4th of July Weekend (Lake Barstow and Fireworks)

Last weekend (the 4th), Philip's family came to visit! We went camping at Lake Barstow in Wyoming with Paul and Jan. It was my first ever camping trip and I must say it was quite an experience...

Thursday night, Philip and I drove to Paul and Jan's house to meet Mike, Laurie, Brian and Rachel. We stayed the night in Hoback and then headed to the campsite. I think you'll be a little surprised with all the trouble I got into in just one night of camping. Haha.

Laurie, Brian, Rachel, Philip and I went on a hike up this mountain goat path onto a ridge across the street from Paul and Jan's neighborhood. So this is a picture from the top of the ridge looking at their neighborhood.

And this is Paul and Jan's house.

This is the other side of the ridge. In the winter months, it's an elk refuge.

On our way back to the house after the hike. Philip found some "glowing" flowers.

At the beginning of our hike to lake Barstow. Yes, we hiked 1.5 miles to the campground. On the way to this point, I had crazy sinus pressure. It hurt so bad. Maybe it was a sign that I should turn back while I still had the chance. I didn't listen. :)

Mike and Laurie hiking with their sleeping bags on their heads. It didn't last that long.

A waterfall right before we got to the campsite.

The view outside our tent! Well for the first 15 minutes. We had to change the direction because the wind blew it over. The only downside to the rockies is that the ground has...well...a lot of rocks in it. It was near impossible to get our stakes in all the way. We ended up finding big rocks to hold our tent down.

Sitting around the campfire waiting for lunch.

Uncle Paul making yummy food.

Lake Trout and Brats! Mmmm....

My plate.

The lake. It was so beautiful. And the water was so clear! From this point, we had walked about halfway around the lake. To get to the path we were on in the beginning, we had to cross over some logs. I almost fell into the water. I fell backwards but caught myself just in time.

Philip found snow. :)

It's pretty crazy when it's warm enough outside to take your shirt off and there's snow on the ground.

I thought this rock was really cool. It was huge and it was cut perfectly in half.

This shows a little of how clear the water was. Rachel and I called it the continental shelf.

We also found out that Philip should stay a programmer. He wasn't much of a fisherman. He finally caught one fish, but it was only about 6 inches long. Haha.

Annie after a hard days work of chasing rabbits and chizzlers (prairie dogs).

So after a while, Philip, Rachel and I decided we wanted to check out this cave about halfway up the mountain. So we started up and this is a view of the lake.

Here's part of the path we climbed up. These were the big rocks.

This is a ridge we found parallel to the cave. This is also the point where my camera broke. :( For some reason the screen went out. I still don't know what happened. I'm taking it to the shop tomorrow. So this picture and all the rest on this blog were taken blind. So they aren't the best pictures.

Anyways, to the right of this ridge was a rock talus field. If you click on the link you'll see an example except ours was a lot steeper. Rachel took a picture of Philip and me climbing that I can put up here later. So we started crossing over to find the cave and about halfway, we started getting a little nervous. Philip said he would go the rest of the way to see if the cave was worth seeing. So Rachel and I waited and Philip just said it was a five foot hole. Nothing worth seeing. So we started heading back and I was a little scared going straight across. I though it looked less steep if I followed the cliff up and across and then I would have hand holds. I was almost to the top of the cliff when my feet slipped and I started sliding on my stomach down the side of the mountain.

Philip was about 10 feet below me and said I was coming down really fast. So he kinda jumped or something (I'm not really sure how it happened) so he was on my back. So we were both sliding down and Philip was trying to dig his feet in so we could find something to grab on to. Sadly, I was just trying to concentrate on keeping my mouth closed, a big rock from smashing me in the face, and my composure. We stopped a little ways down but a solid hold was too far away. Rachel tried to help, but there wasn't much she could do and Philip and I both didn't want her to join our fall.

Then we started falling again. Philip finally found a solid foothold to the side, but he thought we were going to have to fall all the way down the mountain. I thought we were going to die. We tried scooting over to it, but it was hard for me to move. The bottom of my shirt had slid up and was now pinned down with a bunch of rocks. We got those out and then moved over to the foothold. The foothold held and we started looking for a way to get off the talus field. Well Philip did. I started going into shock and was crying my eyes out. We sent Rachel to go get some help. While she was gone, Philip was trying to get me to calm down and climb to the ridge, but all I could see on either side of me were very steep side of the mountain covered in loose rocks.

I knew I couldn't get to that ridge without help. And the only person I could think of that could help me was God. So I asked Philip to give me a couple minutes and I prayed. I prayed that whatever happened, I would be in His hands. And knowing this, gave me comfort. Whether I was to fall all the way down the mountain or make it to the ridge, I knew I would be safe in God's hands. So I asked Philip what I needed to do. He helped guide me over to the ridge. After that, Uncle Paul, Bo, Brian, and Rachel came up. Luckily, I was wearing a long cat leash as a belt to hold my jeans up. So I undid that and they looped it through my beltloops so I had a long tail behind me. Then Rachel and Uncle Paul took their belts off and hooked them onto the end of the leash. Then, Bo and Brian were in front of me and I got to hold onto their shoulders. Rachel and Philip were behind me each holding a belt. And Uncle Paul was right behind me holding the leash up so I would feel completely secure. To be honest, I kinda felt a little famous as we headed down the mountain. I had an entire entourage/ body guards. It was awesome.

Over the next couple days, I discovered the extent of my injuries. I was very fortunate. There was no blood which was really nice. I scraped up my right elbow pretty bad. I also had some bruising there. I had also scraped up my stomach and had a bruise on my lower stomach and on my side that were tender for a while. I think I also bruised a few ribs. My thighs were covered with bruises. My left leg more than my right. I counted 52 or 53 bruises on my left leg alone. My left shin also had a couple large scrapes. To top it off, I had to throw my shirt away because it had several holes in it. :( I really liked that shirt too. Philip got away a little better than I did because he was on top of me, but he scraped up his left arm pretty bad.

So that was my first camping trip. :)

When we left on Saturday, we all headed for Idaho Falls to watch the fireworks show. It has been named one of the top shows in the nation. It was very impressive.

As we were waiting for the show to start, Philip found some bubbles and started blowing them. It was like the Pied Piper had returned. A swarm of kids surrounded Philip and tried to pop the bubbles. He probably kept them entertained for a good twenty minutes.

Here's part of the show.

The thing I found funny was that the finale was to the Back to the Future theme song. I'm not complaining in the least, but it seemed strange on the 4th of July.

For your entertainment: Philip sliding down snow.