio and threw pottery (course I had to forget my freakin camera for that one), went for a run and a swim and played Scrabble. All that and the only pictures I have are of us playing Scrabble and me looking like shit with no make-up. Of course Nicole looks gorgeous - but that's because she sleeps in her make0up. lol j/k Nicole always looks gorgeous. :)

It's Rocko the pottery dog. (Notice the clay on his ear - that was me. :)

The next weekend I went to Klamath Falls, OR to see an old high school friend that I hadn't been in touch with for 10 years! He's getting a divorce and going through a rough time so I went down to just hang out and cheer him up. He warned me that Klamath Falls is a red neck, white trash town but I thought it was okay. I mean, yeah, there was a lady on her Rascal Scooter with a Confederate flag and a raccoon tail tied to it in Fred Meyer but..... Oh, and there was a wind catcher in someone's yard that was a monster truck in red, white and blue. But redneck, nah. :)

Dave and I did do a nice hike to a pretty lake and I was feeling the slightly higher elevation. I was breathing hard but my heart rate was really low. I need to get more altitude training. (More on why later.)

One thing that put a damper on the weekend was that Dave has claimed Jesus as his savior and believes that anyone who does not believe the Bible is the true and ONLY word of God is going to hell. Now, for those of you that know me, you know how WONDERFUL I thought that was. So, we just avoided the subject the rest of the weekend and watched movies; I watched more movies that weekend than I have in the last 3 months combined. Blood Diamond is great btw.

Then last weekend I drove to Moses Lake for a family reunion. I rented a Honda Element through Flexcar because it looked big enough to sleep in. Not only is it big enough (I fit my double Aerobed mattress in the thing!) it's built for sleeping in. There's a sunroof over the trunk area that's obviously made for star gazing as you fall asleep. It was awesome! As ugly as I have always thought those boxy things are, after driving one and camping in one, I would totally buy one!

After the family reunion I drove to the Lake Kachess campground and crawled into the back for a nice snooze. I cooked some oatmeal and some tea and headed out on the Rachel Lake trail. Man, was it a good one! It climbs gently for the first 2.5 miles, gaining only 700'. But as soon as you hit that 2.5 mile mark you start climbing and gain another 1200' in 1.5 miles! And most of it looks like you'd be getting face fulls of ice cold water if you did it in the Spring. In fact, a couple of times I got confused and started climbing the dry creek beds until I hit an impasse and turned around to find the real trail.

The lake was beautiful and the fish were jumping like crazy. I cooled my tootsies and read a magazine for a bit and then started the descent. Thank god I had the foresight to bring trekking poles because it would have taken me twice as long to get down if I hadn't had them. As an added bonus, my triceps got a hell of a workout. It's two days later and my entire body is still sore. Now THAT'S a good hike!

Oh, I also went on my family's annual river raft trip at the beginning of August. (Man it has been a long time since I wrote!) I'll do a separate blog for that one since I have a million pics to post.

Sea Kyaking is Boring

So, I went to my first MeetUp tonight to do sea kayaking. They provided the kayaks so I thought why not give it a shot!?

Granted I didn't know what I was doing, but there is no real workout to be had doing it. I think it's more of an endurance sport - like if you paddle for 9 hours against the wind and current you might burn 150 calories.

It was nice to be on the water though and I met some interesting people. But, I think for a water workout I'll stick to rowing.

Annual River Trip - Lower Salmon to the Snake

We had a huge trip and some interesting folks along this year. One was a sorghum farmer from TN. Don't know what sorghum is? Neither did I until I talked to him for awhile. It's really quite interesting. Here's their website. http://muddypondsorghum.com/ It was the first trip I've been on that my great aunt Linda went on so that was nice.

Since a picture is worth about a thousand words, here are about 30,000 words:

Denny Creek-Melakwa Lake Hike (Rated G)

Today I did a hike called Denny Creek - Melakwa Lake, but I didn't quite make it to the lake. I got a very late start (hit the trail at 1:30pm). I was almost 2.5 hours in and thought I must be close to the lake, but I had given myself a 4:00 turn around time to ensure I made it back with plenty of light.

At 3:50 a guy on his way down told me I was at least 45 mins from the lake so I decided to turn back. Turns out, I could have made the lake because the descent breezed by!

It was very steep and rocky and was a good reminder to bring hiking poles on the Inca Trail! I was only carrying 15 pounds (much less on the descent after drinking 2 or my 3 liters of water and eating most of my food) and my feet were still hurting. Luckily, I have good knees, but my arches and toes hurt from all the rocky terrain.

I put 5 pounds of popcorn kernels in ziploc bags and put those in my pack. Someone has told me use water bottles for extra weight so that you can pour them out at the top and save your knees on the descent. I may try a combination of that at some point.

The trail head was 2,300' and the lake summit would have been 4,650' so I'm guessing I was at around 3,800' when I turned around?? I've got to buy an altimeter soon!

The entire trip took 4 hours. As long as I paid attention to my energy level and ate enough, and realized that when I started to get cold I needed to put on another layer because I was zapping my body's energy, I was fine!

Here are the pics I took today. There was so much beautiful flora that I had to take pictures of it.