most epic weekend. EVER.

The date is July 31, which means I have 17 days left as an employee in Yellowstone. Although my time here is winding down, my adventures are not. Take last weekend for example: My friend Jonathan Spear from school (who is working down in Jackson Hole, WY for the summer) came to visit for a few days. We went moonlight whitewater rafting on the Yellowstone River (for freeee because now we know this girl who is a raft guide up in Gardiner, MT) for my friend Rachel's birthday. We stayed overnight with our raftguide friend (Tara) and her family and woke up to a delicious breakfast of home-cooked omlettes (beats eating in the employee dining hall!). Jonathan and I hiked a 5 mile loop trail in the Mammoth area of park, then our group drove down to Lake area for a parkwide ACMNP picnic at a sandbar (2 free, delicious meals in one day!). (I am using a lot of parentheses () and exclamation points!!!!). The next day Jonathan, and my Czech friend, Jirka (Jiri) embarked at 7 am to go to the Tetons to find a mountain to hike up. We talked to a ranger and decided to climb Static Peak: elevation 11,303 ft. Siiiick.

This, I believe, was the most epic hike of my life thus far. 2 miles in we came to Phelps Lake, which has a HUGE rock put there by God for the purpose of jumping off of it into the lake and taking epic pictures with mountains in the background. So of course, we did just that. A couple miles up the trail we came to a fresh mountain spring river waterfall that we hiked along for about a mile. We filled up our bottles with water, using the handy dandy purification tablets from my dad. A few more miles up, we had a picnic lunch in the shade and there was an adorable ground squirrel flirting with us because we had food. He jumped on my shoe.! and we took pictures. And after a couple more hours, a few more miles, and a lot of hard work, we reached the top and took lots of epic pictures of high altitude lakes, a view of the Grand Teton Peak, Buck Peak, and awesome beautiful things. Then we hiked down about 10 miles in 3.25 hours. I got back to Grant after midnight and had to work the next morning... sigh. Totally worth it though.

After a 4 day work week, it is once again my weekend and I am sure that more adventures await, because everyday here is full of adventure of some kind. Within the week, some of my friends will be leaving and going home, and soon after I will do the same - which will be weird and bittersweet (because I only get to be home one week before going to school to student teach!) But it's not over yet!

Life in a Postcard

The past 48 hours of my life have been action-packed, excitement-filled, epically adventurous, and altogether beautiful. At our first service yesterday we had 30 people in attendance: our largest service yet. All three services went smoothly and it seemed like people were influenced in a good way. After our morning services Rachel, Kacie (our good friend/ adopted ministry team member), and I went to Old Faithful to use our employee discount at the gift shop there (40% off this week!). Then we skidaddled over to Moose Falls where we swam in the waterfalls and read good books on a rock in the sun. After dinner, ice cream, and our third service, Rachel and I embarked upon our epic adventure.

We left Grant at 8 pm to drive Northwest into a spectacular Yellowstone sunset towards Mammoth to go camp with some ACMNP support staff. We arrived at the Blacktail Creek trailhead around 10:00 pm. Although we could not find the trail head at first, we stopped and used a bathroom, and when we came out, a park ranger (who is also the father of the ACMNP staff we were going to meet) had magically appeared to lead us to the trail. We hiked 3.7 miles to a ranger cabin in the dark with flashlights, singing and shouting the entire way to fend off bears or other lurking night dangers. We arrived safely to a quaint cabin on the beach of the Yellowstone River, where we had a solid night's sleep. We had a breakfast of bloobs, bags, and pnutbut (blueberries, bagels, and peanut butter) on the shore of the river. Sufficiently fueled and raring for more adventure, we hiked 2 miles further to a waterfall, before turning back to hike out and return to Grant. It was a beautiful experience in so many ways.

Besides adventuring, other important things you should know about the past week are: Darcy (one of my ministry team members) returned home this week because of health problems. Please pray for her. I caught my first 2 fish (Cutthroat) this week at Riddle Lake. I am really very sunburned and my feet are blistered, but it is all worth it. Beautiful world, beautiful moments. Beautiful people, beautiful life.

Climb every mountain

Right about now my body sort of hates me, but my soul is happy. I cannot remember the last time that I was this physically tired. Yesterday I hiked Mt. Holmes with 20 other people from the ministry. It is a 19-20? mile hike that goes about 8 miles of slight incline (mostly flat) across some meadows along a creek, and then climbs up the peak to a height of over 10,000 ft for 2 miles-ish. Then you hike the whole thing back out. Although this was my longest, most strenuous hike so far, it was not my favorite. Last Monday I hiked Avalanche Peak, which is just a 4 mile hike (2 up, 2 down). It was a toughie, but the best one yet. I felt like I was in an Ice Mountain Spring water commercial. And after we reached the tip, we slid down in plastic bags on the steep snowy slopes. These are the experiences that make cleaning hotel rooms for 40 hours a week worthwhile.

This past Sunday I preached for our services for the first time. I think it went pretty well, and I was encouraged to hear positive feedback from our support-staff and other visitors that attended the services.

Also some fun facts you might enjoy learning: In the past two weeks I have peed behind/under a waterfall AND on top of 2 different mountains at over 10,000 ft elevation. Loons are my new favorite bird. Wind can be very very very strong and just because it is July does not mean that I cannot go sledding.