Of Grades & Hermit Phases

#1.
So, I rocked my first year of grad school. Rocked. It. Actually,  . . . ROCKED IT (in all caps). As in 4.0 rocked it. The entire year! Yeah. I'll enjoy the 4.0 (Four. Point. O.) while I can. (And I'll say it as many times as I can - until it changes.)

#2
In a fit to finally leave a relationship in the past, I dove out of my hermit phase into a wild and woolly, deep-end-of-the-pool social weekend. But I didn't think it was the deep end, I had hoped I was just wading into the shallow end. That weekend consisted of a singles BBQ immediately resulting in a date (which I didn't really want because I just wanted to practice talking to people again, but the date ended up being very nice, relaxed, and casual and actually renewed my faith that dates can be all of those things and not lead directly to a roller-coaster relationship).
Then I went to the Utah Valley Single Adult Conference fireside with my neighbor. Big mistake. Two reasons why it was a big mistake. Actually three reasons. 1) Nearly everyone there was at least 45 and 50 years old. 2) My neighbor found the most ridiculous and most flattery/gag-inducing guy there for us to sit by. 3) Santa Claus, with a long pony tail, accosted me when he said, "You look stunning, girl." as I was bolting out of the fireside. All of this temporarily threw me back into my hermit phase. But I'm out of it again. And I've been to two more singles activities and have had much better experiences with them.

A Little Strawberry Days with my Little Roommate

To celebrate the last few days before my little roommate, Jen, moved out and left for London, I took her out on a date to the Strawberry Days Rodeo - my favorite ever rodeo. We missed the mutton bustin! We got in line for food 10 minutes before they were supposed to start and they started 5 minutes early and we were in a line with an incompetent server. :( Not only was she uber-slow with all the people before us, but she also wrote down our order and still forgot 2 of the 5 things we ordered - I had to remind her before she got too far into calculating the total cost. We eventually got our food and went back to our crowded seats to watch the rodeo and eat our dinner. We went with Lindsey and Rob and Lindsey's entire family! Jen and I were sitting right smack in the middle of her family. We felt bad, but they told us not to move. This year they set off fireworks! That was kind of new and exciting.

My Little Town's Art City Days

Jenny and I at the carnival & concert

I love my little town. We just wrapped up Art City Days. Thursday morning, Michele, her baby, and I walked to the fire station at 6:45 am to have a little - uh, correction: big - Fireman's Breakfast to celebrate and support our town. Then last night, I met up with a couple girlfriends and we went to the carnival, ate scones and homemade root beer, listened to an awesome concert, and then watched some fireworks. I think this could be the actual beginning of summer now - especially since school will be out after this coming Tuesday. Let summer vacation begin!

I {Heart} Deer Valley!

Can I just say how much I love riding at Deer Valley? Kendra and I pre-rode the race course Wednesday evening and then Saturday was the race. The pre-ride course had us riding through a couple snowfields .... uh. CRAZY. I walked my bike through them. But that was only at the beginning of the course ... after that is heaven. HEAVEN. I love the fun little turns, ups, and downs through the forests of pine trees. The trees smell so good!! As soon as we hit the first tree section I yelled, "This is my favorite part!"

Pre-riding DV. See the smile on my face? I just came out of a little bit of heaven.

The actual race course didn't make us go through the snowfields, but we did have to climb a hill with a 23% grade. Ha! Yeah right! I walked it. I was practically parallel to the hill side while pushing my bike up it. Initially we were suppose to do one and a half laps, but since none of us my category (a whopping 3 people including myself) were trying to qualify for USA Cycling, the race organizers let us change to our normal one lap. Now, I'm kind of sad I didn't do the extra half lap. I would have had to climb the hill at the beginning, but I would have been able to ride through the trees again! Oh well. Live and learn. Oh. And I got 3rd place - aka last place. But it came with a $15 certificate to Cole Sports in Park City - which I already spent. :)

Little Red Riding Hood 2011

Teri and I rode the Little Red Riding Hood Century Ride again this year. Teri rocked it with her new pedals and shoes - so her feet didn't hurt nearly as bad. But we kind of switched roles this year - I was struggling this year! Saddle soreness started to kick in around mile 60. And then I started to feel like I wanted to be done with the ride by mile 72 - especially since that is when we started to see all of the faster riders coming back on the finishing out-n-back loop. And then I started to feel gross: hot and tummy-ache. Thankfully we had a full-service food stop at about mile 83 so I got some food and laid down in the shade and cool grass. After a few minutes I felt a little better so Teri and I got back on the road because I just wanted to be done. By the time we doubled back to finish I was feeling much better and really started to book it. That's when Teri told me to slow down whereas the rest of the ride I was telling her to slow down so we'd have enough energy to finish the ride. But we finished! And the ice cream they had at the finish line for us was delectable! It tasted so good. Kendra and Wendy from my mountain bike team rode up to Logan with me - this is Kendra in the pictures with Teri and me.

Backpacking in Canyonlands

I spent another Memorial Day weekend backpacking with Lindsey, Rob, and Shaun. Our adventure began with driving down Friday night to Green River and trying to find Crystal Geyser thinking we would camp there that night and the drive the remainder of the way Saturday morning. Well.... we were a little mistaken on our directions of how to get to the geyser and so we took some wrong turns.... and ended up driving over some crazy dirt roads and we were thinking the whole time, "No wonder no one knows about this geyser! No one can get to it!" We even took a sketchy, winding dirt road up to the top of a hill where there was a tower with a blinking light on it. The road was so sketchy that Lindsey and I got out of the car to walk it while Shaun and Rob drove to the top. At another point we also had to drive over a metal pipe that was laid across the road. And then wouldn't you know it - we found a lovely, graded dirt road - that any vehicle could drive on - that took us directly to the geyser. What a happy accident! And then in the morning, that dirt road was super simple to follow out back to the freeway. Oh brother. Sadly, the geyser never went off for us ... it would only bubble and hiss. So we dubbed it the "bubble pot."

Stairs leading up to Chesler Park

We went to Chesler Park in Canyonlands National Park. We all packed in 9 liters of water since we weren't sure that we'd find water to filter - the only reported water source was 3 miles away from our campsite. Thankfully, our campsite was only 3 miles from the trail head so we didn't have to pack in all that weight very far.

The Needles District

Chesler Park is a big open, grassy area in the middle of the Needles District of Canyonlands. Our campsite was beautiful.... except for the wind vortex we had. There was some serious wind the entire weekend, and the wind would just circle around our campsite picking up all the sand and filling out tents, food, and ears with it. Sunday was the worst with maybe 40 mile per hour gusts. I was even hit by a tumble-weed when we were hiking back to camp from visiting Druid Arch! And it didn't just roll into my legs - it struck me from the side up on my upper arm! I guess there is a first for everything. It was actually kind of cool to see the dust devils swirling around and even more cool to watch the tumble-weeds swirl around in those dust devils!

Even better view of the Needles

Hiking Joint Trail and to Druid Arch were definitely the highlights of the trip. Joint Trail was a hike through cracks in the rock. Some of those cracks were so tight! We couldn't get through some of them. They were way fun to explore. Then Druid Arch was pretty cool too - especially the little rock formation at the bottom of it that looks like a hamster on oxygen. Ha! We took a little nap on the rocks at Druid Arch. I seem to do that on several of my camping/backpacking trips .... Hmmmm.

Anyway! Enjoy the pics!

Chesler Park before all the tumble weeds disappeared

Descending into the Joint Trail

The whole crew in a joint

Me in Chesler Park

Sunset on the rocks that surround Chesler Park

Druid Arch

More stairs - they were very convenient

The hamster on oxygen - do you see him?

Hiking through Chesler Park in the windstorm

Visiting Hole in the Rock on our way home

The Un-Sundance Spin ICUP Race

Yesterday we had our "Sundance Spin" race that my team/shop sponsors, but it wasn't at Sundance Resort. It was at Soldier Hollow. :( Sundance still has too much snow. I dislike the normal Soldier Hollow race as it is, let alone this "new" course that Ed built so it would be different from the actual Soldier Hollow race next week. I rode my new bike for this race - my beloved Gary Fisher Superfly 29er. I really like it so far, but I do have a bit of a learning curve ahead of me for making tight turns. I nearly wiped out on one turn. I also had to walk a lot of this course. Practically the first 3.5 miles was all climbing! And some of that climbing was super steep. And then there was a steep, nasty down-hill that I walked too. But I got 2nd place, which was also last place since there was only 2 of us racing in my category. Too bad the 1st place girl didn't race in the category she should have raced in (being an ex-professional mountain bike racer that she is), I would have gotten 1st place! Ah well. I had fun riding the race. And I was even a good girl and read my text book in between the race and the awards ceremony.

My Mad Dog Cycles Race Team

Being a good girl

The Mad Dog ladies with one of our male teammates

2nd place on the podium

During the race