It has to end...I guess

It seems really strange that Matt and I leave today. Hopefully we will leave this morning sometime. It has been a great year here. I have learned so much that will impact me for the rest of my life.

So here is the itinerary...

Sept. 15 - 20 Visit Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Zion, Bryce, and Canyonlands National Parks (camping, hiking, backpacking, etc.)

Sept. 21 Visit Travis in Vail, Colorado

Sept. 22 Drive Vail to Des Moine, IA to visit the knife guy (from the wild at heart retreat)

Sept. 23 Drive from Des Moine, IA to Illinois to visit Seth and Dan

Sept. 24 Drive from Illinois to Birmingham

10 days total. So yes Mom that means I will be home earlier than I originally said.

An Epic Week.

Last week we packed in a little of everything before Jonathan left for Birmingham. This was his last chance to do fun things since baby #2 is almost here. We rode 4 wheelers to the Bingham lake trail and hiked in to the lake the first night. It was great. We sat by the fire and talked for hours. The Lake was beautiful. We hiked out early the next morning to go back to work at the Ranch. That afternoon we headed to San Francisco.

On our way to San

Francisco we stopped at Mt. Lassen and did a night hike up it (about 2 hours) and camped on top. We woke up at 6am and continued the drive to San Francisco (5 hours).

The sunrise was beautiful. Lassen is 10,400+ ft. tall.
We arrived in San Francisco around noon and met up with Chad (former JH staff) and Ben Mohr to go Mtn. Biking at Mt. Tamalpaise. We rode the tenderfoot trail which is supposed to be one of the best mtn. biking trails anywhere and the birthplace of the sport. I was having a good time until I hit a root and went over my handle bars and had a rough landing. For some reason this keeps happening to me when I go mtn biking. Maybe thats why I am not that into the sport??

That evening we went to Fisherman's wharf and ate clam chowder. It was very good. The next morning we woke up early to go Sea Kayaking with Chad (he is a guide) around the golden gate bridge. It was beautiful. The kayaks were much less stable than I expected and very challenging. We paddled through some pretty rough water. It was a great day and a long weekend but fun. After Kayaking we drove all the way back to the Ranch. Jonathan likes to pack every minute full of things to do. Here are a few more pictures...

Mt. Lassen Sunrise I

Chad riding on Mt. Tamalpaise

My new (to me) Laptop

So I decided one day that I wanted a laptop computer. Not for any good reason other than just to have one. Since I could not justify buying one in my current financial situation I decided to pray that someone would give me one. I prayed this and then thought about it every once in awhile. About 2 weeks ago I was cleaning up my cabin to move back to the Greenbean and I found a laptop buried under clothes on the porch. My first thought was where the heck did this come from. Then I remembered Dan had left it and said it didn't work. So I emailed him and asked if he wanted it. He said no and he did not know what was wrong with it.

I have not had any time to mess around with it until this morning. I finished installing windows XP and the computer seemed to work fine only it would not connect to the internet and it is missing the battery. I found the driver for the ethernet card, installed it and now it works! I am now looking on ebay for a wireless card and battery and then it should be completely fine. I'll write more when I am finished with it and it works completely.

Interesting what prayers God chooses to answer yes to?