Yellowstone, Half Century, and other adventures

In the last five days, Tyler and I have had quite a few adventures!  It started last Thursday when we had our weekly "family dinner" with Alyssa and her date.  We went rock climbing and had a delicious bbq!   This was only our second climb of the season, but Tyler did great leading, and I even "cleaned the chains", which means I had to take our gear off the chains so we don't loose them up there when we pull the rope down.  It may not sound like much, but you have to untie yourself from the rope and know what knots to tie and make sure you're tied back in before coming down, so it's pretty intense! We had tons of fun though! 

Then on Friday, we decided we wanted to go on a really long bike ride.  Now, the longest we went last year was about 25 miles, but Tyler's been training and broke that record a while ago. However,  I've just been riding to school this semester and have been do no such "training"! So I don't know what exactly made me think that I was ready to go on a long ride to break all our records.   I think I have some crazy idea that all Tyler's training transmits to me and I'm somehow just as in shape as him.....wrong!!   Well, I didn't think all of this through before we started on our ride and at 15 miles, I was feeling good!! Our plan was to go about 20 miles out, then come back home, but like I said, I was feeling good!  "Let's just go 25 miles, then come home! Wouldn't it be so cool to say we rode 50 mile!!?!"

...and those were her last words....  

Just joking! Well, at about 25 miles, I realized that I was not in shape to be doing this ride, but what could I do now, we just had to get back home!  Wow, 50 miles is a lot!  We hardly ever even drive 50 miles!!  Needless to say, I complained the whole way home, but Tyler, as sweet as he is, just kept encouraging me! Although, I think it would have been more encouraging for him to join in on my complaining so I didn't feel like such a baby.  But anyone who knows Tyler knows he would never be so negative, but after the ride he confessed that he was hurting too!  Well, 4 hours after embarking on this journey, we finally came rolling home! 

(can you tell I'm a little out of it!)

And, you know what? I think it was worth it! We are so proud to say we've done a Half Century! (That's biker lingo for 50 miles) Who knows, maybe we'll do our Century by the end of the summer!

Saturday was our recovery day, but on Sunday the fun started back up!  We went up to Yellowstone to camp for the night.  It wasn't the best weather, it rained most of the evening, so our tent was wet, which meant our sleeping bags were nice and moist!  But we woke up to beautiful sunshine!

...after only a few short hours of sleeping...who knew I was so paranoid about being eaten by bears in the night?! Poor Tyler learned this lesson as I woke him up many-a-time to ask if he heard "that noise" and if he thought it was a bear.  After several assurances that there were no bears in our campsite, and a journey to the potties, we finally got some rest!  

On Monday we did the whole Yellowstone thing:

And we saw lots of bison! They liked to just walk right down the middle of the road! 

That's not even zooming! 

We even saw some little baby bison! So cute! 

It's a date!

A few Fridays ago, Tyler took me out on an official date! By official, I mean that he asked me out in advance, he planned it all, and he even kept it a surprise.   He took me up to these hiking trails not far from Heise, which is where we go rock climbing.  We’ve passed them a thousand times and always thought about going hiking there, but we still hadn’t, so it was exciting to finally do it! 

Tyler scouted out our path and we started up the mountain!  It was really pleasant because the trails are nicely paved and there are little historical facts along the way.

As we got higher, we had an amazing view of the Snake River.

 

We came upon a beautiful little stream that is warm year-round (according to the afore mentioned historical factoid).   We dipped our hands in it, and it really was a good temperature!

 

When the trails ended, we decided to be adventurous and climb up to the top of the mountain on our own. 

 

We were, of course, victorious in our efforts!  It was pretty cool being up on top of the mountain (albeit a very small mountain), we were above everything around us, and we felt like we were the only two people on earth, which thought made us very lovey-dovey.

 

    After enjoying ourselves for a while, we started back down….it turns out it is much easier to go UP a very steep mountain than it is to go back DOWN it!  I thought we were going to die! Well, that may be an exaggeration, but it was pretty scary!  Eventually we made it back to the trails, and we drove off into the sunset. 

Some Recent Adventures

As the weather finally warms up, we've enjoyed going out on bike rides.  

One of our favorite rides is going east out of Rexburg, we pass all these fields, which look really neat in the summer and fall when the crops are about to be harvested.  Even though for now, they are pretty barren...

About 7 miles out, we finally end up at what appears to have formerly been a tiny park, because there's just some grass, and a swing.  It's a really nice, secluded place to relax, and the view is great! 

          

The best part is coming home, because as we come back down the hills into Rexburg, we see the Temple emerge into view over the fields.

And, finally, we know we are home when we get to the temple! 

We just love Rexburg in the summers!