Pictures of the Wind Caves

Its been a while.

...BUT, this is honestly the first time that I have had an opportunity to post.

Let's see... We are back in Utah, safe and sound. We went and visited my family for a couple days before we took off, which was a blast. The drive only took us 2 days this time... We were kinda in a hurry. We got back on Wednesday night, spent Thursday registering for school, getting our car fixed, relaxing and repacking.

We left on Friday for a backpacking trip outside of Idaho Falls, ID at Darby Canyon. We spent another 6 hours in the car and started our 2 mile hike up the canyon to where we were camping that night. I did pretty well at the beginning (I thought); I paced my self well... Slow and steady, right? Wrong. A storm came in and we had to race to camp. Of course Wes and Nathan (one of our friends from Idaho Falls that just got back from his mission a few months ago) literally ran up, found a spot and set up... coming back to the rest of us to help us carry our packs. It was kinda scary to me because a group of Young Women had hiked up there a few years back when a big storm came through and a handfull of them died from getting struck by lightning... There's a monument for them and everything. Luckily we were able to find a nice place and set up our tents and such without too much of a problem. We had a nice spiritual conversation (for lack of a better word) that night and I decided what I want to do for the rest of my life: Be a substance abuse counselor. I'm so excited that I finally know! And I can't wait to start taking the more specialized classes!

That night when I was trying to sleep, I learned a whole new meaning of the term: Restless Leg Syndrom. I already knew that I had it; most of my immediate family does. My legs will ache and yearn to move sometimes when I'm trying to sleep, especially when I've had a busy day... But that night was nothing like what I had known. I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I woke up in excrutiating pain. And I mean EXCRUCIATING. I could not keep my legs in one position for more than a couple seconds before they began to hurt and I had to move them. This wasn't like any hurt though... It was every muscle, every bone, every tendon, every blood cell, skin cell, everything! I woke Wes up after a little while to ask if it was a normal occurence after a big hike (he's done a lot of hiking). It wasn't. I started to cry, so he went to ask his Dad. His Dad has restless leg too so he gave some pain killer to Wes to give to me and I slept the rest of the night.

The next morning we hiked a little ways up to this huge cave known as the Wind Caves. In order to get into the cave, we had to cross this waterfall a million feet in the air (or so it seemed to me) on loose rocks... I seriously thought I was going to die. I soaked my feet competely in the water because I didn't trust many of the rocks that were protruding out of the water. We comando crawled through spaces where we had to take our day packs off (smaller than regular backpacks) in order to fit. We walked along 4 inch cliffs, clinging to the wall so we wouldn't fall to our deaths in a 30 foot pit. We had to climb up and slide over a random glacier in the middle. It was freezing... My hands, feet and legs were completely soaked. I had a claustrophobic break. My arms and legs were bruised from all the crawling. I ALMOST DIED! A thousand times! But I loved it! It was so much fun! I can't wait to go again! There was too much water from the snow run off to be able to see the entire cave. There was a part that Wes repelled down, but was unable to go anywhere after that. I saw more waterfalls than I've seen in my enire life. But apparently we didn't get to see the most beautiful one. I think we're going again later in the summer, hopefully it'll be a little easier for me.

The hike down was wonderful. Charlee is a little fireball. She pretty much ran down the canyon... Wes stayed with her. I walked by myself for much of the way, taking pictures and enjoying the peaceful beauty. I will post pictures later.

That night was the 4th of July. We went to a bbq at Nathan's house then watched the fireworks in Idaho Falls which was an absolutely amazing show. Probably the best I've ever seen. We stayed in a hotel with the rest of the family, and went to their old ward the next day. They went back, but we spent the rest of the day and Monday in Rexburg with friends. So much fun! I have so many more friends there in Idaho, but school for us is here... And I'm sure that I'll make more friends the longer we're here.

We got home Monday night. Spent Tuesday and Wednesday doing homework and looking for jobs. And left on Thursday for a family reunion in McCall, Idaho. Another 8 hour drive. But this post is already ridiculously long, so I'll write about that later.

P.S. I have a job! But it doesn't start until August, and its only temporary for now. For the book rush at the UVU bookstore. I could potentially work there after that, but there isn't any certainty. Its nice to know that I WILL have a job, but we really need money now, so... the search continues.