Sierra's Birthday

To celebrate Sierra's 22nd birthday I decided that we should go downtown and grab some lunch at one of our favorite restaurants "City Cakes" and then wander around the University of Utah. We had a very good time! I grabbed my camera and started snapping right after lunch.

The mailbox right outside of the restaurant. I hope you don't mind but I've developed a new love for black and white, so this post will contain all black and whites.

We headed up to the U of U and the day couldn't be anymore perfect. Sun was out and the wind was barely blowing by. Our first stop was to the library and campus center.

The stairs leading up to the campus library. Thought the lines made a very interesting picture. Sierra being cooperative and standing still for a minute for me to take a picture.

After the great stair adventure we headed to the "Center" of campus. The architecture was just awesome.

This is the top of the fountain in the courtyard. Very pretty..

If you look very closely, right next to the light poll is a woman painting the exact opposite of this picture... I thought it was a nice ironic piece of art.


Sierra found a pine cone... she's blowing the dirt off it.

We then headed towards an older area of the campus, which had some great buildings. Many looked like old government offices and museums.

Cool building... bout all that needs to be said about that.

This is Gardner Hall, one of the first buildings built on the University campus.

We decided to start heading home at this point because we needed to change and get into some comfy clothes for dinner. On the way back we saw some great scenes of downtown Salt Lake.

Standing in the middle of the road I was able to capture this shot... Sierra yelling at me the whole time to get out of said road... So glad I ignored her long enough to capture this.

Big Ed's... Serving breakfast all day and famous for their $3.75 cheeseburger and fries. seems like a very classy joint. May have to try it out someday.

And thus ends my U of U adventure. Remember if you know of any cool places I should visit please let me know. I only have so many ideas...

Backpacking in the High Uintas

My first post in this blog is going to be of a backpacking trip to Amethyst Lake Sierra and I took along with two of our friends. The trail head is about a 3 hour drive from our house in West Valley. We always take our dogs, Sadie and Jake, when we go. They have a blast.

Sierra driving while on our way to the trail head.

While driving up through the beautiful country the most we encountered the most peculiar thing...

This happy family of Moose were hanging out on the road. Unfortunately I couldn't get to my camera quick enough to snap a picture of them on the road, but I was able to grab a couple of shots as they ran from the road.

Once we reached the trail head we got out of the car and started to unload. Got the dogs setup and we were off on the adventure!

This is absolutely one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been. I would recommend this hike to anyone.

We traveled for about an hour and half when it started raining on us a bit. We decided it was a good time to start looking for a place to setup camp. After a few minutes we found a nice flat piece of land that wasn't too far from the river where we could grab water from.

(Photo Courtesy of Sierra) The four of us trying to decide where to put the tents. On the right you can see Jake (my puppy) sporting his backpack and checking out the area.

Surprisingly, cooking is a bit more difficult when you do it on the ground with a relatively unsteady backpacking stove... More food than we are will to admit ended up in the dirt over the entire trip.

Cooking our delicious oriental ramen dinner....

After dinner was made the rain started to come down a bit more than what was comfortable.. It was time to get close to our loved ones and attempt to warm up.

My pain in the butt love of my life and me.

After our lovely dinner and the rain had calmed down a bit it was time for a couple of us to.... relieve ourselves...

If you asked me then I couldn't have told you why I took this picture. But now I'm very glad I did!

After some relaxing talks by the fire is had gotten dark and was time to get to bed. The strenuous hike started in the morning and we needed our sleep. We packed up everything food related and hoisted it up into a tree we headed towards our tent. Through the night we heard strange noises. We tried to ignore it best as possible, but it was tricky. Being pitch black outside your imagination kinda runs wild. The only thought that I had was bear, but I kept assuring myself the it was only moose. I really have no idea what I heard but eventually I fell asleep and nothing new came of it.

In the morning we awoke to wonderfully fresh air and the sound of nothing with the exception of the soft flowing of the river in the distance. We got out of our sleeping bags and headed down to that river to fill up our water bottles and pots for breakfast. Mmmmm instant oatmeal (There is not much of a variety to eat when you are vegan...) After breakfast we headed out on our 5 mile hike up the mountain to our final campsite.

Derek and Ali filling up water bottles and a nearby stream.

Five miles doesn't seem like much on level ground. But when you are hiking up hill with a 30lb pack it gets pretty tiring. We kept moving though in order to get to the campsite sooner and be able to relax.

As exhausting as the hike was... It was worth it for the countless scenes like this.

We moved on and finally made it to camp a few hours after we left our first camp. Everyone was in good shape and spirits when we got to the location of our second camp. We found a nice secluded spot off of a open field where the dogs could run and get some energy out.

Finishing up tent setup as Derek and Ali search their dog for ticks (The didn't find any) In fact we were all bug free the entire trip. Yay!

Once we setup our second camp it was time to head up to Amethyst Lake which was another mile up the mountain, and well worth the trip. We headed out after ditching out backpacks inside our tent and moving the food away from camp.

About a half mile to the lake we found this amazing sight. Too perfect to take a picture of.

The rain had picked up again so we needed to put on the rain coats to attempt to stay dry. Luckily it didn't last long and it wasn't a heavy rain so it didn't pose much of a problem.

Our first look at Amethyst Lake. Very pretty and very cold. But that didn't stop the dogs from jumping in to play. Well Zoey (Derek and Ali's dog) jumped in... We kinda pushed Jake in. He didn't seem to mind it too much...

We relaxed at the lake for a bit and then decided it was time to head back to camp and get warm, dry and comfortable. On our way back to camp we passed a smaller lake the was just as pretty as Amethyst and in our opinion very underestimated. We don't know the name of that lake even now. But it's definitely worth a stop.

Our very pretty no named lake.

Once back to camp we all sat down for our final dinner in the mountain. Once again ramen... Please if you know of anything vegan that we can take backpacking let us know!

Everyone was pooped by the end of the hike to the lake. We talked by the campfire until nightfall and then decided to head to bed because we needed to start the hike down the mountain very early in the morning.

We slept through the night without incident. Woke early in the morning just after the sun had risen, ate breakfast, packed up the camp and started on our trek down the mountain. It is much easier and faster to go down than up as I'm sure you know. We were down the mountain and to our cars within a matter of hours. Our trip was over, all there was to do was drive home. We will miss the mountains but were very happy to pick up Subway on the way home.