U.N. Plots, a Shady DA, and an Anniversary.

Last weekend was Tomme and I's six year wedding anniversary. In the military getting to spend your anniversary together is a rare blessing, so we tend to make a fairly big deal out of the ones where we get to be together. So we headed up to Denver Friday night and stayed in our favorite hotel downtown, ate some awesome Ethiopian food, and got up Saturday and headed back into the mountains for a day of skiing. It was Tomme's first time on the slopes this season and we had a blast. We stayed in Denver again Saturday night and Sunday we had such a relaxing fun day walking and biking around downtown Denver and visiting our favorite book store (The Tattered Cover), and some of our other favorite Denver shops.

Downtown Denver has a pretty great little system called B-Cycle that is used in several U.S. cities and many European cities. Basically there are bicycle stations all over downtown and anyone can check a bike out from a station, bike to where they are going and drop the bike off at another station. It's a great program and we love being able to use it to get around downtown Denver. However this program became the center of a scandel in our recent gubernatorial race here in Colorado. GOP candidate Dan Maes said the bike sharing program was actually a part of a U.N. plot that is connected to cities all across the world.

Now I could try to explain such a comment, but I just can't. I mean how do you explain crazy? Feel free to read more about Maes' explanation for the theory at http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894. But honestly our politics lately has become insane and paranoid. The fact of the matter is bike sharing just makes sense. It's cost effective, an easy way to get around, and it's beneficial to the environment. Period. But wait...




Oh my God it's too late, they have already invaded! Oh no...








we were a part of the U.N.'s plot to take over the world!

But as we took part in this plot I looked over at Tomme while he was biking and he simply said "bicycling makes me happy" with a big smile on his face. And it is abosolutley true in his case. Tomme often does his 11 mile commute to work on his bicycle and there is no question that he is happier on the days he gets to do so. This past year has really been his first chance to get into it. When we first bought our road bikes he loved it, but within just a few months he had to take off for his first deployment to Iraq. And when he returned he lived in Colorado and his bike and I stayed in KY while I finished grad school. But this last year of he and I living in the same place with both our bikes we have really fallen in love with it. It just feels good I think to start your day outside on a biccycle than commuting in a steel box. But this is not how everybody feels about cycling.

Often as we bike we have people yell things like "get off the road" (despite the fact that bikes are considered vehicles and that it is technically illegal to bike on the sidewalk). When this happens I often think how impatient we have become as a society. I mean really unless you are a surgeon rushing off to the hospital for an emergency, the 30 seconds you might have to slow down to get around a cyclists really is not worth getting so upset. Why does cycling make some people so happy and others assholes?

Well here in CO, one particular jerk seems to be embodied in one of our district attorneys. In Colorado there was a case of a Morgan Stanley financial manager, who handles accounts for wealthy clients, who allegedly veered off the road hitting a cyclists from behind. According to some reports he then fled the scene and pulled over later in a Pizza Hut parking lot to report damage to his car, but still did not report hitting the cyclists. The DA Mark Hurlbert decided not to file a felony charge against the defendant because of the implications a felony on his record might have on his job.

Well. This same DA decided he would file felony charges against two cyclists in a case where one of the cyclists had purchased an entry into a race called the Leadville 100, and upon finding out she could not do the race she gave her entry spot to a friend (who subsequently finished second in her age group under the other girl's name). One of the cyclists was a teacher, and the other was a nurse. Speaking as a nurse, having a felony charge on your record is a big freaking deal that can ruin your career. You have to report it to your state board of nursing, they can take your license away, and it could also make it very difficult if not impossible to get malpractice insurance. And as someone who knows a lot of teachers, having a felony charge can greatly hinder your career there as well. When asked why he decided to file these charges against the cyclists the DA said "After talking with people in the race, this is something very serious".

So apparently when it is a rich guy who nearly kills a man and then flees the scene it is not serious enough to warrant a felony charge if it may have implications for the defendant's job, but if the defendant is a nurse or teacher who gets second place in a bike race under someone else's name, that is a serious enough offense to warrant a felony charge despite the fact that it would have major implications for their careers. Me thinks someone has a thing against cyclists and a big thing for money?

Anyway the anger some people have against sharing the road with cyclists is overblown and misplaced. They are just people trying to get fit and have some fun so take it easy and try not to get too upset that you will make it to where you are going a whole 10 seconds later than you would have if the cyclists had not been there.

First Day on the Slopes

So as I mentioned in my last post I have been impatiently waiting for CO winter to arrive so I could break out all my winter sports gear and have some fun. Well winter definitely has not arrived here in the Springs yet (I plan on using my motorcycle today for transport). But up in the mountains ski resorts have started to open, and this past weekend my friend Anita and I took to Copper Mountain to get our boots on the snow for the first time this season.

This picture is Anita and I celebrating getting off the lift for the first time successfully. Her snowboarding season ended early last year when she tore her MCL while getting off the lift so we were very grateful to get off the lift in one piece this year.

It was a pretty good first day. Bright and sunny during the first half of our first run, then a blizzard came down during the second half of the same run. This blizzard was accompanied by lightening at the top of the mountain so they shut down the lift. Then about 30 minutes later it was back to bright and sunny and we got a couple more runs in before calling it an early day to take it easy on Anita's recovering knee.

It was a great day and it got me even more excited to get out there with my hubby and fly down the mountain!

Location:Copper Mountain, CO

Colorado Winter and my "Old Kentucky Home"

Well it is that time of year where the nip in the air and the snow starting to fall on Pikes Peak (as seen in the above picture) gets you giddy, and constantly checking the web cams at local ski resorts to see how close you are to all the winter fun that lies ahead.

This did not use to be my normal reaction to winter knocking on the door. Originally I am from Kentucky, and no doubt for all of you that have never been there you are inevitably thinking of chicken, horses, and hillbillies with no teeth or shoes. But I have to say that I LOVE my "Old Kentucky Home"! Kentucky is absolutely beautiful, and it has plenty to do for mediocre adventurers like me. Great hiking, biking, and climbing is right there at your finger tips. Plus my city of Louisville (I grew up in a smaller town of Lexington, but lived in Louisville for about ten years) has so much to offer. It is like the perfect combination of a big city and a small town. It also has GREAT FOOD!!! If I were to compare Colorado Springs (and possibly even Denver) with the city of Louisville I would be hard pressed to say that Louisville isn't the better metro area. In fact when you compare food, arts, activities, and culture, directly with the cost of living it may be hard to find a better bang for your buck anywhere else in the country.

However, the KY winter is fairly depressing. In fact it may be a U.S. center for seasonal affective disorder. The skies are generally grey, it is fairly cold, and it rains more than snows. So I have to say that winter in Ky was never very exciting, and for the person who likes to go outdoors it can be a real bummer. For the most part people just hang out in their homes and wait for spring.

This is definitely where I have to say that Colorado has KY beat. Most days in the Springs the skies are clear and sunny, with all the beautiful snow dropping just to the west of us in the mountains we can see everyday. All the sunlight makes the temperatures feel milder than they do most of the time in KY, but the mountains which are about 1-2 hours away get so much snow that you find as much to do outside in the winter as you do any other season. Last year in addition to our normal snowboarding and skiing, we added ice climbing, snowshoeing, and cross country skiing, to the list of activities we would enjoy over the weekend. So as winter and the colder temperatures approach, instead of feeling the normal gloom and doom, we find ourselves excited and impatient for winter to find its way to us. Colorado is great place to be in all seasons, and that is probably the best reason to love it.

Half Marathon Pic

Me crossing the finish line on the right.

"The Other Half"

This was a stellar weekend for me. First I got to watch the University of Kentucky football team finally pull off a win against Steve Spurrier and South Carolina (while sitting next to my good friend Jason, a South Carolina alum). Then I finally got to run the half marathon (13.1 miles) that I have been training for over the last few months, and it went swimmingly. The race is called "The Other Half", and it takes place in Moab, UT. I ran it with my friend Jason, which is who you see me standing with in the picture above. We both felt really good throughout the race and had a blast.

Since the race was bright and early Sunday morning, we drove into Moab Saturday afternoon, picked up our packets, and found a place to eat and watch the game. After the game we went to the grocery store to pick up some bananas for the morning and some Vaseline to prevent race chaffing (I had forgotten the stuff I normally use). While standing in the checkout line I turned to Jason and said "Does it look bad that we are buying bananas and Vaseline and nothing else?". Jason responded by immediately moving to the next lane with the bananas while I remained in mine with the Vaseline.

As far as results go I was ecstatic. As I have mentioned before in the blog I am not exactly a fast runner and my goal for this race was to run somewhere between a 9:45 to 10 min/mile average pace. Well I have to say that training at nearly 3,000 feet higher than the race's elevation helped me out tremendously. I ended up running at a pace just under 9 min/mile and finished with a time of 1 hour and 58 minutes. This got me 427th place overall out of 1537, and 37th place in my gender and age group out of 204. I was really pleased!!!!

But I have to say a few things about the race venue itself. The backdrop for this race is just amazing. The entire race is on a road running right next to a river in a gorgeous desert canyon. It was unbelievable. At one point I looked to my left and saw the La Salle mountain range in the background and nearly stopped running to stare at the view. And at the beginning of the race we were getting to see all of this as the sun came up. It was without a doubt the prettiest race I have ever done.

However, there is a downside to running a race in a place so far out and beautiful. Number one is that there is no easy was to get to the starting line. All runners had to meet at one of two locations in the town of Moab to catch a shuttle to the start at 6:30AM. From there we took the shuttle about 40 minutes out of town to get to the start. Secondly, because it is so remote, you don't have as many encouraging spectators on the side of the road cheering you on. And finally this course is pretty flat for about the first 7 miles and THEN the hills start. Having to do all of your hills in the second half of the race kind of sucks, but at least the last mile was downhill.

Tomme came to cheer me on and take pictures and I was so happy when I saw him near the finish line. After the race Jason and I got our complimentary post race beer and relaxed. It was a really great day, and as excited as I am for the race to be over I enjoyed it so much that I am already considering doing another one next year.




Me seeing Tomme near the finish.




Jason at the finish.

Mediocre tip: Buying Vaseline and bananas at the same time looks shady.

Mediocre Mountain Biking, and Pain

In my quest to cross train for my half marathon I recently joined a group called the Women's Mountain Biking Association of Colorado Springs. They are a great group of experienced riders and racers that are nice enough to take all of us mediocre adventurers on group rides once a week to teach us a few things and I guess to make sure we don't kill ourselves.

I did my first ride with the group a couple of weeks ago, and really enjoyed it! The location of the ride was at a state park that we used to live across the street from and Tomme and I rode there all the time. Also they split us up into two groups for the ride, a not so easy group and an easy group. Since it was my first ride with WMBA I chose to ride with the easy group, and I had a really pleasant time riding in a park I know like the back of my hand, on a non-technical trail, at a relaxed pace, with no falls or injuries.

This past week was a different story. We went on a very well known trail around here called The Chutes, that I had never been on before. Confident from my nice relaxing ride the previous week I decided to go with the faster group this week. In addition to my lack of knowledge of the trail, what I know about how much air to put in my tires stems completely from the range given on the side of the tire. Mine states a range between 30 and 60 PSI. So when I pulled into the parking lot I knew that my tires were sitting at around 20 PSI, so I dutifully pulled out my air pump and cranked those tires up to about 55 PSI. This is not the way to do this as I learned later in the ride the hard way.

The day starts out fine. The trail is a long consistent uphill for about the first 30 minutes, and for the first 10 I am keeping up right behind the leader with no problem. Then as the trail begins to get drier with more loose dirt and gravel my overinflated tires are spinning out all over the place and I am beginning to fall and crash like crazy as the rest of the group passes me by. Eventually we pause to practice on a more technical section of the trail, and the WMBA leaders realize during their instruction to me that I keep spinning out because my tires have way to much air in them. A learning experience from the ladies I will not soon forget. So after they most honorably were able to hold back their outright laughter at my ignorance they tried to get some of the air out of my tires before moving on. Now I'm thinking that with the tire situation much improved so will be the rest of the ride.

Wrong. It becomes painfully clear to me about 3/4 the way through the ride that I am not at a fitness level appropriate for me to be with the fast group, as I am completely out of breathe any time we stop while everyone else is chatting comfortably. Then finally it is time to start going back downhill toward the parking lot, and now I'm thinking I might be home free. Then right at the end of the ride the trail splits, and after already committing to one side I realize that I had chosen poorly and tried to quickly correct myself to get back on the right trail. I hit my break too hard, while going too fast, and trying to make a sharp turn, which resulted in my spinning out once again and sliding my elbow and thigh along the trail. Trying not to look like too much of a doofus (although I had already) I hopped right back up the way people do when they trip and then try to act like it never happened. I got back on the bike and made it down to the parking lot without looking at my injuries to see the damage. In the parking lot, however, I check out the elbow and realize I am actually bleeding profusely from a decent size gash.

Needless to say it was not my best day on the trails, but I have to say that both the WMBA leaders, and the other members on the group ride were great. They were patient, kind, helpful, encouraging, and most importantly were not adventure snobs when it came to dealing with a mediocre adventurer such as myself. I would encourage any women in the Springs area that are interested in mountain biking to sign up, even if they are a beginner. Thanks again ladies for all the help and patience, and for your first aid kit.

Mediocre tip: Before biking try to have some basic knowledge of bikes, bike maintenance, bike mechanics, physics, and tire pressure (you will look cooler than I did, and most likely you won't hurt yourself as much).







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Skirt Chaser, Competition, and Annoying Personality Traits

So about a month ago, as part of my training for the mini, I ran a 5K race in Denver called the Skirt Chaser. It has this title due to the fact that the women generally wear skirts during the race and they get a three minute head start on the run over the men. Only later did this come off to me as potentially sounding sexist, but when I first heard about it I just thought it sounded Iike fun. And all in all it was exactly that. The race went well, and the participants received two free beers afterwards (my favorite kind of reward).

Tomme chose to participate and I decided that if he were to catch up to me after a three minute head start that I would possibly have to take his life. After all I have been running like crazy and while he has been biking a significant amount recently, he has not been running at all. Luckily for his safety and my pride he did not pass me during the race. As the comments above may have suggested, while I am not particularly good at these extracurricular activities I do, I still for some reason can be quite competitive.

When I say competitive I do not mean I slightly have an urge to win or do better then my opponent, I mean I am competitive no matter what. Even at sports I'm horrible at, such as golf, I get mad when I can't hit a twenty foot chip shot a foot or so from the hole. It's ridiculous, and not my best side. Over the years I have come to realize that I get this from my dad. I love him to death, but like me he loves to win, and can't stand to admit when he is wrong. We are both stubborn in this way, and not just with sports, with opinions, politics, ideas, we are even competitive when playing the card game bridge. Now I recognize that such a competitive drive when you are not a professional tennis or bridge player borders on the insane, and it can drive those around us nuts, but I can't altogether say it's a bad thing. After all, my competitive drive improved my average pace in the 5K by about 45 seconds, and while it didn't make me a pro tennis player it did help me to get a college scholarship. It even helped me to get good grades because more than anyone I was mostly competitive with myself.

I actually think that is the way with most or our personality traits. The source of your best qualities are also the source of your worst. I always try to think of that when it comes to relationships. All of the things you find so amazing about the person when you fall in love are the exact same things that get on your nerves after the initial euphoria of falling in love wears off. For example you fall in love with the fact that someone is passionate and knows what they believe in when you first meet them, but that passion also means that when he or she disagrees with you that they will be just as passionate about refuting your point. I think this concept is an important one in making relationships go the distance. You have to accept that there are two sides to every human quality and that if you really love someone you appreciate the fact that even the things that drive you crazy about the person come from the same place that drives you to be crazy in love with them too (I have fulfilled my cheesy line quota for the day, yessssss).

Mediocre tip: Love yourself, even the not so great sides.


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9/11

The following is not about being a mediocre adventurer. When I got up today I was almost pinned down with the weight of my feelings and thoughts on today, and I wrote this in an attempt to lift some of that weight by sharing how I feel with all of you. So I apologize at the random change of direction, but thank you for letting me vent. This is what I wrote when I first got up.

I woke up this morning with a pain in my chest as I usually do on this day. I thought of that day, where I was, who I was with, and remembered the the absolute confusion we felt. To those of you that I was with thank you for being there so none of us had to experience it alone. I remember the men and women that have died since and their families' pain and sacrifice. And I also think of America, who we are, what we are proud to be, and what so many have sacrificed for. The land of the free, where we will not allow terrorists to take away our spirit of freedom, love, tolerance, equality, and acceptance. That in America we are free to worship the God of our choice. That is the America they want to destroy. And the best way to help our enemies is to forget who we are and let hate, fear, ignorance, and terror divide us. As we remember victims of 9/11 today and we remember our soldiers oversees let's remember that many of them were and are Muslims too and they are grieving today with the rest of us. There is an Islamic place of worship at the Pentagon and at Walter Reed for a reason. My thoughts and prayers are with all of our citizens who died on 9/11 and all those that have made the ultimate sacrifice since, as well as their families and friends. Thank you.

Pancake Boots

In my last blog I explained I am training for a mini-marathon. When I go for runs I often bring our dog Pancake along. She loves this! In fact she knows that I am going running the second I pull my shoes out, and from that point on she is going crazy. She whines, jumps, barks, and cries until she is on her leash and is outside running with me. However fairly recently she hurt her foot while running with me and ripped part of the paw pad off. So per doctor's orders I did not run with her for two weeks, and she hated seeing me leave the house in my running shoes without her. I know this because as soon as I would go out the front door she would run upstairs to the window and bark at me until I was out of sight. So when it was time for her to run again we thought we should do something to prevent such an injury in the future. So we bought doggie booties. The reason I decided to write about such a minor event is because the video of Pancake trying to walk with them on for the first time is hilarious and had to post it. So if you need a smile, please enjoy.

Slowness, injuries, age.

Today I'm writing about my current plans to run a mini-marathon in Moab this October. Now I have been running since I was a little girl. Early on in life I would run a race called the Bluegrass 10,000 every year with my dad in Lexington, KY. I was a decent runner, although I was never spectacular, but I did win a couple of trophies here in there for my age group. As I got older I continued to run, but mainly just to keep fit as part of my training as a tennis player. After college I ran my fist mini-marathon as part of the Kentucky Derby Festival. It was great, my training went well, and I felt strong and fairly in shape. However, a lot has changed since this time of eight years ago.

Now instead of 22, I am 30. Instead of 140 pounds, I'm 155. Instead of in shape, I am as this blog's name would suggest minimally in shape. With all of these changes I have become slow. I decided to train for this race after not doing a mini in so long because a friend of mine from high school is doing it and asked if I would like to join him, and because currently I am jobless and have the time to train. So I got up one morning and decided to start my training enthusiastically. This enthusiasm lasted for about 5 minutes, then I found that my "running" pace had become somewhat of a halfhearted jog over the last few years. I am officially 2 minutes per mile slower than I was eight years ago. Granted eight years ago I was not training at 6,650 feet, but still.

On top of being slower, I have also noticed it has become significantly easier for me to injure myself. When I was younger I never really had any major injuries, and almost no minor injuries for that matter. Yet I was pretty hard on my body at the time. In the last 6 months I have dislocated two ribs (from sneezing), sprained my neck (crashing on my mountain bike), and severely jammed my right thumb (while climbing).

But despite all the new challenges that age, and laziness have brought to me I'm actually still enjoying all this stuff. I like my training so far for the race, because the race is such a great motivator to get up and exercise when you don't really feel like it. Plus the training program I am doing includes cross training days which has allowed me to do other things besides run. Tomme and I have enjoyed riding our bikes downtown to breakfast on those days (I find I am even more motivated when there is food involved), and we even discovered that a park near our house that we thought was small and really only had a playground and baseball field, is actually huge and has fairly extensive mountain biking and hiking trails as well as great views of Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak (like the one above). All in all the pain and sad realization that my body is no longer 22 is well worth the advantages of setting a goal that motivates you and expands your horizons. I highly recommend that all of you at least once this year sign up to run or walk a race that will motivate you to get up in the morning and get outside.

Mediocre adventurer chicks

Anita and I hitting the slopes at Monarch Mountain last year.

Mediocre adventurer chicks

Quick note for you readers that are not climbers before you read the rest of this post. This post includes climbing terms that I need to explain for non climbers to have any idea what I am talking about. So here is a quick lesson in climbing jargon.

Lead climbing basically means you are the person climbing the route first. The reason this is a big deal is because the person who climbs first takes on more risk. Once the first person climbs the route, that person sets up an anchor at the top of the route so that anyone else that climbs it afterwards can "top rope" the climb. That means that they will only fall as far as it takes the person on the ground holding the rope (which is called belaying the climber) to lower their arm which will put a brake on the rope. Normally if you have a person belaying you that knows what they are doing this only takes a second and the climber only falls a few inches. However, when you are the lead climber there is no anchor setup at the top of the climb yet. Which means as the lead climber ascends the route he or she must occasionally link the rope to points of protection or bolts as they climb (bolts are what you use when sport climbing, and they are already firmly placed in the wall for you). Now that means that when the lead climber falls they will fall 2 times the distance from where they are on the climb to the last bolt they linked into despite the belayer braking as soon as possible. This usually ends up being several feet instead of inches. This is why leading incorporates a bit more danger than top roping.

Also climbing routes have ratings that indicate their level of difficulty. A 5.12 is considered pretty difficult, and a 5.5 is considered pretty easy. While I will try and climb anything up to a 5.11 when I am top roping, I have not reached a level where I feel comfortable lead climbing anything above a 5.7.

Whew, OK clear as mud. Here is a review:

Lead climbing- Climbing when there is no rope setup from the top to break your fall, therefore the climber must occasionally link the rope to "protection" in the rock as they climb so that if they fall they do not fall all the way to the ground.

Protection- Bolts or other forms of climbing gear that are firmly placed in the rock that the rope can be linked to.

Sport climbing- Climbing when there are bolts already placed in the wall for the lead climber to connect the rope to.

Trad climbing- The lead climber must place their own protection into the wall as they climb because there are no bolts.

Belayer- The person on the ground that holds the rope the climber is connected to and stops the climber from falling by braking with the rope if needed.

Top roping- Climbing a route that already has an anchor setup at the top of the climb, that also has the rope the climber is connected to linked to the anchor during the climb.

OK never mind, I'm bad at explaining this. Go get a book about climbing. Then read the post below.

Well we made it back from our trip, and poor Tomme had to basically ship off to a training exercise only a couple of days later while I got to rest. But this gives me an opportunity to write about a rare thing, which is female mediocre adventurers. I mean lets face it, guys are basically expected to be adventure addicts, but girls are supposed to think bugs are gross. So finding friends of the same gender that love the outdoors is tough. Basically girls seem to think that they either have to stay completely away from all this stuff or they feel like they have to be experts at it to be accepted. So when I went on an ice climbing trip last year while Tomme was deployed, not knowing anyone else on the trip, I was not thinking there would be any other chicks there I could relate to. While there was only one other girl on the trip, luckily and surprisingly she was not an adventure snob. Finding another non adventure snob female who loves all of this stuff as much as I do is rare. Also doing a bunch of outdoor activities with guys while your husband is deployed is a really bad idea in the Army, not so much because anything insidious would happen, but because of the rumors that always follow friendships between people of the opposite sex in the Army. For these reasons I latched on to this girl, by the name of Anita, immediately. Ever since, we have gotten into all kinds of outdoor "shenanigans" as we like to call them, and this past Saturday we went climbing.

We had a great time, however we did have some issues on this outing. Now I don't lead climb stuff harder than a 5.7 for two reasons. One, I am a wuss. Two I only learned how to lead climb last summer. I had an awesome teacher named Kellen, and he was the most skilled adventurer I have ever met that was not an adventure snob. That is was made him such a great teacher. He was patient, and he never made you feel dumb for trying to learn something he knew so much about. Last winter Kellen passed away in an avalanche, and he is greatly missed. But every time I go lead climbing I know I'm out there because of him. So thanks Kellen, I appreciate it so much!!!

Kellen gave me some great advice last year which was to make sure I didn't do anything beyond what I was comfortable doing. I think his exact words were don't push it. So since this was my first time leading this season, I told Anita that I would only start out on a 5.5 or a 5.6. So we got out our trusty guide book of the area and found a section of climbs that would offer such a skill level. The problem comes when you think you have found the spot you are looking for until you are about halfway up the wall and realize you are not on the right route, and you are not starting out on a 5.5 or 5.6. In other words, a real feeling of "Oh shit" comes over you while you are already hanging on to a wall attached to a rope. Which resulted in my first fall on a lead climb ever, and I nearly peed my pants. But I didn't fall all the way to the ground and die, so that's the important thing. And despite the unintentional increase in difficulty we had a great day. Finishing it off with lunch at my favorite Colorado Springs Mexican restaurant.

However my mediocre tip today is to make sure you have the route you are looking for before you start climbing it.

OK now that we are back I can finally post pictures we took with the cameras that are actually good. But there are so many I'm not going to put captions on them, but if you have questions about any of the photos you can make a comment below and I will comment back, or you can email it to me at mediocreadventurer@gmail.com. Enjoy!