2000 Miles from Home

Monday, October 22, 2007

Backpacking in Emigrant

Jeff and I, along with our friends Court, Cat, and their dog Pumpkin, went backpackng in Emigrant Wilderness which is just north of Yosemite. We had planned to leave on Friday afternoon, but the weather wasn't great, so we left early Saturday morning. (The rain and snow Friday evening would not have been fun to sleep in!) The weather was still a little chilly when we started driving. The views were amazing! The picture below was taken from a pullout close to where we started hiking:
We started hiking around 10:30am. It was a little difficult getting used to carrying an extra 30+ pounds in such a large pack, but it was fun and it helped keep me warm. We climbed up to an elevation around 9000 feet. It was well worth it: It was pretty exciting to see snow (although it was so cold, it was hard like ice). Jeff and I are kneeling in the snow:
Then we started a decent into the meadow. We passed a couple of smaller ponds with great reflections:
The colors were also amazing - both in the trees and on the ground:
We rested and ate lunch at Powell Lake. It was pretty cool. Then we continued on for a few miles and decided to set up camp at Chewing Gum Lake. We had a pretty good location just off of the lake. After we set up camp, we decided to hike around the rock formation below:
The sun came out and the weather was pretty nice - still windy, but the sun felt great!
Above is a picture of me on top of some rocks. Jeff then climbed up there and the picture below is of him:
We had a great campfire that night. It got super chilly when the sun went down. We were protected from the wind mostly, but it was still cold. I think we went to bed around 10 or so. Before going to bed we boiled water and put it in our Nalgene bottles and put them in our sleeping bags with us! They really helped keep us warm! I didn't sleep super well throughout the night. I am guessing the weather got down to low-to-mid 20s, so it was pretty cold! We woke up in the morning and made some oatmeal - that was great! W e filtered some water from Chewing Gum before we started on trek back to the vehicle. The weather was great hiking back - probably in the 50s with the sun shining! We stopped along the way and ate lunch - tuna pouches are great for camping! The picture below is just one of the many formations we passed along the way.
The pictures really don't do justice to what we actually saw. It was so peaceful and amazing. We never saw another human and the only animals we saw were chipmunks, squirrels, and birds. We had an amazing time!

Monday, October 15, 2007

A football weekend for us...

Jeff and I watched a lot of football this weekend. We drove to Palo Alto on Saturday and went to the Stanford v. TCU football game. We were able to get free tickets because one of the GRDs here has a brother who plays for TCU, so he hooked us up. It was a great game with TCU upsetting Stanford!

TCU's mascot is the horned frog - below is their mascot...kind of an odd outfit!!
The weather was supposed to be 70ish, but it had to be way hotter than that! We went with 5 friends from Pacific and we all got a little sunburned! Our section was in the sun the whole game until the last 3 minutes or so!!
On Sunday we watched the Packers and Vikings win! It was great for both of us! The rest of Sunday evening was spent relaxing and not really doing much - it was wonderful!

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Weekend Update

Jeff and I had a pretty good weekend. We got to hang out with our friends Toni, Drew, Outing, and Josh on Friday night - I haven't seen them forever, so it was great catching up. On Saturday, Jeff went geocaching all day with some of his co-workers in Lodi. It is kind of a geek thing, but I think he had a good time. I, on the other hand, had the opportunity to attend Cirque du Pacific (or Pacifique). It was an evening recognizing all of the big donors to Pacific along with the Board of Regents. It was a formal event, so my co-workers and I had a great time dressing up and taking pictures. Below are some pictures that we took around campus:

Above is me and my friend Jason. The next two pictures are of the 2nd year grad students - my co-hort class of '08. L-R: Sylvia, Aaron, Kari, Heidi, Jason, Alicia

Below we are with one of the RAs posing in front of the entrance to the main gym. It was completely made over for the event. We had Cirque du Soleil performers do their acts while Pacific students and faculty played live music or sang along. It was the first time the performers performed with live music. The meal was amazing as well!!

On Sunday, a few friends came to campus and we had a great game of flag football. My knee has a great bruise (thank you Patrick), but I had a fun time! That was our weekend - great times!
Good luck Kristen on being induced tonight!!! Can't wait to see pictures of little Sully!!!