Well I'm 22 now and to many of my friends, I'm old. But I feel pretty much the same
It was a pretty eventful weekend So here's what happened:
It had been an exhausting week of studying and test taking. It always amazes me how professors can get together and make sure they have their tests on the same week. At least it wasn't all in one day. So Thursday afternoon, I was finally free. I walked out of my last exam with smile and my face and a skip in my step as I felt the freedom of the weekend approaching. That night was the championship game for flag football and CCF was in it. So after our bible study we headed over to the field to cheer our team on. It was here that my birthday celebration got started a little early thanks to my roommate, Alex, who was doing everything in his power to make sure everyone knew it was my birthday tomorrow. He tried to get the birthday song going at least 4-5 times during the game. His efforts didn't really catch on until after the game when he picked me and started carrying me around the field while singing. At this point everyone joined in.
Afterward,our large group of us headed to the movies to catch the midnight showing of "Where the Wild Things Are". At the stroke of midnight before the movie had started, I was so lucky to have another friend start the birthday song once more and so I had a large amount of the theater singing to me. The movie was pretty good. We got back home around 3 a.m. and I did my best to get some sleep before my 8 a.m. class.
Most of my birthday was just hanging out through the day. I had to go the parking office to pay a parking ticket and asked if they gave birthday discounts. The lady just kinda stared at me without even a hint of a smirk.
Friday night we took a big group to a place called Ru Sans that has really good sushi. I got what they call the "Gone with the wind" I guess because I'll never go hungry again. It was a pretty massive serving of crab, tuna, cream cheese, avocado, and something else I think, all wrapped in seaweed and then lightly fried. It was amazing. We headed back to our place where we made a fire and just chilled out the rest of the night.
Saturday, we lounged around until game time. It really wasn't the most exciting game until the end. But with our victory over the #4 Virginia Tech, we all rushed the field. It was cool just to be out there but nobody was really sure what to do, so we all started to disperse, at least until I noticed one my friends standing on the goal post. There had been security surrounding the goal post but it's kinda hard to hold off a few thousand students. Putting my small size to good use, I squeezed my way to the goal post. I was too short to jump up on it, but I was right there when it finally snapped. It was one of the most exciting and scary moments seeing it come crashing down. A few people definitely got hurt, several shoes and cell phones were lost, but I managed to come out of the mob untouched. Once the post got low enough, I jumped up and held on with everything I had as it was being carried out of the stadium. People were eventually climbing on me to get on the post but weren't having much luck. I noticed someone was trying to pull my hands off and I turned to see a cop looking at me who politely requested that I "Get off right now!". So I did and made my way to safety.
If you go here, at around 35 seconds you'll notice a girl sitting on the goal post and a guy with a blue sweatshirt and black lines under his eyes jumping on and then clinging for dear life. Yeah, that's me.
The goal post eventually made its way to the president's house where he gave a quick speech and the post was sawed into pieces by the students.
Sunday was definitely a day of rest, as we all slept til about noon and then got our house cleaned up a little bit. I'm really loving this cold weather and I'm looking forward to coming this weekend.
Until my next adventure.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
There and back again
Well I thought I would be a little more regular with my posts but college life tends to keep things busy. A lot has happened in the past month. From football games to apple picking to roadtrips, it's been a pretty eventful year so far. Because there's so much going on I'll just have to tell you about the most recent trip since it'll be pretty long in itself.
So last weekend was our fall break and me and some guys wanted to do something really epic this year. What could be more epic than climbing a mountain...in Colorado. Obviously Colorado is pretty far away and normal people would probably buy a plane ticket. But we're not really normal people, we're college students. So we rented a 15 passenger van, added a small U-haul trailer, and loaded up 14 guys for our crazy adventure.
The summit we were preparing to climb was the Mount of the Holy Cross. I'll give you the trip in numbers and then add a little more story to it.
14,000 - feet to the top of the summit
10,000 - feet where our base camp was set up
6,500 - population of Metropolis, Illinois
3,059 - miles we drove total
180 - minutes I had to drive through clouds and crosswinds in Kansas at 2am
100 - mph of the wind that was trying to blow us off the mountain
83 - hours for the whole trip
34 - temperature on the mountain according to my thermometer
30 - minutes of sleep I got on the way back
29 - hours it took to drive back
27 - hours it took to drive there
14 - guys that went
14 - guys that got some form of altitude sickness
14 - guys that didn't take a shower for several days
10 - fingers that swelled up after climbing in the snow for a few hours
7 - States we drove through
6 - guys that made it to the top
5.5 - hours it took to get from base camp to the summit
5 - A.M. time we woke up to start our ascent
3 - actual experienced hikers
2 - A.M. time in the morning when we finally got back home
1 - great trip
0 - comfortable sleeping positions in a van with 13 other guys
-20 - temperature on the mountain according to my face
So we headed out friday afternoon and didn't get there until Saturday evening. We had about 2 hours of sunlight left in the day and we still had to hike 3 miles to set up base camp. I can't say that a lot of these guys were experienced hikers. Just looking around at the gear everyone had from sweat pants to a 12 pack of mountain dew, you knew this was going to be a long trek. So we start walking at fairly slow pace and it didn't take long before I got bored so i went ahead and got to see the sunset.
The temperature was definitely getting colder and colder and we weren't really sure how far we had to go. It didn't take long for the sun to disappear and soon we were hiking by headlamps. Our group was split up into different speeds, so me a 2 other guys were in the front and found our campsite by the river first. After 20-30 minutes the rest of the gang started showing up and we got our tents set up as best as we could with the limited space. We were all exhausted at this point and only a few of us took the time to cook some dinner.
The next morning we awoke at 5 am dark and early. We also awoke to the small surprise of snow outside our tents. It took a while before we were willing to get out of our warm sleeping bags but we all got there eventually. Since we had a base camp we were able to leave all our heavy stuff there as we made our way to the summit. It's a lot easier climbing big mountains when you don't have 30+ pounds strapped to your back.
We hiked for a couple of hours but several of our guys were having a hard time with the climb because the altitude and just not being used to the work involved I guess. By the end of the day, all of us had at least a massive headache if not worse. Only one guy threw up but a couple others wanted to. Several guys stopped once we got to the timberline and had nothing but rocks and snow ahead of us to the top. This was the most fun part for me. You could definitely feel the shortness of breath coming a lot sooner, so you just had to take it slow and not try to overwork yourself too much. There were parts on the mountain where we were basically just rock hopping because we couldn't trust the depth of the snow in some places. We had to do this for over 1000 ft. in elevation change and I think it was a little over 1.5 miles walking distance.
So as our members started to drop as the elevation increased. Me and Petey were leading the charge most of the way. It got to the point where there wasn't much of actual path that you could see so you just kinda made your own way.
We finally reached the top after about 5.5-6 hours of climbing. By this point, I was pretty tired and cold. I hadn't brought as much warm clothes as I should have and gloves are pretty useful thing to have. But I made it to the top and that's all that mattered.
We enjoyed the view for a pic and then headed back down to base camp to meet up with the rest of our group that had already turned around. The original plan was to stay another night then hike back out the next morning but we decided to go ahead and make our way to the van before dark. As we were packing, it started snowing again which just made us want to get there even sooner. We had thought about camping by the van but with the snowy/rainy weather, none of us seemed to mind the idea of heading home a little early.
Driving back, I got to experience my most terrifying driving experience ever. Kansas is an awful state to drive through, especially at 2 in the morning. It's even worse when you have to drive through solid clouds and 40+mph crosswinds for over an hour. Everybody was else decided it was too scary to watch so they all went to sleep and trusted that I would get us back safely. So sipping on my cappuccino and an energy drink and constantly praying I wouldn't get blown off the road, I drove about half way through Kansas.
The rest of the day was nothing but sitting in the van, attempting to find a position i could sleep in but to no avail. I gave up once the sun came up. We stopped in Missouri and had some really good pizza. At this point it was getting pretty late in the day so we thought we would just drive out the rest of the way, but driving through Illinois, we saw a sign for the largest Superman Statue in Metropolis, Illinois and we just had to stop for that.
We made one last stop for dinner at a gas station before we finished off our journey. It was 2:30 in the morning and I would have gone straight to bed but I desperately needed a shower.
And that was my fall break.
So last weekend was our fall break and me and some guys wanted to do something really epic this year. What could be more epic than climbing a mountain...in Colorado. Obviously Colorado is pretty far away and normal people would probably buy a plane ticket. But we're not really normal people, we're college students. So we rented a 15 passenger van, added a small U-haul trailer, and loaded up 14 guys for our crazy adventure.
The summit we were preparing to climb was the Mount of the Holy Cross. I'll give you the trip in numbers and then add a little more story to it.
14,000 - feet to the top of the summit
10,000 - feet where our base camp was set up
6,500 - population of Metropolis, Illinois
3,059 - miles we drove total
180 - minutes I had to drive through clouds and crosswinds in Kansas at 2am
100 - mph of the wind that was trying to blow us off the mountain
83 - hours for the whole trip
34 - temperature on the mountain according to my thermometer
30 - minutes of sleep I got on the way back
29 - hours it took to drive back
27 - hours it took to drive there
14 - guys that went
14 - guys that got some form of altitude sickness
14 - guys that didn't take a shower for several days
10 - fingers that swelled up after climbing in the snow for a few hours
7 - States we drove through
6 - guys that made it to the top
5.5 - hours it took to get from base camp to the summit
5 - A.M. time we woke up to start our ascent
3 - actual experienced hikers
2 - A.M. time in the morning when we finally got back home
1 - great trip
0 - comfortable sleeping positions in a van with 13 other guys
-20 - temperature on the mountain according to my face
So we headed out friday afternoon and didn't get there until Saturday evening. We had about 2 hours of sunlight left in the day and we still had to hike 3 miles to set up base camp. I can't say that a lot of these guys were experienced hikers. Just looking around at the gear everyone had from sweat pants to a 12 pack of mountain dew, you knew this was going to be a long trek. So we start walking at fairly slow pace and it didn't take long before I got bored so i went ahead and got to see the sunset.
The temperature was definitely getting colder and colder and we weren't really sure how far we had to go. It didn't take long for the sun to disappear and soon we were hiking by headlamps. Our group was split up into different speeds, so me a 2 other guys were in the front and found our campsite by the river first. After 20-30 minutes the rest of the gang started showing up and we got our tents set up as best as we could with the limited space. We were all exhausted at this point and only a few of us took the time to cook some dinner.
The next morning we awoke at 5 am dark and early. We also awoke to the small surprise of snow outside our tents. It took a while before we were willing to get out of our warm sleeping bags but we all got there eventually. Since we had a base camp we were able to leave all our heavy stuff there as we made our way to the summit. It's a lot easier climbing big mountains when you don't have 30+ pounds strapped to your back.
We hiked for a couple of hours but several of our guys were having a hard time with the climb because the altitude and just not being used to the work involved I guess. By the end of the day, all of us had at least a massive headache if not worse. Only one guy threw up but a couple others wanted to. Several guys stopped once we got to the timberline and had nothing but rocks and snow ahead of us to the top. This was the most fun part for me. You could definitely feel the shortness of breath coming a lot sooner, so you just had to take it slow and not try to overwork yourself too much. There were parts on the mountain where we were basically just rock hopping because we couldn't trust the depth of the snow in some places. We had to do this for over 1000 ft. in elevation change and I think it was a little over 1.5 miles walking distance.
So as our members started to drop as the elevation increased. Me and Petey were leading the charge most of the way. It got to the point where there wasn't much of actual path that you could see so you just kinda made your own way.
We finally reached the top after about 5.5-6 hours of climbing. By this point, I was pretty tired and cold. I hadn't brought as much warm clothes as I should have and gloves are pretty useful thing to have. But I made it to the top and that's all that mattered.
We enjoyed the view for a pic and then headed back down to base camp to meet up with the rest of our group that had already turned around. The original plan was to stay another night then hike back out the next morning but we decided to go ahead and make our way to the van before dark. As we were packing, it started snowing again which just made us want to get there even sooner. We had thought about camping by the van but with the snowy/rainy weather, none of us seemed to mind the idea of heading home a little early.
Driving back, I got to experience my most terrifying driving experience ever. Kansas is an awful state to drive through, especially at 2 in the morning. It's even worse when you have to drive through solid clouds and 40+mph crosswinds for over an hour. Everybody was else decided it was too scary to watch so they all went to sleep and trusted that I would get us back safely. So sipping on my cappuccino and an energy drink and constantly praying I wouldn't get blown off the road, I drove about half way through Kansas.
The rest of the day was nothing but sitting in the van, attempting to find a position i could sleep in but to no avail. I gave up once the sun came up. We stopped in Missouri and had some really good pizza. At this point it was getting pretty late in the day so we thought we would just drive out the rest of the way, but driving through Illinois, we saw a sign for the largest Superman Statue in Metropolis, Illinois and we just had to stop for that.
We made one last stop for dinner at a gas station before we finished off our journey. It was 2:30 in the morning and I would have gone straight to bed but I desperately needed a shower.
And that was my fall break.
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