The End: Week 11

So it's my final week of being in beautiful Estes Park, Colorado. It's unbelievable how fast these past 11 weeks flew by. I've been so blessed to spend my summer here, meet wonderful people, and do some of the most incredible things. And I've crossed so many things off my bucket list - donating blood, shooting a gun (keep reading), and SKY DIVING (still not over that).

It's definitely a bittersweet feeling. I'm so excited to be home for a few days before going back to school and I can't wait to see friends and family (and my cats and dogs) again, but I'll miss waking up in the mountains, spending Monday nights outside on the volleyball sand courts, exploring Rocky Mountain National Park anytime I wanted to.

But. I was talking to Bill, one of the Marketing Directors here about it and he said, "You know what though? The mountains aren't going anywhere anytime soon."

And that's the truth. I'll be back one day. Maybe next summer. Maybe in a few years. Maybe to do Longs Peak. Maybe to see Breckenridge. Who knows? Anyways, here's my last week!

Monday

Monday we took our last trip over to Snow Mountain Ranch with Bill for a Marketing Retreat. (On the way we saw these awesome bighorn rams on top of Trail Ridge) We met up with Martha and were shortly joined by Laura and Andrew. We started by playing little icebreaker games and puzzles which ended up being really funny (pictionary, riddles, a yarn game, lol)

Andrew hangin out by our brainstorming wall

We ordered pizza and then looked inside magazines for advertisements by competitors to the YMCA. We talked about what we liked about their ads, how it compared to ours, what we could improve on, etc. I really loved that part because it was cool seeing a real company using these kind of techniques to compare themselves to other travel/destination/family companies.

Afterward they showed us plans for a new YMCA Rockies apps they are thinking of developing. They discussed pros/cons, what info it should include, layout and design, user capabilities, etc. The design was great, but they were worried about it being too early to develop an app that people may not be ready to use here.

It rained the whole way back and so we slept most of the way. I got back and ate with Erica, Jennifer and Cora, and then I called my mom because I hadn't called home in several weeks (it feels like I'm in another country sometimes!) I hung out with friends later and we played cards and just hung out, which was a nice chill way to end the day.

Tuesday

Tuesday started out slow,  answering emails and responding to donation requests. In the afternoon I had a meeting for the upcoming International Dinner and had to write and submit a press release for it by 4pm (easy peasy). Then Martha had a few blog projects for me, one about a Women's Fitness Camp at Camp Chief Ouray and the other about Locals Day for the new summer tubing hill.

After work Erica and Vanessa came by my office and picked me up for dinner with Jenna, then we went out to Coffee on the Rocks, this cute coffee shop in town by a little pond. After our getting our coffee, we drove past town onto this horribly sketchy road called Pole Hill Road (you seriously need a jeep to navigate this road) and walked up to a clearing where we lined up our coffee cups and SHOT THEM!!!


No, seriously, Chandler brought his gun and ammo out. (I promise this is actually legal I asked him, and where we were in the woods where you were allowed to shoot) We each shot a magazine (so like 8 bullets maybe) with Chandler instructing us beforehand. I LOVED IT. I'd never shot a gun before (do not tell anyone from Texas) and I absolutely loved the experience. [I mean, I love lazertag a lot, that must be why, ;)]  I hit all the cups off the log and then kept shooting through them until I ran out. I seriously would love to learn more and go to a shooting range sometime.

We went to Safeway afterwards and then hung out playing cards again. One more thing crossed off the bucket list!

Wednesday

Wednesday was great. I had so many donation requests to fill out today! But, it's my last round of them so after this I'm done. (It's not hard work, just tedious sometimes) AND today was pizza and wings day. (Okay I know it's weird that I write about lunch sometimes but 1. It's cafeteria food, so you get excited when you really like it. 2. We haven't had pizza & wings since like my second week here and it's one of the best days ever)

After work we had plans to go kayaking, but unfortunately the Estes Lake marina closed at 5pm. Instead, we did the GIANT SLIDE in town and had a blast!! The guys selling tickets there was super nice too, after we bought 2 slides he gave us a pass for another free slide. We went into town afterwards because I really wanted to go to the Outdoor shop and get some long sleeve shirts for the me and the siblings. We had Hayley's icecream again and then went back to Hague for more card games.

When I was thinking about how I wanted to spend my last week, hundreds of things came to mind. There are so many great places to go and lots of hikes I haven't done yet, but honestly I just wanted to be with people, just spending time with the friends who made this summer so memorable. So today was perfect.

Thursday

My friend Abby had been wanting to do a hike to Bluebird Lake for like 2 months, and since it fell through last week we decided to make it happen today. The hike is in the Wild Basin area of the park, so we left around 8AM it took about 20 minutes to drive there. We had a short delay because they were fixing the road, and then we finally reached the trailhead and started hiking at 9:10AM.

It ended up being one of the longest days of my life.

Bluebird Lake is supposedly 6.4 miles from the trailhead, so we figured we could do it in 4 hours or so and be back in the afternoon. Everything started out great. We knocked out the first 1.5 hours and made it past Copeland Falls in no time. We then had to find a campsite path to Ouzel Falls. (The normal route to Bluebird requires you to go to the falls and cross a bridge over to the other side, but since the bridge was destroyed in the flooding last year, we needed a different trail to take us to the other side without crossing the crazy wild falls. More on this later.)

We found a path leading up to a campsite, and that's when the first wave of rain came. (I hate hiking in the rain. Sunny days all the way.) And then we found out it was the wrong campsite trail (because it lead to nowhere) We waited for the thunder to stop and shortly after the rain stopped too, so we doubled back and found the right campsite trail that would take us around. Because it had just rained and we were hiking uphill through rocks and dirt, it was like a muddy deathtrap. But we did it. We made it out to Ouzel Falls.

And then we got stuck again. The map was totally wrong about Bluebird Lake, and there were absolutely no signs anywhere near the falls for how to get to Bluebird. Luckily I had talked to a friend who did it and remembered she said to find an uphill poorly marked trail that led us STRAIGHT UP these huge rocks. That was great for awhile because we followed the rock piles (hikers will mark trails with rocks stacked on each other to let other hikers know that is the trail) and then we stopped seeing rock piles. To the left of us was an open meadow next to the Ouzel creek, so we decided to head down that way and hope the trail continued that way.

You know how the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years? I imagine it feeling something like how yesterday felt to me, except instead of the desert we were in this knee high tall grass with dead trees fallen everywhere. There was no trail. Everything was covered by grass, so every step you took was a horrible game of Russian roulette. Will there be a sharp stick where I take my next step? Will a snake pop out and swallow my whole foot? Who knows? We were falling all over the place. Abby tripped and cut her leg open. We made slow progress through the forsaken land.

After the rain, it was actually kind of beautiful. (Understatement)

And then the rain came. Again. Abby and I decided if it kept coming after a few minutes and didn't look like it was stopping, we would turn around. (Honestly it's hard having to turn around, but if it was going to be miserable and super rainy, it wasn't worth it.) And the rain kept going, so we did. We walked back for 5 minutes and then Abby turned around and saw blue skies. It was the weirdest thing. So we decided we'd already come this far so we should keep going. We turned back around and stumbled through the field, following the creek because we knew that would at least take us to Ouzel Lake, which was on the way to Bluebird.

After awhile, we decided to recheck ourselves. None of this was making sense. There was a trail on a map, and none of my friends who did this hike had said anything about an off trail part, so something was wrong.
We decided to check the hill next to the field to maybe see something from higher up, and lo and behold, there was a trail. I've never been so angry/happy/relieved/upset in my life. After walking a ways we finally came to a sign that said Bluebird Lake: 2 miles. We really considered turning around again at that point, because that meant several more hours added on to our trip and it was already the afternoon. We didn't want an all day hike. But that's what we got. We had come so far already so we decided to go for it.

And thus begins the longest 2 miles of my life.  It started out flat. And then it was just all uphill. We were so tired at this point. With all our doubling back and slow progress, we'd been hiking farther, longer, and harder than we imagined we would have to. We finally reached the Upper Ouzel Creek sign, which meant we'd gone 1.5 miles and only had .5 left. And we kept going. And going. And going. Through this beautiful wildflower region and up and over these huge rocks, thinking Bluebird would be just around the corner, just over the next ridge.

On our way back from "Bluebird"

Long story short, we never found it. I'm pretty sure it doesn't even exist. (Just kidding, obviously it does.) It was so frustrating to come so far and have no idea where the lake was. There were no more signs and not even a clear path. We decided it was already 3:40pm and we didn't want to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere when the sun went down, so we just booked it back to the trailhead.

After hiking the 2 miles back to the sign, we decided to follow the trail and see where it connected since we didn't come from that way. We followed that trail almost another 2 miles and made it to a fork in the road. The sign for the Ranger station said something like 3 miles, so we went that way.

And suddenly it was like deja vu. We hike through a forest and then up a few switchbacks past these orange rocks. And we realized we had been this way already on the campsite trail. So we double back to find the campsite trail to get back to the trailhead....but we never found it. It was gone. We have no idea how the campsite trail connected into this trail. There were no other openings where 2 trails combined. It was the strangest thing.

Since the campsite trail was our way back and we couldn't find it, we had to go to option 2: crossing the Ouzel Falls and taking that trail back to the trailhead. We had to go several yards downstream to find a place to cross. Now, keep in mind this is a fast, cold river. It doesn't sound like a scary thing to do, but it kind of freaked me out crossing over first. Once I was over I helped Abby over and we crawled up the side to make it to the trail. We made it down to Calypso Cascades and then had another 1.8 miles to go. (I'm telling you, we took the longest route possible)

We finally made it back to the trailhead at 7:11pm. 10 hours of hiking. Losing the trail, getting caught in the rain, wandering around in a field. What a crazy day.

We went back to the YMCA, showered and got ready, then went to subway with Jenna, Vannessa, and Cora because we were starving (I had food with us on the hike but we didn't eat much because we just wanted to be done) After eating I went back and started packing.

Looking back now, it was an awesome, experience filled day. (I know it makes us sound like inexperienced hikers, but we've been hiking all summer and no other trail was like this one.) I'm glad I was able to spend my last week here doing a big hike (the longest I've done all summer!)

Friday

My last day of my internship is here! There's so much I could write about my internship experience and all the things I've learned, but I'll probably save that for another post (and for my internship paper I have to write for college credit) It's strange that it's my last day in Colorado. Today has felt like any other day in the office and I'm kind of glad. It makes it not so hard to leave and say goodbye.

Laura and Andrew went over my internship evaluation with me right before I left. They had the most positive and encouraging things to say about me and my job performance. Laura gave me all 10s on my writing, event planning, communication skills, and attitude/work ethic. She praised my professionalism and initiative and said my writing skills and ability to connect with people and go above and beyond were great strengths of mine. Both Laura and Andrew agreed I was definitely ready for any entry level position in the field (based on my internship evaluation questions) and gave me an A for the internship grade. What a wonderful way to end my last day. They both told me that if I needed anything, a letter of recommendation or questions, to talk to them and stay in touch. They also told me to check back in a year and see job openings at the Y. They were hoping to expand their marketing department, but if not they said my skill set would be great for not just marketing, but also philanthropy, membership, etc. That was awesome to hear. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing in a year, but I definitely wouldn't mind considering Colorado. 

So thinking back on it, my only regret is I never saw a black bear.

No, really. That's kind of a cool thing around here, saying you saw a bear.

Anyways, tonight is the night I've been dreading/waiting/emotionally unprepared for. I went out to dinner with 9 great friends at Poppy's Pizza, this great little place downtown I've been dying to try. Everyone was in a great mood - we had a 45 minute wait so we went to Hayley's (reverse dinner) and got cookies then explored this awesome old castle like structure by the police station that you had to climb up to. By the time we got back we had a table and ordered quickly. (Individual pizzas for 5 bucks. yum.)

After eating I went to the bathroom with Vanessa and Cora, and when I came back to the table my friends had a beautiful card for me with notes from all of them and a cute little black bear stuffed animal (its ironic I was writing about bears earlier, I think this counts now) I almost started crying right there. Handwritten notes are the most wonderful thing to me. They told me they worked on it before I got off of work (since they get off at 3:45 and I get off around 5:30 it was easy for them)

After dinner we went to the Rock to hang out and listen to music. We were there about an hour and a half and then Erica went to pick up Ryan, Matt, and Austin. I'm so grateful she took the time to do that, and I'm so grateful they were willing to come out so late (they had LT until like 10:30). It was the perfect last night, all of the people who meant so much to me this summer being there for me.



We all piled into cars and got back to the YMCA a little after midnight. Goodbyes aren't the easiest thing for me. It's easy for me to fall in love with places, with people, with moments. And knowing that they'll never happen again the same way twice is both tragic and beautiful to me. It makes you enjoy those moments even more. As hard as I tried I knew I would end up crying several times tonight. And I did.

But that's the best part of all. I came out this summer not knowing anyone or anything about Colorado, and now I have more people and places to call home. I'm so blessed to be feeling this way, to feel sad about leaving. That just means everything was real this summer.

I have so much to do tomorrow: sunrise hike to Bible point, finish packing, clean room, check out, return linens. It's going to be a crazy day, and it's weird that I will wake up in Colorado and go to sleep in Texas.

Saturday

Here we go.

I woke up at 4:45AM to make sure I would stay away for our hike. I met Abby and Jenna in the lobby at 5:10 and we drove down to the livery to meet Melanie. Around 5:20, we started hiking and boy did we keep a brisk pace. They say you normally take 45 minutes to hike up Bible Point. We did it in 22. (Thank goodness too, I did not want to be hiking much longer than that I was so tired)

We reached the top with time to spare before sunrise. The weird thing about sunrise is that there's light before the sun actually comes up. You can see, but you're just there waiting for that burst of light to come in over the mountains. It was beautiful.

After that early hike I had a lot to do. I got through packing and cleaning and saying goodbye to friends again without crying and left Estes Park with Abby around 10:50AM. And that's when the tears started. It was hard leaving those mountains behind, the place I called home for the past 3 months. It was even harder once we made it to Denver, when you could barely see the hazy mountains in the distance at all.


My flight from Denver was great, and after a short delay we made it to DFW in something like 2 hours. My sister had flown in earlier that day from California and waited for me with my dad.


Walking outside was an immediate change too: I had forgotten what humidity and real heat was like. I'm sure it won't be the first time I whine about the weather now and complain that Colorado was nothing like it, but I understand why Texans go to Colorado for the summer!

So anyways, it's the end. The end of my glorious summer in Colorado. If I haven't said it enough in this blog, I'll say it again: I was so blessed to experience this summer where I did, who I did it with, what I was able to do. God lined this summer up perfectly. His plan was far better for me than I could have ever imagined.

I'll be back for those mountains again sometime.

***Check out this video I made about life in the Rockies this summer! Forgive the shaky, dirty camera and iPhone footage! But, you get to see me skydive and that's pretty cool. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncv73QXSqqo

Sky Diving & Rocky Mountain Climbing: Week 10

Monday

Monday continues my Snow Mountain Ranch adventure! We had to be up and at the SUMMER TUBING HILL by 9am for the opening ceremony. This summer tubing hill is the coolest thing. It's the first tubing hill of its kind in Colorado and only the 3rd in the United States. It's "totally tubular" and "all the winter fun in the summer sun!" Basically, its this special material that is misted over so you can slide down it in a tube.

Before the ceremony I played polly pockets with the little girls from yesterday. Not in my intern job description exactly, but it was so much fun hanging out with the kids. Afterward I was able to go the the tubing hill like 8 times with Hank and Reagan, two of most precious kids.

We went to lunch and then to the archery range and the reservoir to take pictures of the kids doing other activities. A lot of the mom bloggers wanted to talk to me about my major and thoughts about social media and writing, which was really neat.

Overall, definitely one of my favorite work days and visits to Snow Mountain Ranch.

That night was our Volleyball awards and campfire, which was super fun! Only a small handful of all the teams came, but I think it made it that much more fun.

The Sandmonsters all won awards for the best team spirit, Ryan won best scorekeeper, Erica, Jenna, and I got top 5 female players award and Matt got top 5 male players.

It's so sad that our Sandmonster journey ends here. We played pick up volleyball games after the campfire and joked about our kids coming out and playing 20 years from now. My monday nights were made complete because of this team and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to play with them and become good friends with them. We played until way past dark, then turned the golf cart lights on to see better. Finally we called it a night when we were too tired and giddy to play anymore. Best last Monday.

 Tuesday

Work was normal on Tuesday. Just answering emails, writing a little bit, playing around with Twitter.

Tuesday night the dining hall was over run by this Rocky Mountain High youth group conference (3,000+ extra people at camp) so we decided to just go to the Rock for dinner and hung out there for several hours. We went into town after that and walked around and got free taffy from the best taffy places. It was a nice chill day (and I guess I didn't take any pictures ha)

Wednesday

Wednesday all kinds of weird things happened. Neither Andrew nor Laura were in the office so Brady and I spent a good deal of time talking about movies and watching movie trailers. I mean uh....working hard. Yeah.

As we were leaving for lunch I asked my friend who works upstairs a question but she didn't answer me. She had given blood that morning and I was going later that afternoon and wanted to know how it went. I asked again and she didn't answer and then we all realized she was about to pass out from giving blood. We had to pull her out of her chair to the floor and call 222, our emergency responder number here. Finally some responders came and we were able to go to lunch, but it was still scary because I've never seen someone pass out like that before.

I went after lunch to give blood, a little worried now because it was my first time. Everything went smoothly until they were trying to find a vein in my left arm. They were worried it was too small but went for it anyways, and it worked at first. The blood was flowing too slowing though, so they had to keep readjusting the needle and moving the tubes which was a little uncomfortable. Finally after like 10 minutes they said they couldn't get enough for a full unit, but they would still send it for research purposes to a lab.After that I hung out in the blood donating auditorium for awhile because I didn't want to go back to fast and feint or something.

That night was my friend Niek's birthday so we went out to Mama Rosa's, this nice Italian restaurant, with 13 other people. It was so much fun! The waiter was super cool, too. He heard we wanted to go out for ice cream in town afterwards and then said, "You guys have already spent so much money here already, you can all have desert on the house!" IT WAS FABULOUS.

We drove back and my friend Jenna's car was making funny sounds so we got out at the YMCA and realized her back left tire was completely blown out. We were so lucky we all made it back safe and her car used front wheel drive.Chandler and Austin luckily knew how to change tires and helped put her spare on. We went to the Rustic afterward and played BS and Capitolism until 11pm. Niek wanted to go to the Rock after that but the taxi was taking forever so we decided to just call it a night.

Thursday

Thursday I took off work because I had an extra day of work already from Sunday. I was supposed to hike Bluebird Lake with Jenna and Abby, but Jenna wanted to figure her car things out and we were worried it was going to rain (it had rained all day yesterday)

We went to breakfast instead and I showered and cleaned my room (it needed it lol) After that we went to lunch and then to the Craft shop. We all started silk paintings, which I'd never done before but loved! I picked a Mountain Wildflower pattern to hang in my apartment at school. We drew on our resists (a glue substance that separates your silk dye) then had to wait for it to dry. We went back to Hague and hung out for an hour, and then went back to start putting color on until the craft shop closed at 5:45.
 

Afterward was dinner, and then we drove up Trail Ridge to watch the sunset. It was so beautiful.

Friday

Friday work was one of those crazy days where Andrew and Laura are popping in and out of the office and cracking jokes all day, which was great. I worked on this Tubing Hill opening article and another article about a golf tournament the YMCA just did.

After work I went to the craft shop to work on my silk painting some more, and then I went to dinner with Jenna, Erica and a few friends. We decided to just chill out and watch a movie in Hague (we watched step up: revolution and I have no shame)  and then went out to Hayley's for icecream. Why such a chill Friday night, you may ask? We had to get up early for our big exciting adventure the next day!!! Get ready!!!


Saturday

My alarm goes off at 5:45am. I turn it off and sleep another 10 minutes until my snooze goes off. That 10 minutes was all I needed - I was up. I was ready. Today was my big day and nothing was going to ruin that.

Today, I would be throwing myself out of a small plane from 17,500 feet and free fall at 130 mph for a whole 60 seconds. I was going SKY DIVING!!!

Jenna and I left at 6:30 to take her car to the shop to Longmont for a new tire before we sky dived. We picked up coffee on the way and made great time, getting to Mile High by 7:30. She dropped me off, then dropped her car off, then we waited for our other group to come and pick Jenna up and join me at the skydiving center.

Because we had been through all of this before, our paperwork was done and we were ready to go. It was great that we went so early because less people were there and it was a beautiful clear sky. They called our names and we rode the bumpy trailer over to the plane hangar.

BEFORE

Within 10 minutes they had called our names again and we were introduced to our tandem instructors. Mine was named Shawn, and he was hilarious. He told me, "you better smile the whole time or we're going to freaking die" and I was like YES SIR. He suited me up in the fancy purple suit and then my videographer interviewed me (several of us paid to have video) and was like "How do you feel? Are you ready?" and I was like YES YES YES.  (because we waited so long last time,all my nerves were gone. I was 100% ready to throw myself out of a plane.)

Our plane rolled down the runway and stopped for us, and there was no turning back now. We slid onto the two parallel benches in the small plane, the 5 of us in front of our tandem instructor so they could attach themselves to our suits and our videographers spread out around us. We took off and were in the air in no time.

I asked Shawn if the door we came in was the same one we jumped out of (if you can call it a door. There wasn't really a door, just a see through barrier that pulled down to block the entrance) and he was like, "Nah we've found people get so freaked out that the entire floor just drops out beneath us. That way you're surprised and can't turn back."

He kept the jokes going the whole way up with Jenna's instructor. I told him I was a little worried about landing and he was like, "Crap, I forgot to watch the video on that." He turned to the other instructor. "Do you know which thing I'm supposed to pull for the parachute?" And the other guy was like "I don't know man, but did you have those awesome special brownies in the fridge this morning? They were so good, I feel so great right now!" Ha ha. I was thankful they did that though because it kept the mood light.

After 10 minutes flying we were finally high enough that we had to get ready. Shawn handed me goggles and clipped his suit to mine the rest of the way. The videographers slid the clear door up and we could feel the wind. This is the moment I thought I would be nervous, but all I felt was soooo much excitement and adrenaline.

My friend Vanessa was up first because of the order we were in. Her videographer stepped outside the plane, hanging backwards for a few moments. I watched Vanessa moved towards the door and then WHOOOOOSH she was just GONE. That was the freakiest part, watching her fly out and spin so fast.

I barely had time to think about that because I was next. Shawn pushed us towards the door and I took a breath and then suddenly I was FALLING SO FAST. He told me when we jumped you were supposed to jump like a backwards banana, feet and head back and your body arched out and I can't even remember if I did that.  All I remember is nothing between me and the sky or me and the ground and there was this beautiful sensation of just letting go and feeling free. It was amazing.

My videographer was near me and reached out for my hands (he instructed me on this beforehand) so we could spin around in the air. It was the biggest adrenaline rush I've ever had. I loved it and never wanted it to end. We had the best view of the mountains and cities and open fields. It was beautiful. The freefall minute flew by way too fast and before I knew it Shawn pulled the parachute and we were just floating down. He would turn the parachute into the wind to spin us really fast, then turn the other way and spin us that way, and that was really fun.

He finally (for real) instructed me on landing. We had to lift up our knees to our chest and slide in our butts so we wouldn't hurt our legs. We practiced once, and then enjoyed the rest of the ride down to the hangar. Landing looks so scary when you watch other people do it, but when you're in the air it feels like you aren't going as fast and you have time to process it all. I picked my legs up just fine and we slid in on a sandy area and then I was up whooping and hollering because it was SO FUN.

I was the first to land and watched my 4 other friends come down and we just high fived and screamed at each other because WE JUST SKY DIVED AND IT WAS AWESOME. We took pictures and then finally changed out of our suits and received certificates for jumping.

The rest of the day I had to keep reminding myself that I just jumped out of a plane and free fell. We went out for breakfast afterwards and people would ask how our day was and we would tell them we just skydived and they were like, "What? Really!? That's so cool!" What a day.

Jenna and I waited at the autoshop for her car for another hour and a half and then drove back to Estes Park. We were exhausted by that time and I slept for an hour. I think something I had eaten at breakfast wasn't settling well so I didn't feel great the rest of the evening.

After dinner and playing cards, though, my friend Niek wanted to go camping so we dropped by Safeway for food and firewood and then drove out to Allenspark. Our normal spot was taken so we found a new place just inside the woods for a fire and tents and a hammock. I wish I had been feeling better, but it was a still a great night.


Sunday

Sunday we packed up early since one of the guys had to work at 8am. We went back to Hague and I stayed in bed until 2 I'm not even kidding. The nauseousness kept coming and going so I just slept until 2 then I finally got up and showered and went to the craft shop with Erica to finish my silk painting. Abby came in to work on hers too. I finally finished it! I messed up a few spots but was overall super excited about it!

Afterward I went back to bed because I didn't feel like I could eat anything. I met up with Abby again later with Vanessa, Cora, and Jeniffer and we went star gazing at the Sara Smith outdoor chapel. It was so nice out there, and we saw several shooting stars!

Overall it was a great ending to the fantastic week. I can't wait to see my skydiving video! I sent it home though since I'll be home in a week, so I just have to wait a little longer!

ONE WEEK LEFT STARTING NOW. 

Cartwheels, Mountains, & lots of Sand: Week 9

Alright folks, it's rally time. Week 9 out of 11 has come and gone which means there's just two short weeks standing between me and Texas.

Monday

Monday was GREAT. The day flew by because:

1.  Interviewed my friends at Sweet Memorial for their blog post. (You can read it here)
2.  Posted flyers around for the Craft Fair with Brady and we stopped by the Library. I had never been in the library here and had great conversations with the couple who runs it.
3. Lunch was nachos. Can I get an amen?

Monday night, you guessed it, was volleyball night! It was our final night of our last tournament so we were pretty pumped. We showed up and played well against the first two teams, making it to the championship game against my friend Jenna's team again. It was a close game, but they're team pulled ahead and got to 15 first. It was super disappointing after coming so close to winning again, but we were happy to play with each other one more time.

After volleyball I played BS with some friends in Hague lobby and then we got a bigger crowd of 8 people and switched to playing a game called Capitalism.

Tuesday

Tuesday I posted more Arts & Crafts flyers around the YMCA and finished up a few stories, like my Faces & Places of the Y stories.

Tuesday night I worked overtime to go to the International Fair hosted every year here.It was SO fun. I have so many wonderful international friends and I had a blast visiting with them and talking to new people I didn't know. I interviewed people from all over - China, Jamaica, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Spain, Iceland, Netherlands, Mexico, South Africa, Columbia. It was amazing to see all these cultures coming together, celebrating their traditions and learning about each other.

Afterward I had a friend date with Abby and Jenna where we basically sat outside McDs for 2 hours, then they did their laundry and we hung out another 2 hours, talking about everything from our crazy weeks and the best parts of our days, to leaving Colorado soon and deciding on coming back next year. It was awesome.


 Wednesday

Wednesday was good - I designed a brochure to put out on tables in Spruce for the Arts & Crafts fair. I also wrote an article about the International Fair, posted it to our blog, and sent it out to several newspapers like the Estes Park News. The YMCA posted it to their "YourHub" account for the Denver post and shared it with the ENTIRE YMCA. That was super cool because lots of my other friends came up to me and told me congrats about my article! You can view it here. (The more views it gets the higher up on the web page it is!)

I ate dinner with friends really fast and then we had to head down to the volleyball courts again for the annual Top Gun volleyball tournament that the LT program hosts every year. It was set up pretty much the same way our normal tournament was, but it was a one night kind of tournament so they started early at 5:30pm.

We played well but it was different because we 8 people on our team instead of 6 so figuring out a rotation was a little rough. We still had a blast though and ended up making it to the semi finals and losing to the team that won the championship, so that made us feel a little better. (and their team has that crazy jump serving Romanian on their team)

Erica, Me, Matt, Ryan, Raoul, Jenna, Emily, & Dan

After the volleyball game we went into town, grabbed some TBell and firewood, and went out to Allenspark to camp again. It was just 4 of us this time but we still had a blast.

Thursday

Thursday work great. After work some friends and I decided to climb Eagle Cliff. As my first hike here, I was really excited to do it again (and the right way this time) We left around 6:20 and reached the summit at around 7:45, which is pretty great. We took lots of pics and hung out on top enjoying the beautiful view of Moraine Park. Once the light started fading we booked it down the mountain and reached the trailhead in 20 minutes, nearly running at the end. (I had a flashlight, but we really didn't want to be going down a mountain in the dark) I really love the Eagle Cliff hike because it may be steep, but you go straight from the YMCA, you don't need a park pass, and it's a beautiful summit for a short hike.

After the hike we grabbed some food in Rustic Cafe and then I played cards with a few friends in Hague. If I haven't said this 100 times already, I love living here. It's like college, without all the homework and all the fun of living with a bunch of other college aged kids. There's always someone willing to do something, always people going to town or going on a hike or playing volleyball. It's the best. 

Friday

Friday was awesome for 2 reasons: I found out that I won scholarship money through the Reush-Garrish Scholoarship essay contest here at the YMCA of the Rockies! So much money to put towards school and student loans! 

Friday was also the BIG day my friends and I have been talking about for weeks! There's this wonderful place in Colorado called the SAND DUNES and we've been dying to visit them. The only problem is they're 5+ hours away, so figuring out the right time has been tricky. 

We finally arranged it: Erica, Chandler, and I left around 3pm (they had the day off, I was close to 40 hours and left a little early), and the other car left around 5:30 when they all got off work. Our route took us through Boulder and unfortunately we hit all the Friday night traffic. Fortunately, I was able to try Dunkin Donuts for the first time ever and we were able to stop at the cutest burger place in Buena Vista.We finally got there at 10:30pm and camped out at a place called Zapata Falls near the dunes, set up tents. The other car got there an hour later and we made a fire and hung out awhile, then called it a night since it was late.

Saturday

The plan was to wake at 8 and get to the dunes semi early, but we kind of woke up later, hung around, then some girls went to town to get food and wanted to cook it over the fire, so we didn't leave the campsite until 11:30am. 

It was still gorgeous at the dunes when we got there and we had a solid 3.5 hours climbing, sitting, and breathing in the Dunes. We had more than our fill of sand. Fun fact: the Colorado Sand Dunes are the tallest dunes in North America. Cool right? 

Once the afternoon clouds rolled in (seriously this happens everyday. Always plan to do things in the morning here. Afternoons might bring rain or clouds or wind or the cold, you never know.) we decided to head out. We were going to go back to our campsite and check out this cool waterfall called Zapata Falls, but we were really tired and it started sprinkling so we decided to just head back. 

This time we drove through the Colorado Springs route, stopping in the city for some Buffalo Wild Wings and a break. It was a pretty long drive back (though not as long as the way there) and I fell asleep in the backseat until Boulder, then stayed awake until Estes.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip! If you ever have a chance to check out the Sand Dunes, it's awesome. Wear shoes and socks (your feet will burn in flip flops) and rent a sand board at the Oasis down the road from the visitor center if you can.

Sunday

Sunday I was able to sleep in a little, and then the other intern and I had to go over to Snow Mountain Ranch for this media event they were putting on for the new Tubing Hill.

We set up a conference room and made signs and waited for the people to come - the meeting was for a  group of Mom Bloggers with huge followings that they invited out to try the tubing hill with their kids and talk about it to their followers. Some of these moms travel all over Colorado and the country and are invited to all kinds of events and get sponsors. Can you say coolest job ever? When I'm a mom, I know what I'm doing. (haha).

They had a cookout and a hayride and a campfire and the kids had a BLAST. It was so fun hanging out with the families and getting to know the kids. 

The next day we got to do something super cool....but you'll have to read my next blog to find out what! (cliff hanger...bum bum bum)

The One with Lots of Jumping Pictures: Week 8

Week 8!? We can't already be at week 8. That means there's only 3 weeks left! I'm already having Colorado withdrawals and I haven't even left yet. (Does that even make sense?) Anyways.

Monday

Monday was busy, but the good kind of busy where you feel like you're getting things done. I wrote a press release about the opening of the Summer Tubing Hill at Snow Mountain Ranch (which opens tomorrow!) and posted it on the blog.

Martha, my Snow Mountain Ranch boss, had a few jobs for me. One was writing/editing a FAQ sheet for Central Reservations Office and the others were to talk to group sales and family reunion representatives to write blogs about Youth Retreats and Holiday Family Reunions.

 Monday night, as always, was fantastic. The Sandmonsters recruited yet another player (our other players had conflicts on Monday nights) and we played SO WELL.We played one team (can't remember their name) and then the Golddiggers (now called Scrabbits) and won both. The games only played to 15 which was weird but made sure you were on your A game. There's this hilarious guy named Sindesa that saw our crazy Hawaiian shirts and fit right in so he decided to be our team manager. We lost our third game to my friend Jenna's team, but they were really good so it was alright.

These guys are my faves.

Afterward we played ERS and BS in the Rustic Cafe. So much fun.

Tuesday

I worked on more of Martha' projects on Tuesday (read them here and here) and also interviewed the Admin staff for my Faces & Places of the Y story. I have several friends that work there so talking to people and getting pics was super fun and easy. Read the story here.

Tuesday I was going to check out the volleyball scene but it rained that night so I played cards with friends in the Rustic again (I got my international friends hooked on these games I'm telling you).

Wednesday

I wrote a story about an upcoming mini golf tournament at Snow Mountain Ranch in honor of the program director's son who passed away 2 years ago. It was so touching being able to interview her about why they decided to host the tournament and what they're donating the money to. Read it here. I also had a hilarious (to me maybe) run-in with an older lady in my office.

After work I ate an early dinner with friends and then we went to the Rock at 5PM for live music. We ended up hanging out there for like 4 hours haha and then went into downtown Estes to hang out some more. I ended up two stepping with one of our guy friends and played shuffleboard with these middle aged teachers in town for a conference. It was a weird night, but it was fun haha.

Thursday

Unfortunately I woke up Thursday with this killer migraine. I've only had two other migraines, one in high school my junior year and the other this past year in college. It was awful. I thought I could still make it into work so I got up and showered but was so dizzy so I immediately went back to bed and texted Andrew. He told me not worry about coming in, which was good because I ended up throwing up several times. I hate being sick.


It was so sweet how many friends asked how I was and came to check on me, though.

I spent most of the day sleeping and then a little time watching netflix once my migraine faded that evening (guilty pleasure. what else do you do when you're in bed all day)

Friday

Friday I felt so much better! I worked on flyers for the upcoming Arts and Crafts Fair, updated a yoga flyer, and Andrew briefed me on Hootsuite and scheduling tweets for the next few months. (SO EXCITED! Love the social media aspect)

Some of my day camp friends came to visit me that afternoon and it was fun showing them where I worked. We went to dinner together and then drove to the top of trail ridge to watch the sunset. It was so BEAUTIFUL.

Dancing on top of the world.

 When we got back at 10PM we checked out the 80s party the RA office threw and then I talked to a friend I hadn't talked to in awhile. Such a great night.

Saturday

I just love these signs.

Saturday my friends were going to Elitch Gardens in Denver but my friend was coming in later that evening so I wanted to be there when she came. I decided to go on a hike in the morning by myself - I'm so glad I did. I chose Sprague Lake, a 6.5 mile round trip hike into the park from the YMCA. It was long, but after the initial uphill part it was flat and a nice stroll to the lake. It took me about an hour and a half to get there, I hung out for an hour, took a lot of family pictures, and then made it back in less than an hour. (8:30 AM - 11:45AM)

It was the perfect day for a hike.

So hipster, I know

When I got back I ate lunch with a few friends, showered, started my laundry, then went into work. Since I was sick one day, I wanted to make up my missing hours and get closer to 40 hours. I went to go check on my laundry and then the receptionist left and locked the door so I was locked out! I called the operator and had to wait for someone to come unlock the door so I could get my stuff. It was hilarious/not hilarious.

I signed up to use one of my staff comp nights to stay in a lodge room at the YMCA so I went to check into my room, picked up my laundry, and waited for my roommate and her boyfriend. They got there around 5:30, we dropped their stuff off in the room (it had a queen and a bunkbed so we each had our own bed haha), then went for dinner in town at this fantastic barbeque place called Smokin Daves. SO GOOD.

Sunday

We woke around 9 and got ready for the day! They were hoping to do the zipline or the high ropes course, so after I returned the room key we went to sign up for activities. Sadly the ropes course was full, but we signed up for 12:30 ziplining and went to breakfast in town at a cute place called Molly B's and sat by the river in town. Afterward we went back to the YMCA for our ziplining session and we all got to go twice (and the rocks & ropes gal was super sweet and didn't make me pay since I was staff)

After ziplining we went into town again for Starbucks and to ride the Aerial Tramway in town. I've always seen the gondolas driving into town and was so excited to finally ride it up to Prospect Mountain! Once we finally got to the top we saw a proposal (and I was literally thinking on my solo hike how cute it would be to propose on a mountain. Although if that happened to me, I'd rather we have climbed the mountain together. Preferably a huge one. Maybe a 14'er.)

Anyways, it was a little cloudy but still beautiful up top. 

 

 We took lots of fun pics up top and had a blast watching the chipmunks and hanging out. The top closed at 6 so we had to wait for one of the last gondolas down since we hung out so long. They dropped me off downtown to meet up with my friends to grab dinner and we said our goodbyes. It was so great seeing Jess and I can't wait to live with her again this fall!

My friends in town were at a place called Bob & Tony's. I got an 8 slice pizza, gave 2 slices away, and ate the rest (I didn't have lunch ok! No shame.)

So that was week 8. Wow.  I made a list with some friends about what else we want to do while here.

Here's our (my) list in no particular order:

• Sand dunes or Longs Peak (next weekend) 
• Colorado Springs (Garden of the Gods)
• More hikes (Haiyaha Falls, Andrew's Glacier, maybe Mills Lake for me)
• Warped Tour & Denver (on Aug. 2 and 3)
• Breckenridge (long shot) 

There's so much more but I don't even know how much of that I'll get done. It's so sad thinking how little time I have left here. I want to enjoy my last few weeks and make the most of them though! 

So long for now, I'll be back to update you in a week!

WELTMEISTER:Week 7

Week 7 has come and gone, meaning I only have FOUR weeks left here. What?! That can't be possible. I still have so much left to do!


Monday

The weekends are never long enough here. I love my internship, of course, but there's so much Colorado has to offer and not enough time to explore it all. Monday morning started out as, well, a Monday. I started working on a story about the YMCA of the Rockies' partnership with the Russian YMCA and another story about the cabin adoption/donation program here. In the late afternoon we took the drone out to Mountainside for another run and we all took turns flying it.

Monday night is volleyball tournament night! The Sandmonsters, now decked out in new (thrift shop) Hawaiian shirts, were ready to play. Two of our players couldn't show up and one of our subs couldn't play either so we recruited a new player and just played 5 on the court. We played PODOH again and beat them, then played the Cougars again and lost 20-25. Getting so close!

Scrappy, Cannon, Viper, Fire, and Killa.

Tuesday

Tuesday I answered a lot of emails, posted a few blogs, and brainstormed new story ideas to write around camp. My favorite days are when I can get out and talk to people about what they're doing and why they love doing it so I'm hoping to do more of that!

After work I made plans with friends for dinner and then we played a very non-competitive game of minigolf, a silly game of tennis, and then went into town for our weekly dose of Hayley's magical icecream. I went to the LT service afterward with a few friends. The service was SO good. I love those moments when God reveals things to you when you need it the most. The speaker was talking about work - how God created us to be workers and Jesus worked as a carpenter for 20 years before beginning his ministry.

Wednesday

I found out one of my articles I wrote about the Navy IRT at Snow Mountain Ranch was published in the Sky Hi News! Read the article here: http://www.skyhidailynews.com/news/12134801-113/seabees-construction-mountain-snow

Laura and Andrew were in a goofy mood today - once they get going on a joke they're hilarious. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to work under them. It's definitely shown me a different side of the marketing/communications world. I once told someone I was interning with the marketing department and they made a face at me and said "Ugh that sounds so dry, how do you do that?" And they, my friends, are totally wrong. (Also I had never thought that before. Do people really see marketing as dry? It requires so much creativity so I'm not sure why they thought that.) Laura and Andrew get things done and do their jobs extremely well, but they also know how to have fun and be silly while doing it. I love that.

The other intern and I ate lunch with Andrew and we started asking him about our interviews for the internship- how many people applied for our spots, why they picked us. Andrew told me there were a lot of people who were really upbeat for my position but I had a certain voice and personality and positive energy that they could see themselves working with. That was super encouraging to hear, especially when I was getting bogged down with the day-to-day drag of office life. I told him I wanted to be out talking to people more and exploring the camp and he was like, Go for it! Do that and find more stories. So great to hear.

That night was half price movie night for Y staff - we went and saw 22 Jump Street and it was HILarious. The Y staff took up like 3 rows and it was great.

Thursday

Thursday Laura and Andrew had to make a trip to Denver so it was just me and the other intern.It was a great day though, I've decided to start a blog series on "Faces and Places of the Y" and was able to hang out in the day camp building for a little while and interview some people there. Because so many of my friends work in the Day Camp it was easy finding people to talk to.

Thursday night we played pick up volleyball games. It's always interesting when you have a variety of skills playing but it was still fun, I bloodied my knee up on a dive in the sand and everyone was like "Oooh Rachel's going hardcore"

Afterward we went to the Thursday night LT service and if possible it was even better than Tuesday night. The speaker talked about Leadership through Trials. It was a really deep philosophical kind of night, and he went into some discussion I had in my Christ in Culture class last year - things like, If God is all powerful and loving, why does he allow suffering? I love discussions like that. And the songs were on point - we sang Sweetly Broken and I'll Stan, two of my absolute favorites.

Friday

Sorry this week is so light on pics! I've been out doing things all week but haven't been able to get a hike in yet and I keep forgetting to take pictures at things! Friday in the office was great, I worked on a few projects and ate lunch with some Day Camp staff that were off work.

It was storming during dinner so we decided to wait out the rain and watch the Lion King. Can you possible picture a more exciting Friday night? ;) Afterward we went out to the admin front lawn and watched an ultimate frisbee game and played ERS (card game) with a bunch of friends. It was 10:00PM now, but the best part about being college aged at a camp full of other college aged kids is that 10:00 is still an early night. We decided to go out for karaoke night at a place in Estes Park and it was a BLAST. There were some people who sang so good! As for me, I sang the Backstreet Boys (I want it that way) and the Spice Girls (Wanna Be, of course) with lots of friends. It was a great night.

Saturday

Saturday was supposed to be a HUGE day for me. We drove down to Boulder to drop a friend off and then went to Longmont to do said HUGE thing. Some of you may know what I was going to do, but I'll leave it as a surprise because unfortunately it didn't happen. Just know we were there from 1-4:30 and the weather ruined my plans.

BUT. I had Chipotle for dinner again so the trip wasn't completely lost. AND. My big day has been rescheduled for August 2 so stay tuned!!!

That night we went out to the Rock Inn for live music and to hang out with friends 

Cora, Jenna, Austin, Me, Ryan, Jeanna, Bryan, & Niek. These guys rock.

Sunday

We planned on doing a long hike today, but since we didn't want to miss the World Cup Final we chose a shorter one. We ate at 7 and got to the Bear Lake Trailhead by 8:10 to do the Bear Lake to Bierstadt Lake trail. It was such a beautiful morning for a hike! Bear Lake is literally the easiest hike you will ever do (it's 256 feet) But it's an amazing lakeview in the morning.

After Bear Lake we took an uphill trail for .4 miles to get on the Bierstadt trail and then walked 1.9 miles to Bierstadt Lake. It was a gorgeous hike. Once you do the .4 and start on the 1.9, it's mostly flat or downhill which made it really relaxing and fast. We reached Bierstadt at 9:30 and hung out for 30 minutes, enjoying the quiet and stillness of the beautiful lake.

This should be in a postcard right?

We were asked to take a group photo, so I asked them to take ours

Here's the fun part. We started walking around the lake looking for the Beirstadt Trailhead trail but didn't walk far enough around and we found the Park and Ride Shuttle trail instead. We made it all the way down the mountain  and reached a fork in the road. One way led to the park and ride, the other led to the Beirstadt trailhead. We figured waiting for a shuttle at the Park & Ride would take much longer and we probably weren't too far from the Beirstadt trail head so we decided to walk there. Turns out it was much farther. (As you can see on the map we went 1.4 miles down the mountain almost to the Park & Ride and then doubled back 1.5 miles all the way to the trail head. We were so mad/confused/laughing hard when we saw that after) So we did around 5.5 miles instead of 3.5-4, but it turned out okay and it was a beautiful walk.

"You are here" = Bierstadt Trailhead

Bierstadt trailhead. Tired.

After we got back we ate lunch and then went into Reush Auditorium to watch the WORLD CUP FINAL! My friend Cora is from Germany and I had been rooting for Germany the whole World Cup (Thomas Mueller. Hello. Marry me) so all of us were super excited when they finally scored in overtime against Argentina! It was an intense game and both sides played well. Cora was soooo pumped and shouting "WELTMEISTER!" which means World Master in German. (How cool does that sound? I've decided I want to be a World Master in a different sense of the word.)

Our group cheering on Germany

After the World Cup we celebrated in Rustic Cafe with icecream shakes and then I was super tired so I took a nap. Later I went to the LT Worship service at 7PM and it was AMAZING. This whole week the LT events have been so encouraging and uplifting. We sang several songs I didn't know but I loved right away and sang lots of songs I knew and loved already. My friend from the Netherlands came with me and isn't religious but I was so excited he came and said he really enjoyed it.

Later I played ERS and BS (card games) with him and my Columbian friends and then a few others who jumped in. We played until 11PM when we were all super tired and called it a night.

So that's week 7. While it may not have been the most eventful week, I spent a lot of time with great friends and had a blast getting to know new people as well.