Comment on a random tree...

And the GPS in the golf cart said,
"Watch out for the pine tree on the left"
Yeah, no kidding....

Comment on November.....

So I haven't blogged for awhile, in fact, my one blog-stalker (you know who you are!-haha) specifically requested that I start blogging again. You know it's bad when your one stalker is chasing you down about posting. Sad! Anyway I have been neglecting the blog, not that I haven't had all kinds of time to update it. Since the 13th of November I've pretty much been up in Idaho, except for the 3 days around Thanksgiving that I went back to SLC to work. I planned on not coming back up to Idaho again until after the first of the year but I got all homesick, and with gas prices being what they are, why not drive back up? So I drove up for another few days. But alas, the real world calls and I must return to real life, for a few weeks at least. But it's been fun while it's lasted.

First of all we went to the airport to pick up Little D who returned from the Philippines where he served his mission-heart!!! Jenna and I wore DJ's Harley Davidson shirts to the airport. Yes, it was the first thing he noticed when he gave me a hug.

My Mills grandparents and then my mom, dad and Jenna were there. So was the Channel 6 news crew, filming a soldier coming back from Iraq. Of course they had to interview him right in front of the doorway where the passengers were trying to exit, and even though it was a live feed that didn't stop us from screaming when DJ got off, and it also alerted the citizens of Pocatello watching the news that DJ was home.




DJ wasted no time getting back into the swing of things:

We had a great dinner at Chili's on Saturday night after everyone arrived for the next day's 'talk in church' by DJ.

DJ gave a great talk. Way to be little d.

We had family picture day courtesy of Wade, our resident photographer. The family pics I will post later after we get them from Wade. I'm sure they are AMAZING.

We had Thanksgiving dinner a week early because my dad would be missing it since he had to get back to Florida for work. I would be missing it too. Sad. But work wasn't bad-I had the EASIEST assignment ever. I may or may not have taken naps in my chair. Full on dreaming naps. But that can't be confirmed at this time.

Jenna and Cassie (my wonderful hair stylist and well, I can call her friend) and I went to see Twilight the Friday it came out. We had dinner at Senor Iguana's beforehand with Mom and DJ. Luckily we bought tickets ahead of time. The line was a little out of control. The movie was good. Loved the Harry Potter trailer.

When I came back to Pocatello we celebrated DJ's 21st birthday (even though it was October 15th) with a german chocolate cake from Fred Meyer. That's how we roll people. Sorry I didn't post any pics of the birthday celebration. However I did post this pic from Leatherby's with my mom because well, I like the picture. Anyway it was fun to be home so much and it's fun to have the brother home. It's a good thing we have mobile-to-mobile minutes because we are on the phone quite a bit :o). Good times. I'm done.

Comment on another tag....

So this is that picture tag thing that's been going around where you post your fourth picture in your fourth picture folder and then you tag four people. I won't tag four people since I just tagged 8 people in the last post-but I'm sure it's all good. But here's my pic:I think this is a pic from California Adventures in Disneyland from the Disneyland trip I took in 2005 with Steff, Jamie, Lisa and Emily. Disneyland kicked our butts. Seriously. By 8pm we were done. In the car on our way home. Seriously. It was fun though-a memory if you will.

Comment on 8 faves.....

8 Favorite Things Tag:

8 Favorite TV Shows (I can only pick 8?):
1. Gossip Girl
2. Heroes
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. ER
5. 24
6. The Biggest Loser
7. The Hills
8. The Office

8 Favorite Restaraunts:
1. Cafe Rio
2. Johnny Carino's
3. Senor Iguanas
4. Winger's
5. Zupa's
6. Paradise Bakery
7. Burger Supreme
8. Market Street Grill

8 Things That Happened Yesterday:
1. Finished last week's episode of Heroes
2. Slept
3. Got a diet coke and didn't drink the whole thing (sad!)
4. Got harassed all night at work
5. Made chicken and stuffing casserole
6. Had 'group therapy' with Amber
7. Precepted Kristen
8. Talked to my mom

8 Things To Look Forward To:
1. Jenna coming down this weekend
2. DJ coming home from the Philippines
3. Getting my hair cut and colored
4. 2 weeks off of work
5. Christmas in Florida
6. Senor Iguana's with the family
7. Visiting Jane and Becky in NYC (date TBD)
8. Listening to Christmas music

8 Things I Love About Fall:
1. The pretty leaves
2. Pumpkin Shakes
3. The smell of fall in the air
4. BYU football games
5. Long-sleeved t-shirts
6. Park city
7. Soup
8. Halloween candy

8 Things On My Wishlist:
1. NYC
2. Seattle
3. Rely on less sleep
4. Eat anything I want without consequences (isn't that on everyone's wish list?)
5. Own my own house
6. Decorate my house like a pottery barn catalogue
7. More money-less work
8. Legs that look cool when I walk

8 People I Am Tagging:
1. Deb
2. Marie
3. Carrie
4. Laura
5. Janey
6. Jess
7. Jamie
8. Janice

Comment on my own kind of therapy.....

Judging from my last post I'm sure that you can tell I've had a rough few days. I was up one night (the night of the last post actually) trying to figure out what might help me to feel better or what I could do. I decided to try to remember what I put in my box so many years ago (seriously Marie that analogy is fantastic-I will steal from it and use it forever) and I seemed to recall vaguely that when I was upset I would 'get thee to the mountain'. I wasn't sure if I would have the energy to do so but I put it in my realm of possibilities list.


So Saturday, after a hearty spin class, a nap, and lunch with Steff and Lisa at the Citrus Grill, I decided to run a few errands. I hit a couple of shoe stores and stopped off at Tar-jay to get the latest Kenny and Coldplay (heart them both, although I haven't listened to Kenny yet but I'm sure I will heart it when I do). I then found myself headed east to unchartered territory:


Big Cottonwood Canyon





I figured that this canyon would provide the ruggedness and mountain smell I needed, and although it wasn't my familiar drive up Provo Canyon with DMB playing, Coldplay seemed to fill the void. I found the canyon quite beautiful and I think I could actually put it in my list of drives I need to take to clear my head.


So I thought my drive would be done after I got to the 'end of the road' aka Brighton, but I noticed a sign pointing to another road that said Park City/Midway. Huh, I thought, well, why not?


I headed up said road, past the signs that indicated that indicated the lack of winter maintenance, past the snowboarders practicing for winter on the snow that hadn't melted from the storm a couple of weeks ago, up to the top of the mountain where the paved road ended. I could see Midway-I waved to Tara (could you see me?) and pondered whether to turn around or keep going on the dirt road. I saw a subaru head down what I considered to be unchartered territory and I thought-am I going to let a subaru show me up? I think not! So I headed down the road as well. It wasn't too bad and the CR-V performed well. I got to a fork in the road that said Park City to the left and Midway/Bridal Veil Falls to the right. I decided to head for Park City-I mean that's what I used to do back in the day, so why not do it now?






20 minutes later (seriously Tara that road is a shortcut-if you're adventurous :o) ) I found myself buying one of these:



I then stopped off for a coke at the Top Stop (why mess with tradition) before winding my way over here:



for a little retail therapy. I actually wanted to walk around-I wasn't ready to go home yet, and the outlets are great for that. While chatting with Janey via cell phone I picked up a couple of workout shirts at Nike, made a stop at PacSun because apparantly I don't feel that 32 is too old to wear Roxy/Volcom/element/Hurley. Banana Republic was good to me, it's rapidly becoming one of my favorite stores. And they have added a Columbia outlet which I rather enjoyed. But I digress.

It became dark and I realized that I probably should head home. After a tearful conversation with my mother and a stop at our local (very popular) McDonald's for:
I finally arrived home. Where I caught up on Tivo, rewatched all the episodes of The Office thus far this season (I needed to laugh) and finally went to bed around 6 (kind of like what's happening tonight/this morning).
Thinking about my version of therapy (mountains/PC/music) I realized a few things:

• No matter where your friends are they are always available by cell (this will be good to remember for later)
• I have lived here for over a year. One of the reasons I moved back here was because I wanted to be able to escape to the mountains. This is the first time I've done that, making my last escape to the mountains back in 2001. What the???? No wonder I'm all messed up
• It's ok to go off on my own
• All these things will be for my experience and will do me some good
• I need to make good use of my days off by getting away once in awhile
• I will be shopping at PacSun until I'm 40. Or 50. Maybe 45.
• I'm still not ok, it will take some time, but at least I'm ok with not being ok. Ok?

Comment on 'I statements'

I went to bed early last night to try to make up for the unrestful sleep I had during the day after my shift.
I woke up at 2:30am for no good reason and instinctively looked at my phone-I had 2 new texts from Jane.
Jane says,"are you ok?"
I take a sec to think, as the tears start to fall for the millioneth time it seems in the last 24 hours....
No, I am not ok.
I am not dead inside
I feel trapped (trapt?) by insecurities
I have lost my box and I can't find it
I feel dark and twisty AND scary and damaged NOT bright and shiny
I am stuck in a moment and I can't get out of it
I am incapable of expressing myself verbally
I need to get out of this apartment and do something
I need to get dressed in something other than scrubs
I need closure
I realize there are so many things in life that are out of my control
I hate being out of control
I am not supposed to be emotionally involved
I am not progressing
I don't know how to progress
I know that life isn't fair, it's been beaten into my head since childhood
I feel selfish
I am trying to understand
I hold myself to standards that are impossible to reach
I feel inadequate
I am feeling very human, so.....no
I am not ok

Comment on the brother.....

Jenna, little d and myself at his farewell.
Notice the height difference between my sibs and myself.

My fave pic of little d at a St. George golf course.

Little d enjoying the good life in business class on the way to Manila when
they lived there. His flight there (and back!) as a missionary was (and will be)
quite different.


Little d all comfortable with all kinds of time during our first 24
weekend-we covered seasons 1&2 in one weekend.

S/P our Green Hills shopping trip in Manila. L.D.'s job
was to keep Jenna from wandering off by herself and stressing
out our bodyguards.

Both of us rocking out at the Kenny Chez concert in 2006

D in my sponge bob gettup for pyjama day at Highland H.S.


October 15th aka tomorrow (or today if you are reading my blog on the 15th) is my little bro's birthday. He's the big 2-1, he's serving a mission in Quezon City, Philippines and he's coming home November 13th-less than a month from today! Yea! So today's blog is dedicated to him.



I was 11 when DJ was born-I was so excited to have a baby in the family-not that I was necessarily excited to have a brother I was more excited to have a baby in the house. I even moved DJ's crib into my room so I could take care of him because well, I like to take care of babies.



5 years later when DJ was in morning kindergarten and I was a senior in high school sometimes I would go home at lunch and take DJ to school with me-I only had one class after lunch and I was an aid for the activities director-my main job was to refill the pop machines, so I'd let DJ pick out a drink for himself and then pull him around on the wagon full of drinks as we went from machine to machine.



DJ has gone thorugh many nicknames-DJ, little Tim, Tim, Little Prince, LP, Little D, D. I address all of my emails to him on his mission as Elder d, get it, Elder little d? haha. I'm funny. Another side note: my legs are the length of his arms. Think about that one for a minute.



I went to BYU and stayed there after I graduated, and I was always worried that I wouldn't get to know DJ as well as I wanted to because I left home when he was so young-but don't worry-I got to move back home after my mission to go to ISU and D and I became way close. It's great!



When we were both in Pocatello we had some routines that we would do: I would harass him about how much text messages he would send out (over 2000 a month), he would harass me about my height, we would enjoy watching Laguna Beach and ER, not to mention 24 parties. And then there's all the golf. We would enjoy Masters Sunday (the only day it's acceptable to come home early from church) as well as Ryder Cup Sunday (the other only day it's acceptable to come home early from church). I would cheer for Phil, D would cheer for Tiger. Kenny Chesney in concert-it's about to become a tradition. Bribing him to run errands with me with the promise of fast food (it stems from his soccer games as a young child when my dad would promise him happy meals if he'd get close to the ball). Lots of fun memories.



DJ is quite spoiled and gets pretty much everything he wants, but I'm not bitter at all. I don't even mention it to my parents any chance I get. Nope, not me. But even though he is the L.P., he's still good to his sisters. He is quite helpful when I would get home from trips, bringing in my luggage for me, bringing in groceries, acting as the peso fairy, catching mice, etc. I'm sure Jenna will appreciate these perks when he lives with her. He will also be taking care of me in my old age. I don't even know what I'm worried about retirement. His future wife better like us. But this will be good-Jenna will be screening in Pocatello so I'm sure it'll work out just fine.



Anyway those are just a few of my little d thoughts. I can't wait for November 13th-I think about it every day and get very excited. Hopefully time will pass quickly. Love ya d!

Comment on purging.....

No, not that kind of purging-don't you know me at all and my huge aversion to throwing up?


I'm talking about the purging of stuff and clutter (that drives me insane) which tends to come with the change of the seasons, which made my closet go from this:





















To this:




















After re-hooking up this: (just for the night)

















So I could watch this:






















Until 3a.m. when I declared myself (almost) finished.

The End

Comment on free dinners.....

So after all the honesty I did go to the gym. On the way I called Lisa to see if she would be interested in joining in on some Cafe Rio for dinner. Of course Lisa was in-who could turn down Cafe Rio? Especially since today was fasting day for Uncle Jim who had a kidney removed d/t the big C.

Sidenote: They got it all! Yea! Hopefully chemo will not be involved.

So after the gym and a much needed shower, Lisa got home from her own gym experience and we headed out to the Rio.

Ordering food at C.R. gives me anxiety. You have to shout out your order and it's made about 20 feet down the line from where you're standing. Plus there's the whole ESL issue, and the loudness. Luckily I was able to get in my extra limes and no corn chips please. I'd like to be able to digest my dinner thank you very much. The time came to pay and I turned in my frequent diner card, only to realize I had already purchased my 10 dinners-this one was on the house! It's only taken since 2005 folks but it can happen! And surprise surprise, dinner comes with a drink-and Lisa got hers free too! I don't usually imbibe caffeine after 3pm unless I'm on a night shift but I could not deny-I chose Diet Dr. Pepper and I was not disappointed. I think that was gone before the salad.

Now the salad is gone, and I am happy, and back on the couch (the DDP could quite literally keep me awake until 4am) trying to decide when to take an ambien so my night's rest won't be a complete loss and watching season 1 of Grey's. I need more Seattle in my life-but more on that later-until then-I'm out......

Comment on honesty.....

Since I'm all about honesty I thought I'd announce to my blog-reading audience (if there are any of you out there) the following:

1. I haven't showered in 2 days (I think)
2. I'm not sure what day it is exactly (refer to #1)
3. I've been watching reruns of 90210 and OTH (which I don't even really care for)
4. I've been blog-stalking since noon
5. I am on cleaning strike-it takes way too much effort
6. I may or may not work out today (I can't remember the last day I went to the gym, I know it was this week, but well, refer to #2)
7. I think it's funny that we get emails at work about how long our needs list is yet when I sign up for extras I get cancelled (refer to my facebook status)
8. The dog downstairs is barking incessantly
9. My car is still parked in the covered parking spot and I probably should move it so Lisa can park there, however..... (refer to #6)
10. I haven't moved from my spot on the couch since 7:23am (see pic above)
11. I may or may not get Cafe Rio for dinner it all depends on what happens with #6
12. Maybe I will go to the gym........

Comment on my muffins....

So a few weeks ago I was at work (night shift of course) and I was reading my most recent copy of Runner's World (see above). Since I'm all about trying new healthy recipes I was reading an article that had a few really good recipes to try. One of them was for muffins. These muffins are great-they are made with applesauce and whole wheat flour and you can add in whatever you want as far as nuts and fruit go. I opt to not add anything but cinnamon, which is great. Tastes like fall. And you can make them in less than half an hour-including baking time-which I just did while watching Biggest Loser. Anyway I feel all kinds of homemaker-y when I make my muffins. They also had a great recipe for fajitas with lime and cilantro. My faves.

Since I know that everyone will want to make these muffins I've included the recipe. Or you can find it in October's issue of Runner's World, p. 44.



**Liz's Muffin Mix**

2 cups whole-grain flour

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 eggs or half cup Egg Beaters

1 cup skim milk or soy milk

1/3 cup applesauce, regular or flavored, such as blueberry or pomegranate

1/2 cup chopped nuts, or dried, fresh, or frozen fruit

Preheat oven to 425F. Fill a muffin tin with 12 paper muffin cupts. Mix the first five dry ingredients in a large bowl. Slightly bbeat the eggs. Mix in the milk and applesauce. Add wet ingredients to the dry mix. Stir until just combined, sprinkling in the nuts of fruit. Spoon into muffin cups. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until muffin tops are golden brown.

Calories per muffin: 230, carbs: 46 g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 3g

Comment on my job skills.....

So I have been working at my job for over a year. Go me! They say the first year is the hardest but I didn't think it was as bad as I expected it to be. Maybe that's because I love my job or maybe doing hours in the NICU during school helped-I don't know, but it's been good.



Now that I've been here long enough AND hit certain education requirements I can precept-and so I am. I've wanted to precept since I started because I want people to have a good orientation experience just like I did. Granted, I still have so much to learn and this precepting thing is definitely going to teach me more than I can teach someone else but it's a good experience.



I started precepting a new grad last week. She's so much smarter than me, I think what I'm going to be teaching her is that it's ok to ask for help, which is what I'm doing, all the time, during our shifts, double checking that we're doing things the right way. I've also been reflecting on the things that I am comfortable doing now that used to freak me out back in the beginning-so I decided to make a list:



1. I no longer go to work in fear of what assignment I might get

2. I can get report without needing to write down every little thing-therefore report goes a lot faster

3. I can give report without having to refer to my sheets constantly

4. When an NNP asks what I think we should do, I can answer and sound like I know what I'm talking about (at least in some situations )

5. I can give a bath in 5-10 minutes (not an hour like it used to take)

6. I understand what the vent settings mean

7. I can turn an intubated baby's head without the help of an RT

8. Suctioning is not as scary as it used to be.

9. I still hate flushing Anderson tubes because gastric fluid mixed with mucous makes me throw up a little in my mouth.

10. I'm not scared to change lines even though I hate to do it

11. I love to do new and post-surgical admits-it's a great adrenaline rush

12. I'm not afraid to advocate for my patients

13. Bagging a baby isn't as scary as it used to be, but it's still one of the rare times that I may swear at work (that can also happen when I find out I'm on the code team and well, there's a kid going on ECMO who is close to coding, or when a kid turns her head and her trach falls out, or the ENT doc is at the bedside to intubate and I keep dropping the suction catheter on the floor and having to get replace it with new ones, I mean no big deal)

14. I love drawing blood off of an art line-it's kind of fun

So anyway that's all for now until I can come up with more stuff, maybe when I'm actually a grown-up nurse and can take oscillator kids or something.....

Comment on my new NICU 'calling'.......

So a couple of weeks ago I was working a lovely day shift (my fave!)-towards the end of the day our NICU director, Susan, comes to my bedside and asks if I would take on the role of being the employee recognition/morale person for our unit. My job is to help improve morale. I guess the powers that be have taken notice that I love my job.

So apparently there's a lot to this, I got a huge bag from the last girl who did it with this gigantic binder and some other interesting morale-boosting toys in it. I still need to figure out what exactly I am doing but I think it will be fun. It kind of feels like a church calling, therefore we've been referring to it as my NICU calling. I have decided that Jane is my first counselor, and maybe Daisy can be my 2nd counselor-but I haven't told her that yet-haha.

So we had our summer picnic last weekend and Jane and I made an appearance and took pictures, and I put together a bulletin board in the breakroom so everyone could see the pictures. It was pretty fun. I don't usually enjoy work parties but it was fun to see everyone and their families and their pets.

Anyway if anyone has any ideas on how to improve employee morale let me know. Basically all I can think of thus far is bulletin boards and food nights :o).

Comment on being on call...

I was on call last night-which meant that I was paid like $1 an hour to spend the night doing this:

Comment on why I'm sad summer is over/why i'm happy fall is coming.....

So right now I'm currently experiencing conflicting emotions. I've had a fun summer that went by way to quickly. In some ways I'm excited for it to be over, but I feel like I didn't have enough time to enjoy the usual summer activities like spending quality time at the pool or hiking in the mountains. Yet I love fall and I'm kind of looking forward to that as well. And so, I decided to create the following lists to help me work through my feelings:


Why I'm Sad Summer Is Over:

1. I love when I leave work at 7:15am and it's warm and the mountains look so beautiful and I can roll down my windows, open up the sunroom, and turn up the music. It's so great!

2. Sleeping with my window open

3. Laying out at the pool those three times-or the beach-I mean I got a really great tan this summer

4. Running outside in the A.M.-it really only happened in L.A., Pocatello and Star Valley this year when I was off work but it was great

5. The sun setting after 9pm-I think it makes night shift feel shorter

6. Vacays! It was crazy going somewhere every month and in a way I'm glad I'm not going anywhere for awhile, but I miss L.A., Vegas and NYC. Those were good times.

7. Barbequed hamburgers and hot dogs-my fave summer food

8. Kenny Chesney in concert-I'm already excited for next year. Let's be honest-I was excited for next year the second the last concert was over.

Why I'm Looking Forward To Fall:

1. The yearly fall Park City trip-Baja Cantina, caramel apples at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, the crisp feel of the air-I don't think it gets much better

2. The new fall tv season-hopefully there isn't any kind of striking going on so we can get a full season of The Office, ER, Gossip Girl, Bones, etc. I think I may need tivo

3. Fall clothes-more importantly-long sleeved t-shirts, sweatpants, polar fleece

4. The fall leaves-although thanks to the Corner Canyon fire we won't get too much of a view of them this year


5. Getting back to a regular schedule

6. My little bro coming home from his mission in the Philippines

7. That crisp fall feeling in the air

8. My cousin Jamie getting married-that will be a lot of fun-congrats Jamie!

9. Gas prices falling because the oil companies aren't trying to make a huge profit on summer travelers.

Comment on the damage we put our bodies through-aka the last great Timp hike.....

So I lived through Hobble Creek, completely discounting that the following week was the great Timp Hike of 2008. Last year Steff, Lisa and I had hiked it-all the way to the summit don't you worry-and we decided to do it again Labor Day weekend this year-maybe turning it into a tradition if you will.

Because of all the running I hadn't hiked all year so i was really excited to go, even though I knew that it is such a LONG hike. I just wanted to be in the mountains. My goal this year was to just do the saddle, or maybe the meadow, depending on how tired I was.

We met Steff at Kohler's in Alpine and then headed up the mountain. When we stopped to pay the $6 (I remember when it was $2, granted that was like in '99 but whatever) we learned that the trailhead parking lot was full. It was a silent ride to the trailhead-I was thinking there's no way I'm going to park a mile away from the trailhead, walk up to the trailhead, hike, and then have to walk another mile back to my car. Are you kidding me?

When we got to the turnoff the road was baracaded off, and a park ranger was giving us the parking spiel (sp?)-then out of nowhere he turns to his partner and asks if she gave away the last spot-she said no-he said the spot is yours then-so we drove up to the parking lot past all these people walking. I'm pretty sure they hated us. Oh well.

This is Steff and Lisa and I all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to hike.





I feel like we got started a little late, because we weren't hiking in the dark all that long. I wore the trusty garmin so that I could mark our mileage-thinking that would help me on the way back to know how far I was from the end since it's such a LONG hike (it didn't really help). One thing we noted is that we were SO TIRED and dead. It was a situation. WE didn't think we should be that tired 1 mile into the hike.

These pics were taken on one of our snack breaks in the "first"meadow. I was pretty much ready to be done and to just sit and enjoy the view of the sun coming up over the mountains, but I wanted to make it to the "second" meadow right before the ascent to the top. This is where I realized I just wanted to enjoy the mountains on this hike.


This rocky part of the trail is my least favorite part of the entire trail. Seriously.


We decided to stop at this log for a water break-which is wehre we'd stopped before-no big deal. We were tired, and it was a good spot to stop. There were groups of people (or should I say BYU students) coming down from hiking up to see the sunrise. One kid tripped and almost landed on a log on the trail that would have impaled his chest-I said it was a good thing that I was a nurse just in case he had hurt himself. Steff pointed out that he was over my 8 pound weight limit-good point Steff.

Lisa had a small issue with her camelback-she put her backpack down and well, the mouthpiece fell in the dirt. We found this really funny-we couldn't stop laughing about it for like 5 minutes.


We finally made it to the meadow and had lunch. I decided that I wanted to head back down so that I could enjoy my hike without being in severe pain on the way down. Steff and Lisa wanted to head to the saddle-I was fine with that. It was actually really nice to hike alone-it was quiet and peaceful-I enjoyed it. And although I was thinking that I had turned around at a good time in order to enjoy the entire hike, I wanted to shoot myself the last mile. I did hike 10 miles though, so even though I didn't go to the saddle it was still a decent hike.





I made it to the bottom! My favorite part of the end of the hike was seeing a park ranger and a SWAT team guy heading up the trail with these huge guns and shells-they asked if I had seen the moose-I said no but that would have been cool for pictures-they said it wasn't cool for the people who ran into the moose. Apparently the moose was on the trail and got scared and started running, knocking people off the trail. I ran into one more ranger at the bottom, and in the parking lot there were like 5-6 ranger trucks and 5-6 police cars. I talked to a few more rangers, they said nobody was hurt, it was just scary. Then while sitting in my car waiting for Steff and Lisa I heard one of the rangers say they were going to 'take out' the moose because it was aggressive. Kind of interesting, right?

The best part of the hike was Purple Turtle afterwards for tator tots and shakes. They have the BEST fry sauce. So good!

On a different note, I think we're done with hiking Timp. Next year we'll try some different trails. Maybe some that aren't so painful.