A Baby with a Cause

Well, my baby is an animal rights activist. I have never been huge on meat myself, but I haven't cut it out of my diet completely... until now. My baby is only the size of a jumbo shrimp and he/she is already manipulating me and imposing it's views and practices on me ;). At least this baby has a cause that he/she believes in. You have to admire that. So if anyone has any good vegetarian recipes that don't include tofu (I've tried to like it, I really have), I'd really appreciate the help.

Grand Teton/ Yellowstone Adventure

Sunday morning we packed up some gear, got in the car, and made a 6 hour journey to take my true love (Michael) to my other true love (Grand Teton National Park). We were pretty hungry when we got there, so upon arrival at our campsite at Colter Bay, we immediately lit the charcoal so we could get our tinfoil dinners cooking. We took a walk down by Jackson Lake and enjoyed our time around the campfire.

On Monday morning, we headed up to Yellowstone. We spent the entire day getting in and out of the car to see the natural wonders. We started at West Thumb where we saw beautiful geyser pools, visited an awesome waterfall at Artist's Point, enjoyed our hike at Mammoth Hot Springs, watched as Old Faithful errupted, and experienced many other little wonders along the way. We saw 3 black bears on our drive over to Mammoth. Unfortunately, I don't have a three foot zoom on my little camera, so the bear pics aren't great.

Tuesday, we spent the morning and early afternoon on a beautiful hike to Phelps Lake in Teton. This is the third time I've done this hike because I am in love with the view when I come to the lookout over the lake. I would describe it as "breath-taking," and that's not a term I use lightly :). We then drove over to another area where we did another hike to String and Leigh Lakes. We polished off the Jackson Hole experience that evening by attending the Bar J Wranglers dinner and show. If you're ever in Jackson, go to this. It's quite entertaining.

Wednesday, we got up and cought a small ferry boat across Jenny Lake then hiked to Hidden Falls and Inspiration point. We had to rush down because we had to be on time for our next adventure: white water rafting down the Snake River. This river trip wasn't quite as intense as the one in Costa Rica, but we had a great time on the rapids. We spent our last evening roasting marshmallows for smores and went for a moonlight walk by the lake.

We had a great time and found so many other things we still want to do. We'll save those things for another trip.

Local Beauty

I love living so close to so many beautiful places. If I want to go up a canyon, I have at least 8 options within an hour's drive. American Fork Canyon is the closest, being only 15 minutes from my house. The down side to AF canyon is the $6 entrance fee. Despite that, last week when my friends Katie and Andrew were visiting from Kansas, we decided to go and explore Timpanogas Cave National Monument (on a guided tour). If you haven't done this, I highly recommend it. The formations inside the cave are beautiful. The picture on the right is the largest stalactite in the cave, nicknamed The Heart of Timpanogas. It's pretty cool.
Last night, we went up there again with my parents and sister and brother-in-law. We cooked delicious tinfoil dinners and smores. I love summertime.
This afternoon, Michael and I drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We went up to Brighton resort and did a 3 mile loop to Twin Lakes and Lake Solitude. The hike wasn't too strenuous, but I felt pretty good about it since it was my greatest physical feat in about 2 months (I've had to cut way back on exercise since I've not been well). We spent quite a lot of time skiing the area last winter and got to do a little of that on one snowy slope today, so we felt right at home. This is a picture of us at Twin Lakes.