When in Rome (Denver): Week 4

I'm not sure how it's even possible, but each week keeps getting better and better here.

This week God has just been revealing himself to me and connecting me to people in ways I never imagined. I felt so blessed just to have this internship out here, but he continuously blesses me more than I deserve with more than that.

Monday

I felt like I hit a rut in my internship coming in on Monday. I'm sure this is what happens at any normal job -  it was just a mundane day and I was really aching for being a camp counselor outside playing with kids. I was also super tired from the weekend (sometimes I feel like I need a weekend from my weekend ha) so I was definitely dragging.

Monday afternoon, things turned around. We (the marketing team) went to take pictures of kids playing minigolf and we played a round ourselves. I ate dinner with a bunch of friends, then headed down to the courts for the first night of our volleyball tournament. My team (the Sand Monsters) consists of me, Erica, 3 guys (Matt, Austin, Ryan) and then a girl named Whitney joined our team since one of our other guys had to drop out. It was a blast. Seriously, competitive sand volleyball with great players and even better friends can't be beat. (And we won our first game!)

The Sand Monsters: Austin, Matt, Ryan, Whitney, Me, Erica

Afterward we just played pick up games with other people and then went to the Admin building to hang out. I had the best conversation with one of the guys on my volleyball team. Do you ever have those moments where you just feel the holy spirit moving? Man it's the best.

Tuesday 

Tuesday was good. I worked on several different blogs and my IRT Navy story. We had a skype meeting with Snow Mountain Ranch marketing to discuss the ad on the Lightrails in Denver for the new tubing hill (totally tubular! winter fun in the summer sun! lots of phrase brainstorming.)

Tuesday night we ate dinner with our usual group and my new friend Whitney, then went down to the Mountain Shop in town. The Mountain Shop is super cool - it's got a bunch of outdoor and athletic gear (I got my Northface raincoat there my first weekend for a great deal) They also have a super cool Rock climbing gym and I signed up for a one month membership. I'm kind of wondering what I got myself into because I'm super sore after one night and I didn't even climb that much. I think it'll be fun though and a great way to work on new skills.

After we finished climbing, I went to LT worship with a few friends (Whitney invited us) LT is a leadership training group that comes to the YMCA of the Rockies every summer. They work doing all kinds of jobs around the camp, but mainly came to be involved in project (small) groups, workshops, and worship services throughout the week. The service was great - there were several songs I didn't know, but I loved them.

Wednesday

Wednesday was much better. I finished my IRT story, wrote several other posts for Snow Mountain Ranch, ate lunch with some good friends, and then went out to B Dubs in Longmont with some of the counselors to celebrate Erica's birthday. I haven't had Buffalo Wild Wings in forever and can honestly say it was the best decision I made all day.

Erica is obsessed with mountain lions so I photoshopped her head to make it look like she's holding one and put it on her birthday card. She loved it.

The plan was to go camping after we got back, but it took so long to get back and then our group wasn't sure where the Allenspark campsite was, so we decided to postpone our trip to Thursday.

Thursday

Thursday was looooooong. Both Andrew and Laura were out at Snow Mountain Ranch so it was quiet in the office. After work I ate dinner with friends and then we went to the movies since it was half price movie night for Y staff. I finally saw The Fault in Our Stars - now I haven't read it yet, but I decided since I always read the books before the movies that it might be fun to switch it up this time. And the movie was SO good. Like the last half of the movie just had me bawling because it was so good/funny/sad/bittersweet/emotionally exhausting. Go see it if you haven't already. We postponed camping again haha since we're going to Denver this weekend.

cry cry cry

Friday

More blogging. More writing. More emails. And then: DENVER.

I was super excited to go to Denver with 11 other friends. After spending a few hours in the city with my college roommate on my way to Estes Park, I couldn't wait to get back and explore more. We left around 5:30PM and arrived around 7:15PM. We ate at Olive Garden (ohmygoooodness so good. There's only so much camp food you can take), checked into our hotel, then explored the city a little bit.

Saturday

The next day we went to the 16th Street Mall where the hundreds of stores and restaurants and Starbucks engulfed us. Afterward we went to a Rockies game! It was super hot, and the Rockies lost to the Brewers (9-4)  but we had a blast. My friends from Columbia had never seen a baseball game so I had fun explaining how it worked to them.

Mollie, Jeniffer, Vanessa, Me, Cora, Erica, and Jenna at the Rockies game!

 We shopped more afterward, went back to the hotel to change, then went out for dinner at this great place downtown called Pizza Republic. Denver is so neat because it has such an amazing night life: there's great music and lots of performers and entertainment. I met up with my college roommate again which was super fun, then I rejoined the rest of my YMCA friends to end the day.

Me and Jeniffer, one of my Columbian friends

Sunday

Naturally most of us were sad to leave the city on Sunday, but we were also super tired and ready to head back to Estes. We walked 16th street a little longer and shopped some more, then packed up the cars and headed back. 

This week probably wasn't the most adventurous or exciting, but my relationships with people here have just strengthened so much. I remember the first few days I was here I just kept praying for God to reveal himself and I kept wondering how he was going to do it. I wasn't sure what to expect being here away from the Harding bubble. It's been such an eye opening experience already. 

God is good all the time. He knew exactly what he was doing when he allowed this internship to happen and I've been so blessed because of it.

I Would Walk 500(16)Miles: Week 3

Hello and goodbye, week 3! The days keep flying by and it's already end of my 3rd week here. It's been my favorite one yet.

Monday

Normal day in the office. Started a new project for the higher ups examining marketing data from a survey they sent out to guests. I also finished up a few stories and posted them on the blog for the upcoming World Council. No big deal. Afterwards was dinner with friends, sand volleyball, and then my first night hike! We drove into Rocky Mountain National Park to the Beirstadt trailhead and began hiking around 9PM (3.2 miles round trip). It wasn't a super hard hike, especially because the moon was super bright! We made it to the top and just sat by the lake for an hour it was so beautiful. (I'm really upset I don't have a tripod here because night pictures are extremely hard without it) I also played around with light painting. (Still working on that too haha)


Tuesday 

Left around 8:30AM to drive over Trail Ridge Road (straight through RMNP - the most beautiful drive of your life) to go to Snow Mountain Ranch again. But this time it wasn't just for a day trip - this week the other intern and I got to stay there for a few days to help out with a few projects there. I LOVE SNOW MOUNTAIN RANCH. Have I told you that before? It combines all the best things about Texas with all the best things of Colorado and mashes them together and it's just amazing. Big, blue skies with mountains in the distance. It doesn't get any better than that.

Tuesday was awesome because we went white water rafting! I've never done that before, so I was really excited about the trip. After driving for 2 hours to get to SMR, we met up with our bosses and drove another 30 minutes to get to a town called Kremmling where the rafting company was (It's called Mad Adventures if you're curious).

We got suited up (HIMYM anyone? No? Nevermind) in life jackets and drove in their vans to take off at the Pumphouse launching site. We had two boats with our group and two guides named Cass and Jamie and they were phenomenal. The rafting area was Class I-III rafting so it was perfect for a beginner but still exciting. At one point they stop the rafts and left everyone get out and go cliff jumping which I did of course (thank you Heber Springs, Arkansas for preparing me for that) It was a great day, even with a little bit of sprinkling we got. After the trip, we drove back to Granby and ate at an Italian place (thank you YMCA for that treat).



Wednesday

We started at 10AM and had a few projects to do while at SMR. One was to interview the IRT (Innovative Readiness Training) Navy unit that works on projects at the ranch. (I have to write a blog for them) We also had to check out the archery range and do a story on that (unfortunately no one did archery that day) I also took a trip out to the new tubing hill with my boss and a local journalist to hear the interview. That was a great experience.

The best part was in the evening. Snow Mountain Ranch has a fairly new dog sledding program and they want to get more word out about it and show how they care for the dogs in the summer time. We took a trip to the owners house in Granby (city about 10-15 minutes away) and I learned a lot about Husky care:

• In the summer they take them out running on back country trails  a few times a week to let the dogs exercise. Sometimes they will also hook them up as a team to an ATV and let them pull it for a work out.
• Husky's prime running temperature is between 40 and 40: Below 40 and above -40 is the best temperature. Any hotter or colder than that will hurt them.
• During a race, it's great to have a dog that knows how to eat fast. 

We took two Huskys Tip and Ziggy out for a run. Tip is an 8 year old female who is an amazing listener (and therefore she makes a good lead) Ziggy is a wild child, a 4 year old male who will not stop going (like, ever. He'll push himself to keep going until he throws up) They rode in the car with us and gave us slobbery dog kisses. It was great.

Me & Tip & Ziggy livin life

Thursday

More IRT interviews. Then we had a photo shoot with some local kids for the new tubing hill advertisements (this was lots of fun!) We also checked out the petting zoo and the stables and said hey to some cute goats and horses. In the afternoon we went back to the Huskys and took the 4 pups (who are now a year old) to the vet to learn about their treatment and making sure they're safe to run. So cool.

Then it was time to head back to Estes. We left around 2:30 and got back before 5. I ran into some friends as I was coming back to my dorm at 5:20 and they were like, hey we're going hiking at 5:30 wanna come? Um, yes!

We did a hike I've been dying to do since the first week of being here. It's inside RMNP and connects 3 gorgeous lakes called Nymph, Dream, and Emerald (3.6 miles round trip). And there was still snow. EVERYWHERE. We were in shorts and tshirts walking around in snow and feeling great and it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Two of my international friends from Columbia had never seen snow before and were freaking out. Definitely my favorite hike so far and it didn't take too long to do either.

Friday

Fridays here are great for two reasons: it's the weekend (duh) and I always get out early. Because I work so much during the week (and especially this week at SMR) I hit overtime in the early afternoon so Laura & Andrew are like, see ya! This Friday was no exception, and I had a great afternoon going through my pictures and writing this blog (you're welcome)

Friday night I went out to a Mexican restaurant in Estes Park with 15 other friends. It was gooood. Afterward we went to a place called The Rock Inn Mountain Tavern, which features a lot of great local live music and a fun atmosphere for us YMCA workers to hang out at.

[Maybe I should explain that since there's only 2 of us Marketing Interns, pretty much all of my friends here work in the Day Camp side of the YMCA, doing everything I did the past 2 summers at my other camp. They sing and take them on hikes and ride horses with them and it makes me miss my camp and my kids all the time.]

Saturday 

True for any college aged students, Saturdays start out lazy and that's how they're meant to be. We slept in then grabbed lunch at 12. A few of a friends of mine and I wanted to do a hike but weren't sure which one to do. (There are SO MANY here) See a lot of the hikes are inside of Rocky Mountain National Park, which is easy to get into when you buy the pass and have a car. If not, you have to walk a few miles from the YMCA into RMNP, which sometimes makes a long hike an even longer one.

Luckily, another friend of ours let us borrow his truck to drive through town to hike Gem Lake (3.3 miles round trip). It took a little over an hour to hike up to the lake and then we rock climbed up the huge boulders on the lake to overlook the Estes Park valley. It was so amazing.

Sunday

You know what the best way to start your day off is? WAFFLES. The Rustic Cafe here does this awesome waffle bar on Sundays and when my friend asked me to go with her she didn't have to ask twice. Afterward we went to a traveling youth groups production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Hyde Chapel at 10. It was great. (And now I can't stop singing GO GO GO JOSEPH)

I called my dad (it is Father's Day afterall), ate lunch, then we rallied the troops to go on another hike. This time we drove past the Gem Lake Trailhead down to the Cow Creek trails and ventured 3 miles out into the valley to find Bridal Veil Falls. It was a gorgeous day for a hike - the sun was shining, the company was great, and (what I was most excited about) it wasn't a steep hike until the very end. Bridal Veil Falls is a beautiful waterfall tucked in between meadows and woods and mountains (6 miles round trip).

So summed up, I hiked over 16 miles this week, white water rafted, jumped off a cliff, played with a husky sled team, and explored the other parts of Estes Park.

Oh, and I fed a chipmunk.

 

It's been a pretty good (exhausting) week! Week 4 promises even more. Stay tuned.

To Boulder and Back: Week 2

Today (Monday) marks the day that I have been in Colorado for exactly two weeks! It's unbelievable how fast time has gone by and how comfortable I feel here now. The YMCA of the Rockies has become like a little hometown for me and it feels like I've been here forever.

My second week of my internship went great. I interviewed and met several different people for the stories I was writing: a school counselor in Granby for a training program he attended about preventing child abuse, a student who went to Prague last summer for the YMCA Europe Festival, and a woman who works in my office about a new summer attraction coming to the YMCA of the Rockies. I've had lots of experience between newspaper, yearbook, and PR classes with interviewing people and writing about them, so I've really enjoyed this so far.

The other big thing I've been working on centers around two words: World Council. You'll probably hear more about that from me later on. World Council is a big event the YMCA holds every 4 years in a different country (so think Olympics) and this year it's being held at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. Thousands of people from YMCAs around the world come together for a week to attend workshops and brainstorm ways to empower youth across the globe. (Did I pick the perfect summer to come here or what?)

So far I've been working on several stories leading up to the big week. One I just finished is about the Global Mission Network the weekend before the World Council. (It's like the pre-world council party. But it's more focused on the people around the world who love the Christian mission statement of the YMCA and want to come and worship together. Very cool.) Another story I just finished is about the Change Agent Program the YMCA does. Change Agents will be leading the group sessions during the World Council and attend conferences throughout the year about leadership and global relationships.

Besides that, I've been doing things that need to be done here and there, updating and printing hundreds of yoga class flyers, answering emails, and oh yeah did I mention ZIPLINING?

Me, Brady, & the two zipline gurus up high

I officially have the coolest internship ever. (We're off the boring mundane internship stuff now. Thanks for hanging in there.) Last Thursday my bosses (Laura and Andrew, who are both hip-to-the-rhyme cool marketing people) asked Brady (the other intern) and I how we felt about going ziplining and getting new video footage of it.

UM, YEAH I THINK I'M OKAY WITH THAT.

Me & Laura my boss

I've never been ziplining before (I've done those dive-bomber things at Six Flags that drops and swings you though, that's close right?) so I was super excited! They let us do it 3 times and Brady used a GoPro to film as we went and I used my phone and it was the best day ever.

Last week I also went into town (Estes Park about 5 minutes away) several times for shopping trips and ice cream stops, played sand volleyball about 20 more times, made 100,000 more friends, and went hiking again!

Ice cream tip to townnn

Friday night I set out with 8 other friends to hike Cub Lake after dinner. We started around 7 and reached the lake around 8:20ish. It was a great hike with awesome views (let's be real, there isn't a hike here without a great view) It was different that Eagle Cliff where it wasn't an actual steep mountain to climb, but more of a long trail you followed up into the foothills, slowly gaining altitude. We kept going another mile to reach a place called The Pool, which was really just a waterfall and little bridge. Around 8:45 light was fading and we decided to head back (it was completely dark at like 9:15) and made it back to the cars around 10PM. Overall, it was around a 5 mile hike and we had a blast.

The beginning of the hike

Cub Lake with the crew

Saturday we slept in and enjoyed not waking up at 7:30 (my life everyday M-F) ate lunch around 11:30, then left at 1PM for a trip to Boulder. It took about an hour to drive there (and what a gorgeous drive it is) and we had the best time shopping around 29th street, eating real non-dining hall food, and enjoying the city. Boulder's a really cool city with so many things to do and not enough time to do it.

Sunday was a lazy day. I napped and caught up on shows (guilty) and then we ate dinner, played a little volleyball, threw a surprise party for a friend and played mini-golf. Mini-golf was a great idea at 8:30 at night until we stepped outside an it was 42 DEGREES. It is JUNE can someone please tell me why I'm freezing? Definitely a change from warm Texas nights. It's weird. We stuck it out and played a few holes and then we went inside to get away from the cold.

My friend Tristan's birthday selfie. I'm in red in the back

Overall it was a great week. Looking forward to what week 3 will bring!

Follow my instagram to check out my ziplining video and other cool Colorado pics.

Hello land of 8,000 Elk

So here it is.

I'm interning for the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park as their Communications/Marketing intern. I flew out of DFW May 26 to begin my summer adventure, was picked up by my wonderful Harding roommate and spent the day in Denver, then completed check in at the Y in the late afternoon.

I fell in love with Colorado from day one. How could you not with a view like this?

My first day of my internship was great: on my desk I found my computer (with not just one but two moniters, much wow) my internship project list, my new email info, and all the passwords to the YMCA of the Rockies social media. Pretty sweet.

My internship tasks include answering the general YMCA info email account, updating the website, taking pictures and uploading them to the website, writing blog posts and news releases for the YMCA and local media, developing social media schedules, responding to donor requests and coordinating monthly email blasts.

I get to do all this and enjoy the beautiful state of Colorado.

I love it I love it I love it.

The first couple of days were just like freshman year in college all over again: new roommates, new campus, new dining hall (but same kind of food) and a 6 hour orientation (woo).

Despite all the differences, I know I'm going to love my summer at this camp. Thursday night was spent playing sand volleyball for 2 hours next to the Rocky Mountains, Saturday was spent thrift shopping in town (Estes Park is the absolute cutest) playing more sand volleyball, and going to the staff karaoke night, and Sunday was church and then hiking my very first Colorado mountain: Eagle Cliff.

Funny story (not so funny story), we were told there was no trail to get up Eagle Cliff, you just made your way up the mountain. Whoever they were, they lied. We found the trail... on the way down. So we forged our own way up the other side of the mountain and I'm extremely proud of this.

Yesterday was another big adventure. We drove on Trail Head Road through the Rocky Mountain National Park to get to the other YMCA park (Snow Mountain Ranch) and wow. No words. So amazing. It took about two hours to get to Snow Mountain Ranch and another two hours to get back to Estes Park, but it was well worth the drive. We saw the Milner Pass Continental Divide, the point where the river drainage to the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean is split.

I can't wait to see what the rest of the summer holds. (Probably 8,000 more elk. The elk are everywhere here.)

To check out some of the blogs I've written for the YMCA click here.

Follow my Colorado adventure on instagram as well: rachel_dub22 or check out #texantakescolorado