So this first semester of radiation therapy school is over! WhoooooooHoooooo I remember the first day of orientation and thinking that I had a loooong ways til December and a LOT of driving to do. Now all of a sudden I've got one semester down and just two more to go. I had a wonderful semester- loved my clinical rotation, didn't mind the drive, and even managed to pass rad. physics with a high B. But here's one of the highlights of this semester-
At the beginning of the semester, our program director announced that she was going to raise/collect money for a scholarship in her fathers name. There would be two awarded to therapy students, and one to a dosimetry student. They wouldn't be a lot of money, but anything is better than nothing. There were a few stipulations to be able to qualify for this scholarship however.
-Be a non-smoker (since her father died of lung cancer)
-Volunteer 20 hours during the semester
-Write a 1 page paper about why you need the scholarship
-Have a 3.5 GPA for the 1st semester
Not too bad stipulations, so I thought I'd give it a try. Well after my 20 hours were completed along with my paper, all I had to do was pray for a 3.5 GPA. A few not so good test grades and lots of praying and breath-holding later... my overall GPA was 3.56 for the semester. Now it was just up to the committee to determine who would be awarded the scholarships. I guess it wasn't that hard of a decision to make seeings how I was the ONLY one who applied for the scholarship! So not only was I awarded one scholarship, but BOTH of them. I'm one happy girl!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Happy Birthday to my favorite set of twins!
(After Michael and myself of course)
Hard to believe they're turning two! I still remember vividly driving on 40 up to the mountains when I got a phone call from their mother informing me she was pregnant. Can't wait to see you guys again!
So for those of you who think that all I can cook is pasta and chicken (cough*Jessi*cough), I'm here to show you that I've added something else to my list.
Actually, there is nothing to this except gathering the ingredients and putting it together, but the finished product is exquisite and looks pretty too. I had this as an appetizer at a restaurant with a few friends and really enjoyed it, so I did my best to re-create it. Not exactly what we had, but it's still good!
Here's what you need:
-Avocado
-Tomatoes
-Onions
-Feta Cheese
-Olive Oil
Here's what you do:
Dice the tomatoes and onions. Add an equal amount of feta cheese to the mix. Mix in a small amount of olive oil. Put this inside the avocado. Dig in and enjoy!
Fall is my all time favorite season of the year. Beautiful fall leaves, cooler weather, pumpkin carving, hot chocolate, and the list goes on... I just throughly enjoy the month of October.
One weekend this month, my Aunt and I went on a quick get away to visit our good buddy JH up in Roanoak, VA. We had a blast just hanging out with good ole Johnny Boy and seeing some of the parkway in the Fall while doing a quick "hike".
But another great reason to love October is Halloween. I mean, how many days do adults get to play dress up and it be acceptable? I love seeing all the different costumes people come up with. Some people get really into it and I usually get a good laugh at how far some take it. This year, thanks to my wonderful friend Stacy, I had a great costume idea. Or at least I thought so. See if you can tell what I am... (ps. I'm on the left)
Did you figure it out???
I'm a mail-order bride. It was suppose to be even better because a friend of mine was suppose to dress as a mailman and go with me. However, as what happens most times with men, I was let down and it never happened. Oh well, nice thought. This was my Saturday night costume. On Monday night at work, I dressed up again. This time it was just a simple store bought costume of a cave woman. I had a blast all weekend dressing up.
So, I'll leave you guys with a few fun facts about Halloween. Hope everyone is enjoying fall as much as I am!
Orange and black are Halloween colors because orange is associated with the Fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death.
Jack o’ Lanterns originated in Ireland where people placed candles in hollowed-out turnips to keep away spirits and ghosts on the Samhain holiday.
Pumpkins also come in white, blue and green. Great for unique monster carvings!
Halloween was brought to North America by immigrants from Europe who would celebrate the harvest around a bonfire, share ghost stories, sing, dance and tell fortunes.
Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.
The ancient Celts thought that spirits and ghosts roamed the countryside on Halloween night. They began wearing masks and costumes to avoid being recognized as human.
Halloween candy sales average about 2 billion dollars annually in the United States.
Chocolate candy bars top the list as the most popular candy for trick-or-treaters with Snickers #1.
Halloween is the 2nd most commercially successful holiday, with Christmas being the first.
Bobbing for apples is thought to have originated from the roman harvest festival that honors Pamona, the goddess of fruit trees.
October is a very popular month. Not only do the leaves start to turn beautiful colors and the temperature lowers to a very relaxing degree, but children and adults also take one day in October to dress up and look silly and have an excuse to do so.... Halloween! As good as these things are, October is also breast cancer awareness month. So, for all my friends out there with breasts (men too! That's right, I've seen a case of male breast cancer) take the time to go have a mammogram done, or simply continue to perform self exams if you're under the age of 50 and breast cancer doesn't run in your family.
I'm not sure if any of you are aware of the pink glove dance video that went around a few years ago, but basically it involved all aspects of hospital workers putting on pink gloves and dancing for breast cancer awareness. Well apparently since then, there's been a contest to see which hospital can produce the best pink glove dance video. The winner gets an amount of money that they donate to a charity of their choosing I believe. Guess which hospital decided to partake in this contest?! The one I'm stationed at for clinicals, which meant I got to partake! So if you've got a few minutes, click here and go "like" the video. You have to have a facebook account and sign in first, but make sure you like them if you go vote.
Here's the video for your viewing pleasure. In case you're looking for me, you're not going to see my face unfortunately. However, you will see my watch and hands on the clip of all the hands on the table. And also, when the patient is on the table covered by hands. My hands are covering her and you can see my white scrub top on the left side of her. There's my ten seconds of stardom, hope you enjoy! Don't forget to go vote!!
When I say tattoos, you're probably getting something like this in your head, aren't you?
Well, actually when I say tattoo, I'm referring to something along the lines of this:
Can you see it? No, it's not just an image of skin, there's an actual tattoo there. A tiny dot, no bigger than a freckle. That's what we do in therapy. We tattoo people.
To clarify: In Radiation Therapy, patients come in for treatment, and before they are given any radiation, they have to be scanned and dosimetry has to map out a plan of how the radiation will be delivered. During the simulation process, they receive three tiny tattoos that determine how they are laying. So each time they come back for treatment, we can align the lasers up to those same dots each time and get them in the same position.
Now having that said, let me tell you what you're NOT suppose to do, which of course happens to be what I did last Wednesday... You are not suppose to tattoo the wrong person. That's right, I ACCIDENTLY tattooed the technichian that I was working with at the time. Here's what happened...
The patient had come in for his simulation, we had gotten all our marks, and it was time to tattoo. Being the giddy student, and having practiced on a foam fish all afternoon, I was ready to stick this elderly man with a needle. Well I thought I was doing a good job, but then the tech started giving me a few pointers about how I could do it better, which I appreciated. So, in the process of reaching my needle up for more ink, somehow her hand got in the line of fire and I ended up sticking her hand. WOOPS! Talk about feeling bad! She politely told me it was ok, and we proceeded to finish up the patient and get him out of there. After finishing him up, she had to go fill out an incident report and be tested since it's basically like sharing needles. Needless to say, I felt like a failure all week long.
When Monday rolled around, I honestly didn't want to go to clinicals. I didn't want to face the technician or anyone else in the facility for that matter. But, I had to bite the bullet and go. Thankfully the technician with the permanent tattoo dot on her hand, was super nice to me and so was everyone else. They acted like the whole thing never happened. And then it came time to tattoo another patient... I declined this one. And then another patient came in for his simulation in which tattoos were needed, but this time the tech didn't give me a choice to decline, it was my turn. YIKES! However, I managed to remain calm and somehow give the new patient his tattoos without injuring him or anyone else. What a relief! So hopefully nothing else major will happen in clinic that requires an incident report to be filled out.
There's many reason's why I say I don't want kids: they cost a fortune, they cry, they poop, they limit your fun time, yadda yadda ya....
HOWEVER, there are always those moments that make you wanna change your mind. The Burns twins definitely had a positive impact on my thoughts towards children while I was with them, but I suppose that's what happens when you spend two months with babies. And so does this video.... Is this little girl not just absolutely adorable or what??!
Now I don't know if anybody actually follows this show, I certainly don't, but I just came across this clip on Facebook. I think she actually made it to the top ten though...
Friday, September 23, 2011
HappyBirthdayG-Maw!
Today is my grandmother's birthday, and while we can't be where she is to celebrate, we had our own little brief party... Cali was invited too. Aren't we precious?
So today, after checking my bank account, with just having to buy new tires and constantly filling up at the pump, I was below what I'd like to be. So, I headed off to Wal-Mart with my mothers debit card for groceries. Since I'm trying to eat healthier and save money by not eating out, I've become quit the little shopper and sandwich maker. Anyways, back to Wal Mart...
So I'm shopping for my items, a little of this and that, when I come to the granola bar section. I'm studying the selections looking for the certain one my mother told me to get, when this black lady turns into the aisle. I go to move my cart to let her through and she motions that I'm fine where I'm at. So I stand there and continue to search for this item, noticing that she's still there just kinda looking at me. Since there was a woman in front of me, we stand there for a good minute or so and in this time, I got a cold chill, so naturally I shivered. The black lady asks me if I'm cold, which today has been unusally cold so I was, so I politely responded yes, I was in fact cold. Next she proceeded to aske me where I worked, that I looked familiar. I told her Biscuitville, though I had never seen her in there in my entire life. A few seconds later she makes her way around me and starts to talk to me some more. After a few seconds I realize she's asking for money for a bus fare. Now lately I've been trying to be a better person and less self-centered, and seeings how I actually did have five dollars in my purse from a shirt I had just returned, I thought what a perfect way to start. So I handed her the five dollars. After that, I figured she'd go on her way. Boy was I wrong! She then proceeded to ask me for a ride. Being a little sketched out, I told her that I had to go to work, at my other job after leaving here. Well it just so turns out that where she was wanting to go, was right up the street from Clapp's. So I told her sure, why not, I'd give her a ride. However, I wasn't done with my shopping, but she literally followed me around Wal-Mart until I was. Every now and then she'd ask what I was looking for so she could help me find it. Then, she asked if I would buy her a drink. She needed the money I'd given her earlier for the bus fare and she was thirsty. Ok fine. THEN, after passing a starburst free-samples stand, she asked if I'd buy her a bag of starburst, when I threw a bag into my cart. Sure, why not?! After all, they were only 48 cents with the coupon. So at this point, I hurried on my way to check-out. I didn't want to eventually have her entire kitchen pantry in my buggy. At the register, as I throw her things up on the counter to pay for them separately, she throws up an energy drink as well! This lady had some nerve, but at this point I was already too far invested. Finally out at the car, I get her inside and hide anything of value, which is nothing except my wallet, then take her to her destination and let her out, all the while praying that I'm not somehow not going to get murdered. I got a good laugh out of this little black lady, and though I probably helped her out in a small way, she probably touched my life more. I guess people have started to use Wal-Mart instead of street corners to ask for things.
All of this however, was a very humbling lesson for me. While I was upset earlier about not having a ton of money in the bank... at least I have some money in the bank. While I was upset about having to buy new tires... at least I have the money to buy the tires, and a car to put them on. While I was complaining about the weather... at least I don't live outside in it. The economy is in shambles and people are a mess, but I still have a roof over my head and food on the table.
So I don't know if it's the fact that I have a lot of extra time to think about things since I'm now living in my car, but today all I've been able to do is think about things that seem to irritate me. So I thought that I'd share some of them with you.
If you don't know how to spell, or how to use proper grammar, you shouldn't be allowed to text or publish anything on the internet.
And for that matter, if you aren't old enough to legally drive, you shouldn't be allowed to have a cell phone.
Our government should take some advice from Apple. Apparently they have more money than our National government and could pay off our national debt. Or at least that's what I hear.
The more I go to a Wal-Mart, the more I hate them. It's like a direct relationship in math.
They say if you want something done right you should get a man to do it. Well if you want something done right, and in a fashionable manner, women you might as well do it yourself.
If Facebook was a study guide, I wouldn't have to worry about failing physics.
If milk keeps going up, pretty soon I'll have to start putting water in my cereal.
I find it funny how most music videos have nothing to do with the song that is being played to it. Or at least not in some of the country music videos I've seen on tv lately.
It never fails, I'll always manage to get a huge zit on a noticeable area on my face just before I need to look presentable somewhere.
Why does time fly by when you're enjoying it, but when you can't wait to get somewhere or do something, it just creeps by?
Dating is a trial and error run to find what you do or don't want in your spouse.
My friend saw a coffin close to her house after the town had flooded due to Irene, WHY do people continue to still get buried? We're running out of space as it is.
If my taxes are paying for someone's welfare and food stamps, cigarette's, beer/liquor, and excess children should be banned for them. And they should be required to pass a random drug screening.
Complaining can't change anything, so why do people do it so frequently? Which is funny in itself cause it seems like most of these thoughts are complaints.
School started a couple of weeks ago and I've already got a count down going- just 15 more weeks left in this semester! But so far it's off to a great start!
I absolutely love my clinical site at the hospital in Pinehurst. I'm there Monday thru Wednesdays from 8am-3pm. The therapists, doctors and nurses are all SUPER nice and great to work with. And best of all, there is no dress code for our uniforms so, no bright yellow ones like I had in X-Ray! It will still be many years before I purchase any sort of yellow scrubs. I've actually kinda become obsessed with buying new scrubs. There's soo many cute things out there! And the shoes I got are totally FABULOUS! (they're zebra print) And scrubs overall are just the most comfortable thing I've ever had to wear. I'm thinking about just wearing them all the time.
Off to clinicals with my cool lunch box and books. Look mommy, I'm a big kid now!
As for the driving part, not so great. From Asheboro to Pinehurst it is about a 45 minute drive, which isn't bad at all, and I even get to see beautiful sunrises in the morning. Even the drives from Pinehurst to Greenville or Greenville to Asheboro, which are roughly 2-2.5 hours, aren't bad. The drives are easy, but my gas tank and bank account seem to both be dwindling these days. Which is why I've set up a fund if anyone wants to donate to it: Megan Needs Gas Money Fund. All profits go to a good cause. Let me know if you're interested and I'll send you more details.
Classes so far are proving to be managable. I'm ahead of the game as of right now, and I'm even working on a paper that isn't due til November. That's right, I waited 23 years to decide to become organized and an overachiever. I guess you could say I've procrastinated at overachieving? Anywho, hopefully I'll be able to stay on track and keep up the good work. The teachers seem really helpful and willing to do whatever it takes to make sure we understand everything. If the school weren't in Greenville, it would be amazing, but I can't have everything I guess. I absolutely despise Greenville with all it's traffic, no parking spots, 17,000 McDonald's on every corner, and did I mention all the traffic??? Unfortunately, complaining won't change anything.
This was a drive by shooting of the building with my camera so it's not a good photo, but compared to RCC, this community college is like a university.
When it comes to hot dogs, I'm a mustard-slaw-chili kinda girl. But when Sonic's clever advertising promoted different types of hot dogs such as the New Yorker or the Chicago dog, I was intrigued. So after seeing countless commercials on the tv, I decided to try some today on lunch when I spotted the Sonic sign.
So I pulled up the the wonderful sonic speaker and thought through my options. I decided on the Chicago dog and the Bacon and Bleu dog. The Chicago dog had some stuff on it, but the main seller for me was a pickle. I love pickles so I had to try it! And the Bacon and Bleu dog had a lot of things that I liked, such as lettuce, tomato, bacon, and bleu cheese, but would have never thought to throw on top of a hot dog.
Anywho, the final conclussion to my new hot dog experience: Delicious! The Bacon Bleu was a little bit better, but overall, they were both very good. So, thank you Sonic for your delicious dogs that filled my belly, you've probably maxed out my allotted calories for the day, but it was worth it.
On my list of things I despise the most, painting is probably in the top five. I absolutely dread it! And every time I do it, I always say that I'll just pay someone next time to do it for me. Well, my very good friend Ashley Bunch, just LOVES to paint and redecorate things in her house. So one day after she told me she was redoing her bathroom, I got the bright idea that it was time for a change in my room. And being that I had the entire day off a few Fridays ago, (which NEVER happens) I thought I'd take advantage of it and paint my room. Soooo, that Thursday after work, I came home all geared up and ready to get to work. I had a nice plan in my head for what I was going to do. After getting everything moved out, I set to work priming. Half way through, I began to question my attempt, after all, I HATE PAINTING! But it was too late to stop, so I kept going. Til 2am I stayed awake and primed the walls, the ceiling and the trim. By that point I had to find a stopping point and hit the couch. When my alarm went off Friday morning at 6am, I was determined to finish by noon and get everything back together that evening.... but by noon I only had HALF the trim painted. After running out of tape and having to go get more. I finally started on the wall color around three, only to figure out that I did not like the color I got. It was a dooky brown. Who wants the color of dooky on their walls?! Not this girl, that's who! So off to Lowes I went to get a lighter shade. Ashley Bunch, being the ANGEL that she is, came by after she got off and helped me finish. We got my bed moved back in just so I could crash for the night. All day at work on Saturday though, the woman in me started to show, because all I could think about was how much I didn't think I liked the color I had painted on my walls. By Saturday afternoon, I had decided that I was going to paint it once again, while I still had the tape on the trim. Long story a little bit less long, it's almost been two weeks and I'm 98% finished with my new room. Here's the transformation:
Before
I decided that lime green was cool, but didn't look very appropriate for a 23yr adult. And excuse the mess...
Mommy, where am I suppose to sleep???
Lending a helping hand to a sister in need.
After
Much more appropriate for my age I think. I absolutely LOVE it.
And even though I don't really watch tv, I thought one would look great in my room! Maybe I'll start.
As is life, many people come and go, but if you're lucky, you'll have some amazing people who enter your world and make it a better place. I'm thankful for the friends and family in my life. Even though I may not get to see everyone as much as I'd like, and even though some of them are separated by many miles, when we do get together, it's like we were never apart. So I'd like to say thank you to my friends and family for all the influence/love/support/life experiences, and everything else you've shared with me! I'm grateful to have you guys in my life. Here's just a few photo's I thought I'd throw in, in no particular order. Don't feel bad if you're not in them, I got tired and impatient uploading them.
What is this new craze? Well according to wikipedia, a flashmob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, or artistic expression. And after seeing a recent movie that included two flashmob scenes, I've had the biggest urge to be in one. But since I know that's probably never going to happen (since I don't think I can convince enough people to randomly start dancing at Randolph Mall with me during the Christmas season to Jingle Bell Rock) I've just been enjoying looking at flashmob dances on youtube. So for those of you who have no clue as to what I'm talking about, here's a neat video to show you.
And while I was stumbling, I also came across this. I find it to be really funny. It's sorta got the whole flashmob feel to it, but with more of an improv style. Enjoy my findings!
Bucket List: A list of things you want to do/see before you kick the bucket.
Everyone has one, wether they know it or not. And some people may have theirs written down or documented. Mine however, is in my head and not quite finished yet. And sometimes I'll add things to my bucket list at the last minute just to have an excuse to do it, like skydiving for instance, or getting in a sharks cage.
Now my bucket list has some very unreasonable things on it that I will most likely never get to do in my lifetime, like travel to each continent or win the lottery. However, there are more reasonable events on it that I will most likely get done, such as have a place of my own, get married, have Matthew McConaughey's children, you know, very realistic goals.
Recently, I checked off another item on the list: Go whitewater kayaking. Now, in all fairness, this wasn't really on my bucket list, but with an undocumented list as I said before, I can kinda add things as I go, right?
Kayaking has never really been my thing. My father and twin brother are the kayaking guru's of the family. And bless Michael's heart, he's been trying to get me to go for years. However, after a failed attempt at my senior project product (geez, say that 5 times fast), which was learning how to roll over in a kayak, I didn't have much interest in drowning upside down in a kayak. Recently though, Michael had been slowly taking me to the lake to teach me my roll. Five years from my senior project attempt, I finally got it! So what do you do once you learn to roll? You practice on a river, of course. Here's a video of my newly learned roll. Michael's so proud. Don't forget to turn off the music at the bottom.
So two weekends ago, Michael, Pops, all of Pop's old kayaking friends, and myself, all headed to the Nantahala River for a weekend of kayaking and camping. The Nantahala is one of the easiest rivers to kayak in NC (so I was told), with just a few bigger rapids. We had a good weekend, and I got some experience on whitewater. On Saturday I took a few good beatings at the Nantahala Falls and thought that at one point I was going to drown. But regardless of the beatings, I think I'll continue to kayak... there were a ton of hot guys on the river!
So here's the video from our trip. I'm the one in the green boat in case you can't tell. You can see at one point where I flipped at the falls and had to swim out of my kayak. A big thanks to my twin for putting together these videos for me. Enjoy!
Our entire family has never been musically gifted. I've known this for years, which is most likely why none of us were ever in the band or chorus. I used to stand beside momma at church and listen to her sing, so I knew we didn't receive golden vocal chords from her. I guess my first realization of not actually being able to sing a note myself, came when my middle school friend, Catherine Jones, informed me that I had no rhythm and couldn't sing either. From then on it's just kinda been a good laugh for me to, I guess you'd say, yell words. I kid you not, I can't even clap to the beat. Many friends have also pointed out over the years that not only can we not carry a tune, but when we do attempt to sing along with a song, we're always at least one second early of the actual song. But what's worse than that, half the time we don't know all the lyrics, so we just kinda mumble/hum along until we know more of the words. Which, just a side note, in some songs it's very difficult to understand what the lyrics actually are to sing along to. For instance, Benny and the Jets. I'm sure some of you have seen that scene in 27 dresses, so you know what I'm talking about. Anywho, our musical disdain is really quite comical, and this weekend while Elliott and I were little songbirds, I got a good chuckle out of our curse. Unfortunately for us, you will never see us winning American Idol, sorry America.
This is a couple of weeks late, but who's counting? Also, I apologize in advance for the lengthy-ness of this blog. If you feel the need to take an intermission, please feel free... I certainly took quite a few while writing it.
If you know me, you know that I'm not one to turn down an opportunity to travel. So when my pops (for those of you who don't know, Pops is what we call my father) called me and inquired if I wanted to accompany him and his friend, JH, to Vegas and California, of course my response was YES.
So here's a quick recap of our two weeks out west:
Day One: Fly into Vegas around 8pm. Get a shuttle to the Excalibur Hotel. They were out of the 'standard' room that I had reserved, so we got a free $30 upgrade to a nicer room and better view. Then we walked around for a bit and explored the surrounding area of our hotel, which was on the strip. We went into NEW YORK, NEW YORK and JH and I rode the roller coaster that surrounds the casino. Then the two older men retired to the room while I hit up our casino for a bit more fun.
Day Two: Woke up and went to pick up the rental car, a Mitsubishi Endeavor. Picked up a few supplies from Wal-Mart then drove out to see the Hoover Dam. Took a lot of dam pictures, rode the dam escalator, saw other dam tourist, and opted not to take the dam tour. Visited the Las Vegas sign where my blog a few below occurred. Then we proceeded back to our hotel where we spent a few hours at the pool and gambled a little bit more that evening.
A voucher for 25 Cents. BIG MONEY!
Day Three: Checked out with a new destination in mind: Sequoia National Forest, CA. Drove a ways, made a pit stop at Calico ghost town and spent about an hour checking that out. Proceeded on and got turned around a few times driving, drove some more, and then drove some more. Ended up crashing at the Vagabond Inn.
Day Four: Woke up and proceeded to drive some more. Got right outside Sequoia and set up camp right across from the Trail of 100 Giants, which is a walking trail where you could view a lot of big trees. Campsite was named Camp Raven Feather, after a feather JH had found. Each camp ground from then on was given a special camp name by us depending on something that had either occurred, or was found at that site.
Day Five: Got to the actual Sequoia National Park. Took the path down to the General Sherman tree. It just so happens to be the largest tree in the world! Then we drove a little bit more in the park until coming up to our next campground where we stopped and set up camp. This particular camp site was called camp trident, after the trident-looking instrument I found while gathering firewood.
Day Six: Finished driving through the park and stopped at an overview of King's Canyon. May I just quickly get off subject and add how beautiful God's creations are. Ok, continuing on, after we left this park, we were on to our next destination: Mono Lake. And in order to get there, the fastest way was to drive through Yosemite National Park. That's where we spent a week at last year, and we loved it. So driving two hours through the park again this year didn't bother us at all. We stopped and took a few more pictures and even had a snow ball fight. The elevation in Yosemite is over 10,000. By the time we drove through Yosemite and got to Mono Lake, it was already late afternoon, so we just got a hotel in the tiny town that mono lake occupied. We got dinner and went to the lake for sunset.
Day Seven: Explored the morning at a different part of Mono Lake. I added a link in 'Day Six' for you to check out if you want, but Mono Lake is a pretty neat place and as I understood it, it's made mostly from glacier run-off and is saltier than the ocean. It's one of the oldest lakes in North America. After a couple of hours here and lots of pictures, we ventured to a crater/volcano thing right beside it. JH and I got the bright idea to hike around the rim. Just a tip for those of you who decide to hike in a sandy/rocky terrain: Don't wear any type of sandal to do so, it will prove difficult and rocks WILL get in your sandals and pierce the bottom of your feet. After this hike, our next destination was Death Valley. Again, another link you can check out if you want. Needless to say, it was HOT here, opening the car door felt like opening the door to an oven. The thermometer read 115 degrees! And, unlike the day before, Death Valley is at/or below sea level. I'm not sure how the wagon trains made it through this place alive. There were some neat sand dunes we got to check out as well as some more neat scenery, but come sun down, we decided we didn't really want to camp here, and it helped that the campgrounds were closed anyways. So we just kept driving towards our next stop:The Grand Canyon. We tried to stop in Vegas for the night, but were told it would be $400 for a room IF they even had one available. So we just kept driving towards Arizona to stay at a dive for WAYY less than Vegas.
Day Eight: Got up and headed towards the Grand Canyon.Got there and checked out the incredible view from the top. Talked to a few park rangers to try and determine our hiking plan for the next day. Pops wanted to hike down into the valley, but we found out that that was probably not going to be a manageable day hike like we were expecting. Then we went and set up camp at our next camp ground, Camp Coyote.
Day Nine: Woke up and hiked down into the canyon. At 11:00, 1.5 miles down into the canyon, we were advised not to hike any further. Do you think we listened? Of course not, Barbre's never do. So at the three mile mark we stopped and rested and ate lunch and refilled waters. We also played with some native creatures who were hoping and praying that we might just drop some lunch for them. Then after our 1.5 hour break, we trudged forward, back towards the top. It ended up taking us longer to walk down than it did up.
"Please sir, I want some more."
I survived!
Day Ten: Checked out a little bit more of the canyon and headed towards the North Rim, which was a few hours away. Drove through the painted desert on our way there, and once we got to the North Rim, we just set up camp. This time at camp Rebel.
Day Eleven: Saw the North side. Not too much different than the South. Then we headed to Zion National Park in Utah. Someone had described it as "Like the Grand Canyon, except you're looking up into it instead of down." Which was pretty much how it looked. It was pretty. We set up camp (Camp Tumbleweed) and then chilled out at the river for a little bit.
Day Twelve: Hiked up in the park for what seemed like forever. And since pops and JH have no fear of heights and ledges like I do, I got dragged up these steep rock sides to explore more of the park than I particularly wanted. But it was worth it. Then we headed towards the place where the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place. Click here if you want to find out what that was. Then we set up camp (Camp Beauty).
Mountain Meadow Massacre Memorial
Day Thirteen: Woke up and explored a trail that was nearby. Which, again, being with the two males that I was with, we had to veer off the path and ended up rock climbing. When all that was finally over, we got in the car and headed towards Vegas again. Stayed at a dive hotel just outside of Vegas.
Day Fourteen: POOL DAY! A day of relaxing and getting tan at the Excalibur hotel! My kind of day. Then we went and checked out the Stratosphere hotel and rode the roller coasters that were on top of it. It was a very fun filled day!
Day Fifteen: More pool time, more gambling, and then headed to the air port for our flight home. Oh! I almost forgot! JH and I got married in Vegas too. (Not really. It's a running joke with the three of us, but we did go to the chapel and take a few photos.) Now here's a tip for any of you who travel: Make sure you check your dates on the tickets, otherwise you'll be a day late for your flight like we were. OOOOPS! But thanks to a WONDERFUL Delta Lady at the counter, we were blessed to get another flight home that night, for a very reasonable price. In the event that you ever come across my blog: Thanks Delta Lady! You saved the day, and we are ever so grateful for your kindness.
So that was our fun filled, exciting, and slammed packed, two week vacation out west.
And even though I don't really watch tv, I thought one would look great in my room! Maybe I'll start.
