"Our Hike" for Bone Marrow Disease

Why do I run?

2011-10-12T08:58:00.000-05:00

I went for a run last night and my thoughts wandered, as they usually do. But I felt clear and happy with where they led me, so I thought I would record it.

Why do I run?

To remind myself that I am in remission and because I can.

Runners are asked that question all the time -- by friends, family, internet forums, magazines… and for me, mostly myself! Why the heck DO I run? I’ve thought about what my answer to that question is, and my first thoughts are usually, “to stay in shape, keep from being overweight again, and being physically fit for backpacking – cross training for it, in a sense.”

Well, I struggled through what turned out to be an allergy/cold combination last week, but before I knew what it was, I found myself feeling nervous. I was lightheaded and fatigued. I actually “felt” like my blood counts may have been low. I felt that strange fatigue in my legs and throughout my body that reminded me of when I was sick. I was also feeling congested, so I kept making the excuse that it was all because I simply wasn’t feeling well. In the back of my mind I whispered to myself that if I was feeling the same the next week, I’d make an appointment. I’ve made excuses in the past and let simple symptoms pass me by. Was I doing the same now? Thankfully I started to feel better.

I ran a little more than 5 miles last night, and it was pouring rain the entire time. It was a great autumn run. The leaves were flittering down along the paths and sidewalks I ran along, and at times there were bright golden-yellow trees that would drape over the road and made it feel like I was running through a tunnel of heavenly golden light – from every direction -- as the leaves on the trees were still yellow, the sidewalk would be completely covered and the leaves falling around me were all the same bright color. I actually looked at my skin to see if it was reflecting off of me.

The raindrops would land on my face, my arms, my lips and even around my eyes to the point where I had to squint a couple of times when it picked up, but the temperature of the water was so refreshing and cooling I couldn’t help but smile. My running clothes were completely soaked through to the point where I could feel little streams of water running down my legs and my back. There were puddles everywhere, and instead of dodging them, I worked to step into them -- jumping back and forth along my path. I even laughed a couple of times as the splash came up all around me. I felt like I was running in a dream. It was a great run, and I felt really strong. I felt really light and my breathing was almost effortless. I felt very much alive.

I thought to myself, “If I were relapsing, there’s no way I could run like this. Aha! That’s why I run! As a reminder!” I went on thinking… I guess the first place I’d notice a problem would be in my regular physical activity. So I guess there’s a lot of reasons I run. The ones I mentioned earlier, to stay healthy as long as I can to hopefully avoid relapse or other health issues, but mostly to remember where I was, where I can go, and where I am now.

So now when I ask myself, “why do I run?” That is my response. It’s a reminder to myself that I am healthy and that I am in remission from Aplastic Anemia… and because I can.

DAY #10: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:39:00.000-05:00

Sunday, August 28, 2011

DAY #10: HOME!

Well, I already explained our amazing breakfast! And from there it was a quick (4-1/2 hour) jaunt to Oshkosh. Randall, Leo, Rachel, Gary and I piled into the Vue again and made our way across the state back to home and went our separate ways. Everyone got home safe and sound. From there, I unpacked my stuff, threw all my stanky laundry in the washer, and laid my sleeping bag and jackets on my porch to air them out. Trip over… I was sad, but felt so refreshed. I realized I hadn’t thought of work the entire time we were out there backpacking. Just once, very briefly towards the end of the hike, when I quickly realized I had no idea what I’d been working on before I left… then I was distracted and the thought never entered my mind again until we were back in Wisconsin. Now THAT’S a true sign of a great vacation… well, one sign. The sore smile muscles (thanks Randall for that term), the tan lines, scrapes, dirty backpacks, empty bear canister, notebook full of notes and tons of pictures were also signs of a good trip. And the fact that I missed my “Beartooth family” the MINUTE we parted ways…

The Beartooth Mountain Backpacking Trip 2011:

The BEST Backpacking Trip EVER!

DAY #9: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:38:00.000-05:00

"Manhole cover" - size pancakes at the Pelican Cafe in Montana.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

DAY #9: BACK TO WISCO!

We woke up early (and a few of us tired with a slight headache) and head out. The first stop was coffee and gas. The next stop was a short time later at the Pelican Café. A trucker’s café. We ordered breakfast. Little did we know we wouldn’t only needed to order half the breakfasts we did. The pancakes were the “size of manhole covers,” in Randall’s terms, and Leo’s omelets was bigger than his head! But it is incredible what kind of appetites backpackers can have even a day or two off the trail! We wolfed almost all of it down before heading back out to the cars holding our full bellies.

On the ride back to Wisconsin we switched drivers much more regularly, and took turns playing different kinds of games and things to entertain ourselves. Mad Libs, crossword puzzles, Pac Man, naps… it was enjoyable.

We got to Hudson, WI at my uncle Jerry and Aunt Amy’s home at about midnight and we crashed in our sleeping bags on their living room and basement floors. In the morning we woke up to hot, brewed coffee, and an AMAZING breakfast! Eggs, biscuits and gravy, banana muffins, watermelon, orange juice. I think we all felt pretty spoiled. And grandma was there, too. It was neat to see all my hikin’ buddies meet her. She’s 92 years old and just as spunky as all of the Laatsch’s. We had a great morning.

DAY #8: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:35:00.001-05:00

Tired-out backpacks...

Friday, August 26, 2011

DAY #8: CIVILIZATION!

It was our last day in the woods. Margie had the idea the night before to give Gary and I the keys to both vehicles, since we can hike pretty fast, then speed out, shuttle the cars and meet the rest of the crew at the ending trailhead. Gary and I agreed it was a great idea and would allow us to get to Red Lodge sooner, which would mean grilled meat cooked and served to us quicker, too. Not to mention an ice cold beer or two! Or three… or maybe even four. Anyway, you can see what was on our minds the last day!

As we were packing up, we were all giddy and feeling kind of silly. The four of us girls got into a line and were rubbing each others’ shoulders when, of course, some comments started to come out about our positions, and giggles to follow. With us all making a few small hip thrusts, it just got even more funny. After our line-up-shoulder-rub, there was a comment of make-up on trail… which none of us used, by the way. BUT… the idea arose of using dirt for eye shadow. And Margie had a shiner on her left eye from her fall a couple days ago, so to match that, and to look “perty” on our last day, my mom, Rachel and I rubbed our fingers into the dirt and applied a nice, natural brown to our lids. Then took the classy “kissy face” picture.

We hit the trail right at 9:00, as we did every day – naturally. It worked out great. Somehow, every single day, we were all getting our packs on at the same time, ready to roll, around 9AM. We never really planned it or felt rushed.

I enjoy writing about the stuff I eat on trail, but my mornings are so boring. Oatmeal and coffee again… It just packs so small, weighs so little, and I never get sick of it! It’s totally my staple backpacking food. I mix up my own concoctions, too, so each day might be a little different, but I always enjoy it!

We stopped around 11:00 or so on a log where we could all sit down in a row. We ate our lunch and decided this was where Gary and would take off like crazy-hikers and try to get to the cars to speed up the shuttle-time-situation.

Once back on the trail, we followed a wide, rushing river for quite a ways, then we’d reach a nice built-up bridge to cross… then we’d meet up with horse-back riders, then another wide bridge, then people with smaller packs. We knew we were close, then! But what really got us is when we could hear vehicular traffic, then we spotted some cars through the trees. We were at the trailhead! So many bittersweet feelings… it’s the same every trip. It’s also the same every trip when you feel the excitement of seeing a trash can to dispose of 5 days’ worth of nasty tuna packets, used Wet-Ones, and whatever-else-stinky-nasties you had to carry out of the woods. And… a pit toilet. It’s not quite a flushy yet, but it’s still nice to sit comfortably on a stool without miscellaneous grasses and weeds poking you in the behind every time you squat down to pee… yet still… I wouldn’t give up those experiences for anything in the world. It’s all part of it, and I strangely miss it shortly after being out of the woods… every single time I go.

We acted quickly, as we were both kind of hoping we’d beat the hikers back to the trailhead with both vehicles before they reached the trailhead. We’d been hiking our booties off for the past hour and a half, and were convinced we were making excellent time. We even hoofed it full-speed up a giant climb!

We ran and got the van from the Lady of the Lake Trailhead, which was now packed!! It was the weekend after all, so I suppose folks were heading out for their extended weekend trips. I felt envious for those that lived near here… it was like their version of our “Porkies.” I think I might have to move out here!!

I drove the Envoy and Gary drove the van. We felt we were making such good time, we decided to drive down to Cooke City for a quick pit-stop. We ran into the gas station, grabbed a bunch of different cans of soda, a bag of ice, and threw it all in the cooler with the extra beer we had from before the hike. We refrained from having anything, as we wanted to enjoy it with the rest of the group.

When we got to the trailhead at Clark’s Fork, my mom and dad were sitting underneath a shade tree. We went out to meet them, and they said they’d been only there about 10 minutes. I asked it the others were far behind, and almost immediately I heard my Aunt Margie squeel with excitement! It was too funny… she must’ve seen the cars through the trees like we did!

Everyone gathered by the cooler and grabbed a beer or soda of their choice. It was soooo refreshing! We snapped a bunch of photos of the group, shed a few tears of pride, happiness and sad ones because it was all done… but overall we were all happy – and very excited to have a warm shower!

We piled in the two vehicles and made our way back over Beartooth Pass. We went almost straight back to Red Lodge and to the motel where we had our reservations. Rachel and I tried out the hot tub, breaking all the rules… we didn’t shower first (I know, it’s pretty nasty, but in our defense, the thing already had a ton of nasty-floaties before we got in!), and we took our bottles of Blue Moon with us after reading a sign that read, “No glass.” We were only in there for about 5 minutes, so we figured it was okay.

When I took my shower, I smiled at all the brown suds coming off of me. I love seeing the brown suds… it reminds me of all the fun dirt and earth I’d been playing in, and what a great hike it was.

We all showered up, then piled back into the van to Belfry, where we hoped to eat at a steakhouse and see some local pig races. Unfortunately the wait was an hour and a half, and we all quickly agreed that was way too long. We all wanted some cooked meat pronto. We made our way back to Red Lodge, passing by an abandoned mine, which was really cool. Once back in Red Lodge, we parked and walked down the street until we came across Carbon County Steakhouse. Without thinking, we filed in. We were seated, and quickly realized we were in a “fancy” restaurant. We also noticed from the price of the meals. Oh well – we knew it would be good – and it was! I really lucked out, too. I ordered the Sirloin, and the waitress brought me a delicious-looking salmon dish. She sat it down in front of me and immediately said, “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t what you ordered, but you can go ahead and eat this up while we make up your sirloin.” So I shared it with everyone, and it was amazingly delicious!! Everyone got quiet as they ate away at their delicious post-hike meal. Shortly later I received my second meal. Yum! Sirloin for dessert! It was freakin’ incredible, too. Melted in my mouth. On top of the 2^nd meal for no cost, the waitress paid for a dessert, so I ordered the apple spring rolls with ice cream. Ahhh, full belly!

After dinner we made our way to the end of town to a brewery. It was called Sam’s Taproom. What a super-cool place! There was a blind dog roaming around, a private party in the back, seriously-awesome décor, and the best backpacking group EVER! We all ordered miscellaneous beers and passed them around so we could all try. The bourbon beer was a big hit! You could really taste the bourbon in it! Weird! Rachel’s brother joined us for a little bit towards the end of our visit there, which was cool, too. We were able to tell him all about our trip and the route we took.

The bar closed at about 11:00 (I believe it had something to with liquor license restrictions in MT), so we all left and made our way back to the hotel. Rachel, Randall, my dad and I decided we needed one more drink, so we walked downtown to a little bar. We hung our for a while, joked around, enjoyed our beers, and stuck a buck to the ceiling. The bartender taught us how to do that… so that was kinda’ neat.

As soon as we were back at the motel, we passed out on a soft, comfy bed with a ton of fluffy pillows.

Saying for the day, by Leo (while still on trail, talking about what we’d do when we got off the trail):

1^st for thirst

2^nd for pleasure

3^rd for the buzz

4^th for sleep.

Yes, referring to beer.

DAY #7: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:33:00.000-05:00

"Man! Check out this nasty-ass scenery behind us... I can hardly stand it. I soooo wish I was at work instead!"

Thursday, August 25, 2011

DAY #7: TRAIL!

We woke up to a pretty big rain and windstorm again. I think we all enjoyed sleeping in a little later than usual… maybe just about 30 minutes worth. But once the rain stopped, we all rolled out of our tents and started our morning, which turned out to be gorgeous! The sun came out and dried everything up before we broke camp and took off hiking again. Breakfast was oatmeal with blueberries, and yup, you guessed it – coffee.

We were able to make our way up and around a cliff that was jutting down into Oly Lake (this was kind of becoming a regularly scheduled terrain-challenge for us!). We were all on fresh legs and in very good spirits with the clear blue sky and sunshine above us… and it helped that the valley we were heading down was PACKED with wildflowers and a couple of fun river crossings. The Crocs went on and made it much easier on the rocks. Finally, looking ahead, we noticed a well-worn trail. There were no cairns, which popped up every now and then as we made our way through the backcountry… they never seemed to make any sense… so we joked the whole trip about the cairns being placed by some evil being that wanted to mess us up! In all honesty, though, even though the cairns didn’t put us on any specific route or trail, it gave us peace of mind. I remember thinking, “Well, this can’t be the stupidest route to take if someone else has been here…”

We quickly realized where we were – the Rosebud Trail!! We were LOVING the backcountry, but tell ya’ what --- that trail sure looked inviting!! The rest of the day and the last day would be following this trail to where we had my mom and dad’s Envoy parked. It would require much less trouble-shooting, and would be a little easier on our feet and muscles… no more insane boulder-crossings. I think we all felt a little sad, too. Along this route, we’d meet up with a lot more people, and we’d sure miss the serenity and beauty of the true wilderness we just made our way through. But we were also aware that this was going to be an excellent part of the adventure, too. We hiked on down the trail with smiles on our faces. And the views certainly didn’t disappoint, either! Just because we were on trail, that certainly didn’t mean there was no more to see! WOW the views!!!!

We reached the high-up Fossil Lakes section. What an incredible area. We stopped for lunch, and the sun was out and felt really warm, so Rachel and I quickly jumped into action… we stripped down to our “backpacking bikinis” which consists basically of whatever sport bra and undies you are currently wearing, and without even thinking about it, we waded in and DOVE! As we came up gasping for air as our hearts stopped from the coldness of the water, we realized there was a huge drop-off and neither of us could touch bottom and stand up. While shrieking like crazed animals, we doggy paddled our butts off until we could stand again. I turned around and dove one more time. We washed up quickly and got out back into the sunshine, dried off and laid back to enjoy our lunch. It was invigorating! And, just before we got going, a little rain cloud came over and sprinkled on us. So we hit that window of swim time just perfectly!

After our stop at Fossil Lakes, we hiked on pretty steady. We were trying to make our way to Russell Lake for our last night of camp. We came across a lot of other hikers, campers, and fishermen. We were definitely on the main drag again. Everybody was super-friendly, though, which is almost always the case on trail. We eventually did make our way to Russell Lake, but it was a long day and we were all pretty pooped. We set up camp, spreading our tents over what we thought was two spots, and settled in. A campfire was going, and we were all starting up our dinners.

Then we experienced our first conflict with other backpackers. As we were setting up our tents, a couple of guys in the site next to us stopped over and were talking with my mom and dad – right as they were setting up their tent. It was a short conversation, and they shortly made their way back to their camp. About an hour before dark, they hung their food bags in a tree about 10 feet from my mom and dad’s and Margie’s tents. I was really irritated that they would do such a crazy thing! I avoid conflict as much as I can, but I had to ask them to move it. There were trees everywhere around us, and being from Wisconsin, we’d hung food in much trickier spots that the trees around us… it just seemed as though they could’ve hung their food anywhere else.

What we didn’t know was that the campsite was set up a certain way so that you could cook next to where you hang your food, and camp a distance away. We had half our camp set up in the “kitchen,” and were totally unaware. So we were wrong in how we set up, so we eventually had to move a couple of tents. Everyone ended up feeling better about it, but it was just a crappy situation all around. What I was SUPER disappointed in, was how one of the guys handled the situation. He became nearly aggressive after I politely asked if there was another tree they could hang their food in. He made a couple snarky comments… First he asked me, “Well, where do you plan on hanging your food?” as he looked around with his hands out (with about a million pine trees around him). I replied calmly, “In those boulders over there… we have bear canisters.” He replied back, “Hahahaha… nobody in Montana uses bear canisters.” Okay dude… whatever. I explained to him that we just came down from 3 days above tree line, and we felt safe having our food in canisters so we could stash them on the ground without worrying. Later on in the conversation, after things cooled down and we agreed to move, they explained that they were heading up towards Cairn Lake. We warned them about the snowfields and terrain, and they quickly talked about changing their route… then I asked where they planned on “hanging” their food… the snarky dude replied humbly, “Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that… that might be a problem.” I think that’s the first “meanish” backpacker I’d ever met. So weird and out of place.

We enjoyed the rest of the evening with our campfire and the sunset over Russell Lake. The sky lit up bright pink over the treetops, and come to find out it was the sun reflecting off a giant smoke cloud from a fresh forest fire over the mountains. So scary, yet so beautiful.

DAY #6: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:29:00.000-05:00

On our way down to Cairn Lake, before we realized we'd have to climb back up. It's okay, the smiles stuck, anyway. :)

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

DAY #6: NO WAY OUT!

Where we camped last night was this smaller lake with a giant snowfield going right down to and hanging over the water. At one point as we were all sitting there, we heard a big “Crrraaack!” and a “Sploosh!” A section of the snow cliff hanging into the water cracked and started to fall into the water. It didn’t make it all the way, but it sure made a loud, eerie sound. Maybe all our chitter-chatter and flatulence helped it give way. ;)

In the morning… I mean early, like at 2:00 in the morning, Rachel and I woke up to my dad yelling, “GET! Get OUTTA here!” … that meant GOATS!!! Rachel and I opened the flies on the tent and peeked outside. Two goats were roaming around between our tents looking for a pee spots to dig in. They like the salt. Apparently the baby one was digging around their tent where my mom stepped out in the middle of the night to pee, and the adult goat was sticking her nose under their tent fly and licking the salt off of my dad’s trekking poles! Too funny! Gary was up right away – he’d been so excited to see some goats. But when he got out of his tent, he realized the goats were sort of following him. He walked off a ways into the dark where we could no longer see him, and all we heard was him saying, “Hey… get…” then he’d make a fake goat sound, and you’d hear the goats kind of jumping around. Then Gary showed back up in our headlamp beams, watching behind him, with the goats still following him. He must’ve smelled like a giant salt lick to them! He was even flashing his headlamp at them saying, “Hey! I’m human!” I think that was enough goat exposure for Gary!

Then Randall and Leo were up to go to the bathroom, and I have the funny scene stuck in my head. Both guys up on top of the hill past our tent, their backs to us, hands in front of them… as they went to the bathroom. The goats came closer and closer to them, and they both started to shift very uneasily and started “baaaahhhing” at them and hollering for them to go away. These sure were some persistent ones! They were really fun, though. We all got good laughs out of our early morning visitations by the friendly beasts, and the baby’s “MEH” sound he made stuck with us the rest of the trip. At any point (which was VERY often) that we were scrambling on tricky terrain, someone would usually let out a little “Meh…” and we’d all laugh. Rachel kinda’ started that, and it stuck for the whole week. We were just wishing we’d had the steady feet like the goats!

I ate breakfast, which was oatmeal and coffee, of course… I never get sick of the stuff, thank goodness! After I was done eating, I washed my hair in the FREEZING cold water. I felt like my brain shrunk to the size of a peanut! Then I washed a pair of my undies and a shirt. They hung on my pack for the first half of the day until they dried.

Margie rearranged her pack this morning and was commenting how she felt much more stable. She was crawling over boulders with ease early that morning!

Everything went to plan that morning. Gary and I were scouting out the route to a saddle we agreed looked like the most subtle incline and decline down to Cairn lake where we hoped to sit and have lunch, then walk around and back over to the other side (where we originally were going to camp), and then on towards Dewey Lake and the Rosebud Trail.

We did great… until we started down the loose rocky slope towards Cairn. It was super-slow going anyway, since the descent was so steep – I would guess at least 45 degrees – and so many rocks were loose, and smaller… some sections of scree even popped up making it a little scarier yet. Gary went ahead almost all the way down to the lake – he looked like an ant down there, and we couldn’t really make out what he was trying to communicate back. He started his way back up towards a different hill that we might be able to cross over, and when he got closer I heard him say, “We can’t get around that way. We’ll have to go up and back down the other side.” By that time I already realized this, and was feeling nervous that we’d have to climb back UP that crazy-dangerous rocky slope. That would be the WORST! So I told the crew to hang tight, have a snack, and that I was going to go around and see if there was another way around. Gary took the high slope, and I took the low route. There was a sheer cliff that jutted down straight into the lake. There would be no way to climb around it. The only way to get around the cliff would be to literally wade through the water while trying to hang onto a wall coming perpendicularly out of the water. I saw rocks and the possibility of stepping through, but it looked like it dropped off, so I had no idea of the depth of the water… I was familiar with the temperature of the water, and that was nothing to mess with, either. It was way too risky of an option. The second thought was to ascend up a huge snow field, which was even more steep than the rocky terrain we were crawling down, and one misstep would send a hiker sliding all the way to the bottom, dropping off about a 10-foot snow cliff, landing right in the water with their pack on their back. At the point I decided this was also a way-too-dangerous option, Gary hollered down that there was no way to get around from up high, either. It was a straight drop-off.

I was making my way up the insanely steep snowfield to save some time (and unfortunately alert the crew that we had to turn around – UGH!), and I stopped for a minute to catch my breath. I dug little steps in the snow for my feet so I could rest, leaning against my trekking poles, and I looked down just ever so slightly and realized I was looking straight down (waaay down) at the water from between my legs. MAN! That was STEEP! A fear crawled into my stomach and up into my throat as I visualized my foot slipping. At this point nobody could see me, either. I was too far past the rock slope for those that were waiting to see me, and I was too high for Gary to see me over the ledge. I felt really scared! I said a prayer – out loud – took a deep breath and just took my time, digging a step for each time I picked up my foot. I eventually made it across the snow field with a sigh of relief. Until… I reached the end of the boulder field. The boulders were ginormous, and I looked down between a couple of them and couldn’t really tell where the ground was below them. If I’d slipped and a rock shifted, I would have slid down in there and been stuck and nobody would’ve heard my scream or seen me. It was a super-freaky moment for me. The rocks (thankfully) were very stable, but each step I took led me to a new crevasse in the rocks. I was soooo happy when I saw Leo around the corner. I hollered to him to have everyone start back up the hill – there was no way out.

It was a bummer to have to go back up that hill, and I had a sinking feeling having to tell everyone to turn around and redo all the work they just did working their way down… but it was the safest option. I felt good about the decision, felt as though we exhausted every possible option to save our steps, and I knew we were making the right choice.

Once we were all back at the top of the saddle, we met up with two other hikers that were planning on heading down. It was weird to run into anyone back where we were – and it turned out these were the only two people we’d see the whole time we were off-trail, which was really cool. We told them the situation we found heading down to Cairn Lake, and they eventually chose to go back and try to make their way around the other side of the lake. The area that one would normally take around Cairn Lake was covered in snow. Normally we’d be able to boulder-hop all the way around… but not today!

We all met back up at the saddle on top of Cairn Lake. We ate lunch, laughed and enjoyed the afternoon. Even though our group had to scramble back up a tough slope, everyone was in a great mood. I was just looking around and realizing what an awesome chemistry we all had! A situation like that could so easily make someone a little crabby… but not us. I felt so blessed and thankful for having such a great crew to be hiking with. *smiles!*

After Cairn the day just got better. We worked our way down a much more gradual slope into a valley spotted with little lakes. Each lake had an outlet that ran off the edge of a short cliff down into the next little lake. It was like we were taking giant steps down from lake to lake. The wildflowers were everywhere – and a quick sidenote: the two hikers we met earlier explained to us that one of the cool flowers we were seeing around – a white, upside-down, bell-shaped flower with purple stripes and speckles – was a rare Montana flower they don’t see too often. It was called an Arctic Gentian. We were even more careful not to step on any after we learned that!

Once we made our way down the valley, we all started to feel fatigue. We weren’t going to make it to Dewey Lake and the Rosebud trail, but close. We were all okay with that, too. One more peaceful night in the backcountry… we looked down at Oly Lake and decided we’d find a place to camp there. My dad pointed out a spot on the north-west side of the lake and said, “See that there? There’s dead wood down there to maybe make a campfire with.” Yippeee!!! SOLD! And… it was closer to where we were than the spot across the lake I was originally scoping out. As it would turn out, it was a great decision, because the scramble to the other side of the lake was kind of tricky, and had we decided to go on, we’d have been doing some of it in the dark. This scenario happened to us pretty much every day. It was almost weird… we knew when to stop, and it was also the best decision we could’ve made each day.

But, of course, the excitement still wasn’t over. On our way down to our sweet camp spot on Oly Lake, we came across a pretty waterfall… that we had to make our way down somehow. There was a steep, nasty-looking snow field we were avoiding, so we ended up taking what was probably even more dangerous than that snowfield, after looking back at it. We scrambled down a crack alongside the waterfall, and once I was half-way down I realized it was MUCH steeper than I’d thought it would be. I was first to head down, and there was a giant rock I was about to step onto, but before bearing my weight, something stopped me. Something didn’t look quite right. I tapped it really lightly with the tip of my boot, it gave way, and rolled down the hillside, crashing and shattering corners off of itself onto other rocks, before it smashed into the snowfield. It dug out a giant gash out of the snow, and slid the rest of the way down. The sound of that huge rock crashing, bouncing and rolling down that hill was really scary-sounding, but so incredibly awesome at the same time. It sure made everyone’s heart jump a little, that’s for sure. I think we were thinking, “That coulda’ been me!”

It took a long time for us all to make our way down the waterfall’s slippery, rocky slope, but we did it. My dad even stopped mid-way, put on his pant legs, and came down backwards, which I imagine was much easier on his hip (he had it completely replaced in March this year!!! He’s one incredibly tough dude!) That slope left us with a few scrapes and bruises, but once down, there were smiles all around and talk of war wounds to show off once we got home.

After our tricky slope, we worked out way down even further to a double river crossing that totally butchered our bare feet… even though Crocs can get slippery in the water, I vowed to use them for any more river crossings! At the end of the day, that was tough on our sore feet and our mental state. We were exhausted in every way possible. We all agreed, though… the adventures and views we’d had up to that point made it worth every single bit of it.

At our meadow, there was a rock fire ring already there, and plenty of room for all of us to pitch our tents. We set up JUST in time for a storm to hit. Rachel and I crawled inside and listened to the rain pelt on the tent (and we were staying dry!). The wind picked up and blew a couple of really strong gusts towards us, and the tent would lean one way, then the other. It held up perfectly. Then thunder would roll all around us, then hail! We just laughed at the crazy noise it all made. It didn’t last long, either. It was a perfect high-elevation mountain storm. Short, strong and really cool. We all made our way out of our tents after it passed and started our dinner. My dad already had a small fire going – I think he might’ve been working on it through the storm – because he’s just crazy like that!

For dinner I made up some mashed potatoes with real bacon bits. It was spectacular. I also enjoyed a cup of hot cocoa spiked with peppermint schnapps. Yummy!

Once dark laid itself down on our pretty little campsite, Randall led some of us up the hill behind where we were set up and showed us where the space station would show up in the night sky… low on the horizon. Sure enough! It came into view and ran across the sky at a pretty quick pace until it fell back below the horizon and we couldn’t see it any more. Right on schedule once again! It was so neat to see that stuff so perfectly predicted. Thanks Randall!!

With bear canisters securely wedged between rocks a ways away from camp, we all laid down in our tents and fell asleep to the sound of two rushing creeks off in the distance.

DAY #5: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:25:00.000-05:00

Our playground!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

DAY #5: MOUNTAIN GOATS!

So… Tuesday started out really, really early, but FUN. I awoke at about 4 AM to a “click-clackity” on the rocks outside our tent, and then a following “Meeeeawwwww.” It almost sounded like a cat. I whispered excitedly to Rachel, “CRITTERS! Think they’re goats?” She replied, whispering, “Not sure… sounds like it might be something smaller.” I guess we were both expecting goats to sound more like, well, a goat. She had to go to the bathroom, so she unzipped her tent fly and peeked out. “They ARE goats!!” We excitedly crawled out of the tent and watched them hop past our tent, jumping gracefully past us and almost out of sight around a boulder. I followed them with my camera, and they rounded the boulder towards Randall’s tent. When I came around the corner of the rock, I tried to snap a couple of photos, but all I got was glowing eyeballs and a fuzzy ghosted outline of a couple of goats. I watched them and tried another photo. The flash must’ve spooked them, because they took off running up the hillside. Well, that was exciting! We ended up with goats coming through that camp twice more that morning. How cool that was!

Before I left for this backpacking trip, I remember typing up a Facebook status that read, “I promise me that I’ll watch the sun come up over the mountains.” I held that promise. After the goat excitement, I crawled back into the tent and fell asleep for another hour, then woke back up, grabbed my sleeping bag, sleeping pad and camera, and found a comfy rock on the edge of the cliffside just off from our camp. I sat there facing East, cozy warm in my fluffy sleeping bag, in the dark with the clear sky chock full of stars above me and just zoned out. It was, well… ahhh. Just peaceful. Once the horizon above the mountains started to lighten up, I took a few photos. Before I knew it the whole sky had turned a pretty pink/purple color and the sky behind me was turning a faded light blue color. Then the mountains behind me started to take on the sun’s morning glow – a beautiful, indescribably golden hue. I kept turning around to look at the entire sky, the lake below reflecting all the colors, and the mountains that bowled up all around. I was in heaven.

It wasn’t long after I heard a noise behind me and realized it was my mom going to the bathroom! Haha! I softly yelled, “Hey, nice butt!” She let out a little “Whhoooop!” in surprise, then turned around and giggled. She had no idea I was there. I got up after that and joined the camp as another group of goats was making it’s way up the hillside just past our tents. We all watched in amazement as they bounded up the steep cliff and boulder with ease. I think we all had goat-feet-envy right then.

I decided to make up my one ‘non-oatmeal’ breakfast this morning, which was Quinoa with cranberries, walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, powdered milk, wheat germ… a bunch of yummy ingredients. It took a little while to cook, but it sure hit the spot! Also had my coffee, of course!

Once we were packed up and ready to go, Gary and I came up with a game plan. He and I were the quickest boulder-jumpers and hill-climbers of the bunch, so he and I would study the map and lead the group, splitting off when necessary to scout out the terrain ahead of us. By the time we decided the route we’d take, the rest of the group would be caught up and we could take any difficult ascents or descents together. We found navigating to be much more difficult that I ever expected it to be. In a lot of the place on the topo map that looked promising, we’d find a giant, steeply slanted snow field that met up with giant, sharp boulders far below. Think of slipping and sliding all the way down that snow into one of the rocks quickly helped us decided to find an alternate route. When the snow wasn’t too steep, it was pretty easy to cross by kicking in little level steps for our feet. A few of them were even level enough to just walk across… and it was usually a nice break from the boulder-hopping/scrambling.

This morning we first had to navigate what looked like a giant canyon on the topo map, across a river that ran out of Lower Aero Lake where we were camped. Gary and I found a pretty fun way down, almost switch backing perfectly down long, stretched-out boulders and patches of soft grass. Once in the canyon, we realized the river actually ran underneath the rocks, so we were able to easily get across… well, except that the boulders were the size of Volkswagens, so we actually used out hands for leverage in most places. Once to the top of the other side of the canyon, we looked over a new valley. Gary and I scouted a few places to get down into that valley, and his was sheer cliffside, so he met up with me and followed behind me. The hill was steep, but with rocks you could step down on.

Suddenly I heard Gary yell, “WATCH OUT!!!” I heard a rock shift and thought he was falling down towards me. My brain immediately went into “I have to try to catch him or slow his fall” mode. As I looked up, I noticed a rock about the size of a small dog bouncing and crackling down towards my head. I leaned over and watched it pass me though the air. The rest of the group was just over the hill, so they didn’t see what was going on, but heard it. Gary got down towards me and we were both shook up quite a bit. It took a while to get rid of the adrenaline rush! From then on we made sure to have a little more space between us. Just one of those things you gotta’ deal with out here, I guess!

And a sidenote: when we were camped at Lady of the Lake, a guy hiked by with a helmet strapped to his pack, and I remember thinking, “Wow, cool. A climber.” After the rock nearly hitting my head incident, I was suddenly wishing we all had helmets strapped to our packs! Thankfully that was the last falling boulder towards noggins on the trip!

We continued down a steep side of the mountain until we hit green and trees started to show up. We could see Sky Top Creek down below and decided to head for that, as someone pointed out an actual trail below! We got to the creek where the trail started, and sat down for a wonderful lunch by the rushing creek. I had bagels and hummus with Babybel cheese. I love hummus any time of the day! Some of us filtered water and some of us napped in the grass with the sun beating down. It was a beautiful day, and the streams coming down the mountainside from the snowmelt were scattered with splotches of vibrant color from wildflowers.

We hit the trail, most literally. It was nice to be on trail for a little while. We hiked up and up and up, following the creek full of waterfalls, and joked that it was “Cardiac Hill Jr.”. It was steep, but didn’t last quite as long.

Once at the top, we arrived at Lone Elk Lake, which was a pretty little mountain lake at around 10,000’ still. We hiked around the left side of it and crossed the wide, rushing creek at the north end, then worked our way around the east side of the next lake, which wasn’t that far… It was called Rough Lake. Appropriate!

It was getting later in the day, and we were all getting tired from all the steep downs we hiked on the sides of our feet, shuffling one foot, then another, then another, and so on. Then back up we’d go, huffing in as much of the thin air as our Wisconsin lungs could take, until we’d have to heave over our trekking poles, catch our breath, take a drink and continue on.

We reached a boulder field that we had to cross to get across to where we might have a campsite. Our group got a little bit split up, as Gary and I went ahead to see what the terrain held for us. The rocks were getting a little bigger, some were getting looser, and the hill down to a rocky creek below was getting steeper. Crossing these boulder fields really took some time because we really had to get our footing before taking each step. It was really technical and tricky. At one point I stopped and waited for the rest of the group to catch up while Gary ran ahead to scout out the next section. I saw Margie sitting down for quite a while, and I realized she wasn’t just resting when Randall actually turned around and walked towards her. They stood there for a while, so I dropped my pack and head over there. Turns out a rock – a big rock – let loose below her and caused her to fall forward. She caught herself with different limbs, bruising her arm in a couple of places, and landing on her shoulder and hip. She was really shook up… and who could blame her!? If she’d kept falling, she wouldn’t landed on a scree slope straight down about 200 yards into a rocky creek bottom. And with 40 pounds on her back, she probably would’ve done a little tumbling on the way down. Scary stuff! Sometimes as adults, I think our imagination for visually the worse-case-scenarios might be a little too vibrant for our own good… but we all had these moments throughout the trip… for some it was falling into a rushing creek, or sliding down a giant snowfield, or tumbling down a loose, rocky slope, or even coming face-to-face with a grizzly sow and her cubs (which thankfully never happened, by the way!).

After giving Margie the time she needed to calm down, she got up and we all teamed up to help her over the next section of boulders. Her legs were shaky, as were everybody’s at that point in the afternoon. We scrambled in a team effort to the next little lake, which was the bottom portion of Sky Top Lakes and found a really cute little camping spot with just enough area to place all of the tents. Whew. What a day!! We were all very happy and smiling at camp… and mostly just glad to rest for a while.

Our original plan was to hike to Cairn Lake and camp there, but the terrain was in control of our itinerary. We weren’t far from it, though, so we figured after a good nights’ rest we’d able to tacked Cairn in the morning.

At this point in the hike we started to notice a few elevation side-effects as well. Margie had a slight loss of appetite, but we all knew that was something to watch for, so she forced herself to eat her backpacking meal, and we all drank a TON of water. Rachel was suffering from a headache and a little dizziness, or just awkward-feeling-ness. Gary acquired a nasty dry cough that got worse when he rested. If I had known then what that meant, I would’ve been much more concerned, and wouldn’t considered heading down in elevation the next morning. High Altitude Pulmonary Edema has symptoms like dry cough and chest tightness… we didn’t realize this until after the hike was over. I’ve thanked God a million times for getting Gary and all of us out of there safely. I feel like we got luck quite a lot. The blessed boot pins may have helped. J

For dinner I had Mac & Cheese with tuna and hot sauce. It was incredible. I sometimes wonder if I’d eat the same thing at home and enjoy it as much as I do in the backcountry… ah, who cares. It was amazing!

Thoughts from today: This is the most technically difficult hike I’ve ever been on with probably the most rewarding views. Even though we’ve only covered about five miles, nobody except for the 8 of us will ever know what we’ve encountered and what terrain we’ve dealt with. Those 5 miles were more difficult than any 17-mile day I’ve done on trails. It’s incredibly humbling. And I am feeling incredibly hard-core and pretty awesome, to be completely honest. I think we are all gaining a confidence from this hike that will never be taken away. We are strong individuals, and an even stronger team. We are becoming a family very quickly, and the love I’m feeling between all of us, and the deep friendship give me goose bumps. With sensory overload from the beautiful wilderness around us… well, that’s when I lose the words to explain it…

Tomorrow… one boulder at a time.

DAY #4: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:20:00.000-05:00

That's Rachel, making her way up Cardiac Hill! Note the serious drop-off. Yes, it was that steep! It was an incredible challenge with rewarding views that made the climb that much more awesome.

Monday, August 22, 2011

DAY #4: CARDIAC HILL!

We woke up to a beautiful morning. Dewdrops on the grass, low fog rolling across the surface of the mirrored lake, campfire smoke coming through the trees in bright, foggy streaks… we were all in heaven. I think everyone had a permanent smile on their face. At one point during the day Randall said, “My smile muscles are sore.” It was perfectly said.

We all munched down breakfast. For me? Oatmeal and coffee, of course! We were all anticipating, if that’s the right word, Cardiac Hill, which we’d heard so much about. It’s a steep climb up to a saddle before descending down the Lower Aero Lake. I believe the ascent was around 1500 feet… but in less than a mile! Yes – pretty much straight up.

Our trail in the morning was pretty mellow at first with some beautiful views. We all ran out of adjectives after the first couple hours into the hike. You can only say “incredible,” or “amazing,” or “beautiful” so many times! I can’t even describe the prettiness we were absorbing! We came to Zimmer Creek and enjoyed the sound of the rushing water, and then we had to cross it. The crossing wasn’t an easy one. Some of us were able to rock-hop across, but others found it easier to take the shoes off and go barefoot to feel the rocks and get a grip before taking the next step. The water was moving pretty fast, it was knee-deep, cold, and the rocks underneath were slippery. But we all made it across with no falls. Whew! Excitement on day 1!

After the river crossing, it wasn’t long before we began up Cardiac Hill. It was difficult. We took quite a few stops to take pictures… well, that might’ve been an excuse to stop, take a breather and a drink of water, but hey – whatever works! The flowers were everywhere, scattered all the way up the mountainside – all colors of the rainbow, too! With the green grass, the colorful wildflowers, the whitish rocks and boulders – all against the bright blue, sunshiny sky… we had to take lots of photos!

Once at the top of the saddle, we all gathered in a flattish spot to have a break and eat our lunch, and Rachel and I laid out our tent to dry from the previous nights’ storms. There was a giant rock balancing up high, which I had to climb up to. From up there, I could see down the other side of the saddle to Lower Aero Lake, which was as blue as the sky. Perfect.

To my right I saw a giant snow field. I got this idea to go sledding. But I didn’t have a sled. Well, it was a warm, sunny day… and I had fast-drying hiking shorts on. I clambered over, sat on my butt, kicked a few times to get going, and Whoooosh! Away I went! It was so much fun, I did it another couple of times. My wet butt dried in about 15 minutes.

After lunch, which was a late lunch, we were off-trail for the first time and had a little trouble getting our bearings… well, we knew where we were, but we hadn’t figured out our “system” yet. We were also dealing with some crazy-steep snowfields that wouldn’t normally be there, and we were navigating a different direction that what we thought we would – as recommended by a passing fisherman that was just in the area. We scrambled through our first couple of giant boulder fields (there would be MANY, MANY, MANY more of these as the days went by!!!), and we crossed our first snow field. We kept crawling over small hills to see our descent down towards the lake. We were hoping to make it to the stream between Lower and Upper Aero Lakes, but instead, with noodley legs, we all settled for a really sweet spot just up from the water along Lower Aero Lake.

Rachel and I stuck our tent in a nice little cubby. It turned out to be the perfect little spot. Randall and Gary jumped in the water to rinse off. It looked, um, QUITE cold. I was quite impressed with their braveness.

We didn’t get any rain, and when the sun started to go down, the mountains surround Lower Aero Lake gave off a golden hue, the sky stayed blue, and the clouds lit up as if they were reflecting the lake in them. It was a gorgeous night. I had Chicken Curry and hot cocoa for dinner.

I really enjoyed the boulder scrambling, but could tell they became a challenge towards the end of the day when we were all tired. This would turn out to be something we’d figure out the next day, and work around the best we could. It was certainly not easy terrain to hike through! Beautiful, difficult, rewarding… but not even close to leisurely or easy…

I went to bed with a little headache, but figured if was from the elevation. So I took a couple Ibuprofen and drank a ton of water. I was hoping to wake up early to see the sun rise. I promised myself I’d watch at least one sunrise come up over the mountains, and I figured this was the perfect spot. I set my watch alarm for 5am and cuddled up in my sleeping bag and fell asleep.

DAY #3: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:15:00.000-05:00

In the woods, on our way!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

DAY #3: BEARTOOTHS!

Today was the day we were finally going to get our backpacks on our backs and hit the wilderness. We were all very excited. When we woke up around 6AM, we all walked out of the tree cover that our tents were tucked underneath from our nighttime setup, and we gasped at our first view of the mountains. We weren’t far at all from Red Lodge, and that is the last town before heading up the famous Beartooth Pass.

We all went through our packs and bear canisters one more time to see if there was any unnecessary items that we could take out to save weight. We were all feeling fairly confident in our packing and planning, so not much stayed back. We were all in the 40-pound range for 6 days in the wilderness. I felt comfortable with that.

A little sidenote: when setting up camp at night, you sometimes can’t quite tell what you might be putting your tent next to. As careful as we were about stashing our food to keep critters big and small away from our silnylon protected walls, when we woke up, Leo had a deer skull next to his tent, and we had sliced potatoes scattered around ours. Guess we could’ve slept with our food!

We hit the road into Red Lodge and stopped in at the grocery store. We all rummaged through for last-minute items. Batteries, souvenir $5 t-shirts, breakfast muffins, cheese, and Rachel even bought the cutest little apricot that looked just like a butt. We can have fun with just about anything!

Our next stop was the Yodeler’s Motel. We made our reservations for when we got out of the woods on Friday the 26^th. We knew we’d all want to sleep in a bed with fluffy pillows and have hot showers before going out for dinner. Or after dinner, depending on how hungry we were! The had rooms available, so we got that taken care of, then hit the road for the gas station. We fueled up our gas tanks, filled our Camelbak bladders and water bottles, grabbed our last cups of brewed coffee, a quick breakfast snack or two, then once again hit the road. We were on our way to ascent the Beartooth Pass.

The scenery was incredible. We took hairpin turns up the mountains, stopped at little pull-offs for pictures, gawked at the waterfalls waaaay off in the distance, enjoyed the bright blue sky, sunshine and puffy white clouds, and really had a great time with each others’ company. We had a great group, and we all already knew that we were all going to get along and just have an absolutely amazing time together.

We stopped at a little turnoff up high where there was a walkway and a lookout. It was the Rock Creek Vista Point at 9,190 feet. We still had over 1,000 feet to drive up before heading over the pass and back down towards where our starting trailhead was located. But we planned for two or three hours on this road, so we took our time and really enjoyed immersing ourselves in the beauty around us.

After coming around a couple of turns, we spotted the Bear’s Tooth. It’s a sharp peak, that looks kind of like a sharp tooth, coming out from the mountains in the distance. We pulled over and got a group picture. My dad found a snow field, made a snowball, and just before I took the picture with my camera propped on the side mirror of the van with my gorillapod, he threw the snowball towards the windshield, but it missed and hit the side mirror right below my camera. The snow exploded and went right straight down my shirt and up my sleeves. A perfect, unintended shot! It was good for a laugh. And turns out, I’d have my revenge on him later!

We decided to drive down to Cooke City for one last cold soda, coffee or lunch before we officially left civilization behind for 6 days. On the way there, we dropped my mom and dad’s Envoy off at our ending point, the Clark’s Fork Trailhead. We shifted backpacks and gear so that all the day bags were in the Envoy and all 8 of us and all 8 of our backpacks were stuffed into the van. We drove into Cooke city, splurged on our last citified treats, then got back on the road and drove up a steep, rough, gravel road to the Lady of the Lake Trailhead.

We piled out, got a few beginning shots, then headed up the road towards trail. We passed some amazingly super-courteous ATV drivers, and they even gave Randall, Rachel and I a quick tour of an old mine. That was a pretty cool start to our trip. After a river crossing, we were officially on hiker’s only trail. Aaaaah. Serenity.

We hiked through some beautiful mountain woods, and I enjoyed one of my favorite things in the entire world… the smell of the mountain air. Down in the trees its’ really sweet-smelling. It must come from one of the pines, but I just kept taking in deep breaths, trying to really take in as much as I could. I knew I’d miss it the minute we were done… but I wasn’t going to even think about that yet!

One thing I was surprised by was the wildflowers. I guess the weather is about 2 weeks behind, so normally the bugs would be gone, but they were abundant, but with the bugs we got some incredible wildflowers. SO worth the bugs! And the bugs in the mountain, like the mosquitoes, are so slow! Must be the thin air, but we’re all used to the Wisconsin mosquitoes, and we all felt like mosquito-swattin’ pros as we squished them in mid-air with our thumb and forefingers. Entertainment is so much more simple in the backcountry!

We hiked on until we found a really sweet spot at the end of the Lady of the Lake. We set up tents before it started to rain and thunder. Rachel and I sat down by the water and enjoyed the few beers we packed in for night #1 as we listened to the thunder bounce off all the mountains around us. It sounded so incredibly intimidating! We actually laughed out loud because it was so crazy cool! It rained on and off the whole evening, but cleared up just before dark, so we were still able to have a fire and really enjoy the first evening.

Margie brought out a gift for everyone tonight, too. They were hiking boot pins that she had blessed by her priest. As she was telling us the story of him blessing the pins, and the prayer he recited off the top of his head, she started to cry – she was so moved by his thoughtfulness and prayer that she could barely tell the story of the boots. It was really touching and sweet. We wore them with pride the rest of the trip and remembered the prayer that went with them. It helped give a little boost of strength when we were feeling tired at the end of the day.

For dinner I had Alfredo noodles with tuna. Other smells around the campfire were spaghetti, burritos, and pasta primavera. Delish! After dinner was all done, we hid our bear canisters for the first time in a boulder field outside our camp. If a bear were to mess with them where we stashed them, they wouldn’t roll too far. We were all able to wedge them in between rocks without any problem. I was kinda’ digging the simplicity of just stashing my food on the ground, rather than rigging up a rope in a tree. It’s just the extra 2 pounds of the container that’s a bummer!

After dinner and hiding bear canisters, we fought drooping eyelids to enjoy Rachel’s LifeSavers Wint-O-Green sparkalicious fun – then most of the group hit their tents. Randall stayed up and showed Rachel and I an Iridium flare in the night sky. He had a chart that told him what time it would show up, what direction to look and what angle it would be from the horizon. We stood and started at the sky until Randall exclaimed, “There it is!” We saw it light up, moving across the sky, getting brighter and brighter before it faded out and was gone. He explained to us that it was the solar panels on a satellite that was reflecting the sun. It was so cool to see it after being predicted from a chart!

Not long after that we also retreated to our tents and slept in the mountains for our first night.

DAY #2: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:11:00.000-05:00

Scenery in North Dakota. This is part of the badlands in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

DAY #2: DRIVING DAY!

We woke up at the campground around 4 AM. Rachel and I were giggling. It was our first night as tent mates, and it seemed we were going to have a really great time. No better way to share a tent with a friend then to go to bed laughing, and wake up laughing.

My mom’s cantaloupe was sitting on the picnic table and we all noticed that it had a rather ripe, awful smell to it. We knew it would taste amazing, and we didn’t really want to waste it. Margie had a cooler in her van, so we decided to place it in there to keep it cool if possible.

We started out at 5:00 on the button just as planned. Dad was driving their Envoy, and I started out driving the van. It was a very smooth driving trip, which is always a good thing when driving so far. At one point, we opened the cooler and could no longer take the cantaloupe smell, so I ran it and the plastic bag it was in over to the other vehicle and handed it to my mom. She giggled and took it with her. Later on in the trip we switched drivers around, and as I went over to the Envoy to ride for a while I told them they should move the cantaloupe to the van… come to find out, they already did -- the stinkers!! The first stop after we gave it back to my mom, they snuck it into the back of the van, tucked in between a couple of backpacks and never said anything! Sneaky!!

We drove through Minnesota in no time. We were all excited to reach North Dakota… it really felt far away from home. There were some incredible sunflower fields that we drove by. That’s what I mostly remember from North Dakota. Margie was telling us about how they bow their heads when rain is coming so the seeds don’t get damp and rotten. They are like little people out in the fields. I always knew they followed the sun, and we witnessed that as we drove through… and when a rain cloud rolled in, sure enough – they’re heads were all turned down towards their roots.

In North Dakota, we also came across a couple of areas of highway that were being worked on after being washed out by flooding earlier in the year. The water was still very high and coming right up to the edge of the shoulder of the road. Crazy stuff!

We stopped in at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota for a break and to get some photos. Some of us even spotted a buffalo with a fellow sight-seers’ binoculars (I was in the gift shop, darnit!) What a beautiful stretch of Badlands. So many colors in the land against the blue sky and white puffy clouds spaced so perfectly across the sky. We snapped a couple of photos and got a group shot or two, then got back on the road again. We were making great time, and I’m pretty sure that was due to our excitement to see the mountains and be that much closer to the backpacking portion of the trip.

When we got to Billings, MT, we stopped in at an Irish pub called Pug Mahone’s, recommended by HikerJer, a friend I met on the Backpacker Magazine forums a while back. Jerry was a tremendous help when I was planning this trip. He’s been exploring the Beartooth Wilderness for more than 40 years, so he was able to recommend some routes and give a ton of pointers about navigating, bugs, weather, camping, and all kinds of good stuff. I owed him a beer, at the very least, so we coordinated meeting him when we came through his hometown of Billings. He rode his bike out to meet us and gave us a few more pointers, and wished us luck before we headed out.

There was a campground he said we’d probably have no problem getting in at in Laurel, MT, which was not far at all from Billings. We stopped at a gas station to pick up a six-pack of local brew to enjoy on our last night car-camping, but when we arrived at the campground, we found it to be closed. This campground is right on the Yellowstone River where the recent oil spill took place. We didn’t mind, as all we wanted to do was set up tents, have a few drinks and sleep. But we had to head further on down Hwy 212 toward Red Lodge. There were two security guards at the fence of the campground that said there were a couple of sights on our way, and that we had to look for the brown signs with the fish and a hook. They were boat-launch fishing areas, but with campsites. We did end up finding one, and it was a pretty sweet little spot next to a rushing creek. It was dark when we set up, but in no time my dad had a little campfire going, we were sitting back enjoying our brews and talking excitedly about driving over Beartooth Pass the next day.

The cantaloupe was in the van and ready to be cut open the next morning for breakfast. We were looking forward to eating it, but mostly looking forward to getting rid of the smell!

DAY #1: Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:07:00.000-05:00

Friday, August 19, 2011

DAY #1: RENDEZVOUS!

The five of us Fox Valley folks met at my apartment in Oshkosh so we could all travel together to Western Wisconsin – Hudson – to meet up with the three others. We got going around 12:30 pm. Rachel, Randall and Leo sat in the back, Gary rode shotgun and I drove. Five backpacks and day bags filled the back of the Vue to the ceiling. We all fit with all of our gear and we were pretty comfy besides. Not bad!

When we arrived in Hudson, we drove to the Willow River State Campground where I made reservations for Friday night. At the campground, we met up with my mom and dad (Keith and Patty) and their cantaloupe (which I’ll tell more about later!), said our “hellos” and drove off to my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Amy’s home in North Hudson. My aunt Margie was there waiting for us. She was also going to be backpacking with us, and drove her conversion van up from near St. Louis where she lives.

Jerry and Amy were preparing for a weekend of Pepper Fest, but were so kind as to treat all of us to a yummy homemade ravioli dinner. It was delicious! We sat around, ate and chatted. Jerry and Amy also arranged for us to park the Vue at a relative’s home so we wouldn’t have to worry about it being parked in a public lot or the campground. That was really great!

After moving the Vue, we all set off back to the campground where we crashed for the night, with the plan of being in the vehicles (Margie’s conversion van and my mom and dad’s Envoy), rolling at 5:00 AM sharp. We were hoping to make it past Billings, MT and camping before heading up the Beartooth Pass on Sunday.

Beartooth Mountains Backpacking Trip

2011-09-02T20:05:00.000-05:00

The group with the Bear's Tooth in the background that gives the wilderness area its name (yep, the Bear's Tooth is that little sharp one right in the middle).

From left to right: Margie, Rachel, Gary, Patty, Keith, Leo, Robin, Randall

This is the intro entry for my journal from my 2011 Backpacking Trip to the Beartooth Wilderness in Montana. Seven others joined me, and it was a freakin' blast!

We titled it: The Best Backpacking Trip EVER!

The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness

August 19 – August 28, 2011

The crew:

Robin Grapa (me)

Rachel Seppi (friend from local meetup group and running pal)

Patty Laatsch (my mom)

Keith Laatsch (my dad)

Gary Nickel (friend from local meetup group)

Margie Brandenburg (my aunt)

Leo Cepoi (friend from local meetup group)

Randall Schultz (friend from local meetup group)

You will see a series of posts by day, and I will post them starting with day #1, so you may have to scroll down and start at the bottom... or read backwards. Whatever floats yer' boat. I'd be excited to hear it's been read!

Actually, the major reason I journal my trips is because I forgot so much... I have a pretty awful memory, and when I come back to read these entries, it all comes flooding back to me and I can almost place myself back there for a few moments... and I love doing that every once in a while. But if someone else gets in here and reads and enjoys it, then it just makes it that much better. I hope you enjoy following our trip... in my words... ;)

Horse vs. Rabbit

2011-08-11T15:05:00.000-05:00

No, my post is not about a race between a horse and a rabbit. Well, I guess it could be if you look at it from a weird angle... but this is actually a post about my bone marrow.

As many of you reading this know, I was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia in 1997, right in the beginning of my first semester of college at UWSP. I lived on the 2nd floor of the dorms, and I remember starting up the stairs to go to my room, and about 4 or 5 steps in, I felt very sluggish. My legs felt like they weighed 3 tons each, and I labored to lift them up each step. I got to the landing on the 2nd floor, and my legs gave out and I landed on my knees. I looked down at the floor in shame, shook my head in disgust and thought to myself, "I have GOT to get in better shape. This is rediculous."

I wasn't in that bad of shape at the time, actually. What I didn't know at the time, was that my bone marrow stopped making blood. My red blood cells had dropped and were not carrying the normal amount of oxygen through my body, making me very lethargic. I'd been tired a lot before this stairs issue. But when you go into a clinic as a freshman in college (or a high school student) and tell the doctor you're tired a lot, they will pretty much giggle and say, "get more sleep." It makes sense, I suppose. Staying up late with friends, doing homework, whatever... Well, unfortunately in my case, that wasn't the cause of tiredness!

When I was first diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia, I was told that I was young enough (18 years old) that this "thing" could turn around and be fine. The hematologist I saw at the time told me to go home and continue with my normal life, get my blood drawn regularly so they can monitor my levels, and come back in a few months. So I did. I wasn't hearing anything from anyone about my levels, so I kept busy with my new college life and didn't worry about it. I didn't actually realize at that time what sort of impact this was having on me -- and what sort of impact it would have on the rest of my life.

When I went to the hematology department a few months later for my checkup, I assumed everything was okay. Or the same. But it wasn't. I had a new hematologist, and after sitting in the waiting room for a while, the nurse called us into a conference room. It wasn't a clinic room, like you would normally be brought into. My mom and I sat down at the table (the only reason my dad didn't go was because we hadn't heard anything and assumed everything was okay). The doctor was very to-the-point and let us know that my counts had dropped significantly, I would need blood transfusions right away, and treatment for the Aplastic Anemia as soon as possible.

It's funny the things you say when you're confused, scared, or nervous. My reaction was, "I can't do that, I don't have time. I'm in college."

By that time, the end of my first semester wasn't too far off. So I received some transfusions and they sent me to Mayo Clinic for some more tests, to get me on the Bone Marrow Registry, and to discuss treatment options. I was going to need to receive treatment that summer at the latest.

Oh, and a fun little sidenote: When you have "gotten used to" not having any red blood, then you receive 3 pints of the stuff -- it's like freakin' DRUGS. I was bouncing off the walls... well, more literally, running though the hallways in the hotel we were staying at! It was incredible!!

Treatment options were limited to (1) Bone Marrow Transplant or (2) Antithymocyte Globulin (ATG). My brother was tested as a potential match for a bone marrow transplant, but unfortunately he wasn't a match. At the time, my possibility of surviving the transplant with an unrelated donor was a pretty low percentage, so we decided to go with the ATG. This was not a "cure" like a Bone Marrow Transplant would be, but instead could potentially put me into remission.

Which it did. I received the Horse ATG. It's a treatment derived from horse's blood, and I couldn't tell you how it works exactly, but the best way I've heard it described is that it shuts down your bone marrow, then restarts it. So my computer was shut down and rebooted. My battery was drained and then jump-started. However you wanna look at it, I restarted and have been doing good since.

It wasn't an easy road... I almost lost my life after experiencing a sever side-effect of the treatment. I had several major seizures and was air-lifted to the hospital in Marshfield where I was placed in the ICU and actually read my last rites by a priest. When I came to, I couldn't remember my birthday, who the president was, or some simple math. But after a few days I regained that memory and was told by the neurologist that I shouldn't experience any permanent damage.

There are two types of ATG -- one derived from horses, and one from rabbits. And the AA&MDSIF just put out an email talking about a study that was done between the two treatments... and that the horse has been more successful than the rabbit. It's hard to think of whether or not you might live or die based on a percentage, but sadly, some people are stuck making a decision -- I went with 80% instead of 60%. And you just can't think about it too hard -- you just can't think about which bracket you're going to fall into... you just have to shrug, smile and say, "Eh... I've got this." For me, mentally, that's all I had to work from.

Thanks to God, my doctors, nurses, mom, dad, friends, family... I made it. And I always stress that I didn't do it alone. It was "our journey." And I could never, ever, in any way whatsoever, say "thank-you" to those that got me through this in a way that would mean it as much as I want to mean it. Humbling.

Oh... and dare I forget to say thanks to whatever horse(s) were involved, too. And thanks to ALL the horses and rabbits that are helping so many others. Right now, sounds like the horse is in the lead, but they're both working harder than ever, and still saving people, so way to go Horses and Rabbits!!!! I'm rootin' for ya' both! :)

Closer to Love

2011-03-14T13:37:00.000-05:00

Closer to Love by Mat Kearney

She got the call today
One out of the gray
And when the smoke cleared
It took her breath away

She said she didn't believe
It could happen to me
I guess we're all one phone call
from our knees
We're gonna get there soon

If every building falls
And all the stars fade
We'll still be singing this song
The one they can't take away

I'm gonna get there soon
She's gonna be there too
Cryin' in her room
Prayin' Lord come through
We're gonna get there soon

Oh it's your light
Oh it's your way
Pull me out of the dark
Just to show me the way
Cryin out now
From so far away
You pull me closer to love
Closer to love

Meet me once again
Down off Lake Michigan
Where we could feel the storm blowin
Down with the wind
And don't apologize
For all the tears you've cried
You've been way too strong now for all your life

I'm gonna get there soon
You're gonna be there too
Cryin' in your room
Prayin' Lord come through
We're gonna get there soon

Oh it's your light
Oh it's your way
Pull me out of the dark
Just to show me the way
Cryin out now
From so far away
You pull me closer to love
Closer to love

Cause you are all that I've waited for
All of my life
(We're gonna get there)
You are all that I've waited for
All of my life

You pull me closer to love hu huuh
Closer to love hu huuuh
Pull me closer to love
You pull me closer to love
Closer to love oh no
Closer to love
Closer to love

Pull me closer to love

Motivation

2010-12-14T17:00:00.001-06:00

I've encountered a recent issue with motivation loss. I'm not yet sure where it's stemming from. It could be one of several things, or a combination of them all. Or maybe I'm just getting lazy! Or going crazy!

First of all, I've decided to take a break from training for anything, and that is weird for me. I'm almost always pushing myself toward some crazy goal, and right now I've got nothing on my schedule for races (except for walking the 5K with Adam on Feb 13!). This has been, and still is a pretty major adjustment. Second, it's December. It's cold outside, which I don't mind at all, but maybe my body is telling me to sleep more, eat more and move less. This is bringing on a slight weight-gain, which is only a few pounds at the moment, but it's something I need to control before it gets out of hand. It's a big part of my feeling bummed out... I really don't feel like buying bigger pants! This December is just providing me with some on-and-off blues. Finances, traveling, cookies, tight clothes... all these things bring on a little extra stress.

What it comes down to is that my mood is not a cheerful one right now, and I don't quite understand why that is... and I don't like it. I am already frustrated with myself for trying to find excuses for it... and because I find that I'm feeling sorry for myself. I need to find my stubborn switch, say to hell with always trying to interpret the "reason" for everything and just "do what I need to do to get done what I need to get done."

I've almost got it. I can almost feel stubborn-mode kicking in, but then it fades back... I've got to find a way to hold on to that.

I've come up with an idea. It's just a simple workout schedule for me to follow after the new year. I will keep up with what I'm doing now, but once my Monday night class at FVTC is done (next Monday is my last class - yippee!), I'll be able to go back to kickboxing. I'm pumped about that!

I've got more to work on -- not just my workout routine, but I find that some sort of routine or schedule usually puts me back in alignment and I can get a ton more accomplished throughout the week. So here goes. I'm writing it down for everyone to see. This will hold me accountable and hopefully I'll stick to it... and if I do stick to it, I should be able to jump into the Oshkosh 1/2 marathon without a problem if I feel up for it. But -- I'm not training for it. I'm just picking my running back up again... it makes me feel good and makes me work really hard... I didn't realize how much I loved running until I stopped doing it!

Monday - Kickboxing
Tuesday - Run
Wednesday - Spin
Thursday - Run
Friday - Aerobics/Weights
Saturday/Sunday - Day off/Run

I might switch it up a little here and there once I get into it, but it's a base for me to start on. I might be really crazy and continue my Monday morning spin class AND do kickboxing in the evenings, but we shall see. As long as I get around 3 runs/week in, some weight training and cross-training, I'll be a happy camper.

I'd still like to get into swimming, too. That's a really tough one for me to start...

Then... then... winter projects, camping, hiking in the snow, sledding, walking with Adam, movies, websites, goals, dreams... there's just so much to do. I can't do it moping around with my head hanging low and a bummed-out pout on my face!!

(There... I've almost got it. I can almost reach that stubborn switch!)

Passenger Seat

2010-12-14T12:08:00.001-06:00

It's one of them songs that makes me feel at complete peace.

It's "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie

I listened to this song a lot when I was hiking across America in 2006, and just daydreamed about Adam picking me up in California and driving me home. I love to bring myself back into that dream and just stay there as long as I can.

One day I might get my head out of the clouds... but hopefully that never happens. I love to dream. Sometimes it seems as though it's the only thing I've got.

I roll the window down
And then begin to breathe in
The darkest country road
And the strong scent of evergreen
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes and try
To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

"Do they collide?"
I ask and you smile.
With my feet on the dash
The world doesn't matter.

When you feel embarrassed then I'll be your pride
When you need directions then I'll be the guide
For all time.
For all time.

Daydream on a Tuesday

2010-11-30T13:00:00.004-06:00

"Start livin', that's the next thing on my list"

I've got a little cabin on a hillside with mountains all around in the distance. In the morning I wake up before sunrise and start a pot of coffee. I pet my dog and cats, feed them, then sit on the porch and watch the mountain silhouettes and the sky turn pinkish-orange behind them as I listen to the coffee dripping. I have my coffee with my dog laying next to me and my cat on my lap as I watch the sun peek over the top of the mountains and light up the gravel road that winds up to my driveway, the pine trees in the yard and the field and hillside in the distance. When I feel satisfied with my coffee intake, I slip into some hiking boots, put on a small backpack and step out the back door with my dog and start hiking into a patch of trees behind the house and up into the hill. I keep walking along some sort of game trail until I reach a creek. I stop for a snack and give my pup a treat to tide us both over until lunchtime. I lay back and stare at the blue sky through the tops of the trees. The sun peeks through in patches on my face and feels warm and comforting. There's huge, puffy white clouds that float by slowly setting me in shade for a few seconds at a time. I start to feel like I'm dozing off, so I get up, put my pack back on and continue down the light trail I was following. I start a steep climb and come to a place where the woods open up into a high meadow. There are different colored flowers surrounding my feet as I step through and continue up the steep hill. I can see a higher pass up ahead and decide that will be my destination for the day, but first I need to climb back down this hillside, then through some more thick pine and patches of flittering aspen forest, then up a steep, rocky hillside to the saddle I've got my eyes set on. My pup and I head on over the hill and down the other side, which is also covered in wildflowers. Back into the forest, we find a nice rushing creek with big, flat rocks lining the shoreline. I find one large enough for me and my dog to lay on, and it's covered with sunshine. Perfect! I take my pack off and pull out a sandwich and an apple. I sit listening to the water trickling over the rocks next to me as I have my lunch and my puppers munches away on his kibble. I lay back and soak in the sunshine. The sky is clear blue now, so I've got no cloudy shade interruption. I doze off for about 15 minutes just listening to the chirping birds, a squirrel jumping around in a tree above me and the creek water gliding by along side of me.

And I have the ability to let this dream stand still within this moment... what a beautiful advantage to a dream.

My First Marathon – the LONG story!

2010-10-18T10:09:00.002-05:00

If you've already read my last blog post, "I just ran a marathon! (the short story)" then you can skip this one if you want... unless you want the SUPER-LONG detailed version of it!! But you've been warned! :)

At the start of the race

After 26 weeks of training, a week of obsessive preparation, and a night and morning of nervousness, I was at the start line in Ashland, WI to attempt running my first marathon. I kept going over the things I could’ve done differently in my training, wondering if they were going to come back to bite me along the 26.2-mile route that lay ahead of me. It wasn’t perfect training, but I felt like I gave it my best – I can’t say I felt 100% ready, but I was as close to that as I could’ve been. I was there. I was at the start line. So I must have done something right up to that moment.

I took Friday off of work. The Whistlestop Marathon is on a Saturday, and I wanted to have a full day to mentally get ready for my run and I needed the time to get up to Ashland so I could get my race packet. Adam and I left Friday morning and took a very slow, scenic route up to Ashland. It was a really fun drive – we took country roads, small highways and drove through little towns. We even stopped for a Subway lunch in Crandon. We enjoyed the fall colors and the scenery along the way, too.

Once in Ashland, we head straight to the Bay Area Civic Center so I could get my bib and race packet. Everything went smoothly. We then head south to Phillips, where we were staying at Adam’s mom’s house for the night. We pulled into the driveway, and my mom called to wish me luck. I was talking with her on the phone, and as I opened the door to the car and went to step out, my foot got wrapped up in a strap on my backpack and I went down onto the driveway like I was catapulted from the car. Adam came rushing around the car as I lay on the ground – his first thought was, “Oh crap! 6 months of training and she’s going to break her leg the day before the race!” He was concerned, and as he offered to help me up, asked me if I was alright. Thankfully I only scraped my elbow. It’s never fun to take a digger!

I ate my dinner in the car on our way to Phillips from Ashland. I had a whole wheat bagel with veggie cream cheese – simple and satisfying. Once we were at Adam’s mom’s house, and I was settled in and calm after falling out of the car, I laid out all of the things I needed for race day. It never even crossed my mind that my race bib wasn’t in the pile. I took a picture with pride because I was “oh-so-prepared,” or so I thought! Haha!

All my stuff laid out and organized, ready for race morning... well, almost all my stuff...

Well, the next morning, Adam and I woke up and had coffee and breakfast with his mom and sister, took our showers, and head out the door. I got into the car and thought, “I need my race bib!” Thank goodness it popped into my mind, because I wasn’t getting a timing chip at the start line without that bib. I searched the car with no luck. I went back to the house and there it was sitting in the entry-way! Whew!

Found my bib!

The drive up to Ashland went quickly for me. Adam drove as I dozed off here and there. Once in Ashland, we head west on Hwy 2 towards Iron River right away, where the actual start line was for the race. We pulled into the designated parking area for runners and spectators where we had to catch a shuttle bus. The shuttle and parking area was already busy and buzzing with runners and their families. Adam dropped me off at the port-a-pottie line and he went to park the car. By the time I got in and out of the bathroom, he was back from parking. We waited in line to get on a shuttle bus to the actual start line of the race.

Once at the start area, I was in awe. The area we were in was beautiful. First of all, it was a perfect fall day and we were in the woods. The temperature must have been in the mid-50’s – I was standing comfortably in my running capris and sleeveless running shirt. We were standing in a section of northwoods with all the leaves a vibrant golden color. Runners were ambling around, stretching, jogging, talking with family members, and waiting in line to use the port-a-johns. I went over and got my timing chip, then got in line for the bathroom myself.

Runners and spectators buzzing around the start area before the race started

Once I was done with the bathroom, I had about 10-15 minutes to do a little warm-up and some stretching. I took off down the road and jogged for a minute or two, took a quick little 15-20 second sprint, did some high-knees and butt-kicks, then I walked back to where Adam was waiting for me. I stretched my calves a little bit and noticed someone was singing “God Bless America.” I glanced at my watch and realized it was 8:56!! Four minutes to the start! I had Adam take a photo of me with the fall colors as a backdrop, then head over and joined the start-line crowd. There weren’t any signs indicating pace times or anything, so I just blended myself in about half-way down the line.

Waving to Adam as I waited for the race to start

As I was waiting for the race to start and the line to start moving, I noticed someone looking in my direction and waving. She looked familiar, but I didn’t want to be that girl that waves back excitedly only to realize that person was waving to someone directly behind me… but she looked so familiar! Finally she and her friend walked over by me and I realized it was two girls from my hometown of Phillips! It was Britt and Kristi! How cool to see them there amongst a crowd of runners! We chatted a little bit, wished each other luck and started to walk as the line moved forward.

Before I knew it, I was crossing the start line and jogging shoulder-to-shoulder with almost 700 other marathoners -- with Baba O’Riley by The Who playing on my Shuffle, which is my favorite race-start song! Alright! Here we go!

The race has begun!

We first ran a short distance down the paved Long Lake Road in Iron River. Then we turned left onto the crushed limestone recreation trail that parallels Hwy 2 for about 10 miles. It was weird getting used to the surface of the trail at first, but after the crowd of runners spaced out a little bit, it was easy to get into the flattest groove on the trail, find a runner going the same pace that I wanted to go, put myself on auto-pilot and just run.

It was a gorgeous fall day, and the leaves were just past peak, so they were flittering down all over the trail each time a breeze blew by. It was pretty and peaceful. I enjoyed the woods all around me, too. It was so different than a straight road race where you’re looking at buildings, traffic and houses the whole time. I remembered to look off into the woods and up into the treetops every once in a while to remind myself of the prettiness around me – and the lack of vehicular traffic (what a joy)!

This is a shot of the trail we were running on. Beautiful!

It was a neat experience to be running a full marathon compared to a half marathon. The first 13 miles were pretty much like all other half marathons I’ve run before, except, obviously most people were taking what seemed to be a more leisurely run. Nobody really seemed to be in a huge hurry, and once everyone got into their “groove,” I was running most of the race leapfrogging with the same 10-12 runners. I know I was trying to keep it at a safe comfortable speed, too. The adrenaline was racing through me, and I could feel myself wanting to run faster and faster, but when I noticed that happening I got myself behind someone and followed their pace for a while. I started my watch a little late at the start, so I wasn’t exactly sure how my starting pace was, but I think I was somewhere just a little under a 9-minute mile. I forced myself to slow down every once in a while so I’d have something left in the tank for the last half of the race.

The first couple of miles went really smooth. I had so many distractions – my pace, my footing, watching other runners, how they run, what kind of gear they had with them, the scenery, runners passing me, me passing other runners – it was a busy first two-mile stretch. I think after the first water station things started to air out a little bit and I was really able to get into my own groove.

I thought about bringing an audio recorder with me and taking voice notes along the way, which would have been really freakin’ awesome to play back later, but I thought of it too late. I didn’t want to carry something new with me that I haven’t trained with – especially it being something technology-related. All kinds of things could’ve gone wrong, and I had enough to think about! So I tried to take good mental notes.

I do remember coming up to mile 7 and thinking to myself, “I’ve been running for an hour and I feel like it’s only been a few miles.” I felt strong and smooth, and then I started to really look forward to seeing Adam along the trail. I got to the half-way mark and did a cheesy little “raise-the-roof” motion with my hands as I ran past the sign. The few steps past that sign was the farthest I’d run in an actual race, and I felt great! Then to make it better, just a half-mile later I saw Adam! I ran up to him and gave him a kiss, told him I loved him, heard him tell me I had a good pace going, and ran on. I smiled for about the next five minutes on the trail. Seeing Adam was a huge boost!

It was really quite cool not having spectators stretched all along the entire course. I was worried that I’d miss that part of a popular road marathon, but it was the total opposite. I was able to relax and enjoy my surroundings, just running along at an easy pace with a bunch of other like-minded runners. It felt like a dream. I did look forward to the spectators, though – again, this was a cool part about this race – they weren’t lined up everywhere along the course, so they were like a treat that I could look forward to. I’d be bouncing down the trail, see the white tops of the port-o-johns up ahead and that’s how I knew I was coming up to an aid station where there would be spectators (and water!). These came just about every two miles, so I was able to almost break up the entire race into two-mile segments with some other personal milestones in between.

I ran and ran and smiled and ran. Each mile was marked by a simple, skinny wooden post about 10-feet high with a small white sign about 12” wide by about 20” high. I remember coming up to one of the little white signs that read “Mile 18 – Marathon” and it hit me hard – not a wall, not a cramp – a huge smile. I remembered back to my 18-mile training run and how DEAD I felt at the end. I remembered my 20-mile training run and how the last 4 miles made me want to crawl into the ditch, curl up into a ball and cry -- but instead I got stubborn and forced my sore, heavy legs to trod on. But today… I was at mile 18 and I felt… well… amazing! I smiled again, looked up into the sky and thanked God for being there with me. I prayed at the start of the race that He run with me, and I don’t know if it was adrenaline or what, but I sadly wasn’t feeling a strong connection for some reason. It bothered me, but I had to just keep my chin up and keep going. As the race went on, I felt more and more thankful to be there… and to be healthy enough to be there. Then I started to feel it, almost like a balloon of happiness being blown up inside. It made me so happy – and at that 18-mile mark I felt like I was beaming from the inside!

At mile 20 I saw Adam again. I heard him say that I had a really good pace going and to keep it up. I didn’t have any idea when I’d finish, and I didn’t want to concern myself with time. I reminded myself to take it easy and enjoy the run. Just after that 20-mile mark I started to feel a little tired, and I whispered (and repeated) to myself, “Come on, Robin… just a 10K away… good miles, good miles… make these last six good miles…”

A little while later, somewhere between mile 20 and 21 I realized that I’d just run the farthest I’d ever run before and felt better than any of my training runs. It was some sort of miracle! I started to think of how far I’d come that morning, and how far I had to go, how I was feeling, then I whispered to myself, “I’m going to do it!” I felt a rush of emotion come over me, but quickly focused back on the trail.

I had a couple of reality checks that hit me kind of hard along the way, too. It seems like once I hit mile 20, there were quite a lot of people walking and stopping to stretch. I saw one male runner that was stopped frozen in the middle of the trail just trying to lift his toes, and as he tried, he shook his head in frustration – I felt so bad for him – he was so cramped up he couldn’t even move! He had a friend helping him, so I hope he was able to get his cramp worked out and back to running. I saw the ambulance fire up its sirens a couple of times and race off, and the scariest moment during the run was when I ran past a downed runner lying in the ditch with emergency personnel holding their feet up. The runner was completely covered with a heat blanket from their ankles to over the top of their head. All I could see was their shoes. A minute later a pick-up truck was heading towards us down the trail with a crew of EMTs and a stretcher. I got a little emotional, said a little prayer for that runner and kept going.

It was almost like once mile 20 hit it was a different race. I felt like I was playing with the big boys, and this was where we stopped screwing around. It was getting serious, now. Each time I ran a half marathon, I’d watch the full marathon runners come down the final stretch and I would be in complete awe. It was always just amazing to me how they could run that far! I had so much respect for them and always thought to myself, “Someday I want to be like them.”

Well, part of “being like them” also involved dealing with common issues they are all too familiar with. There’s a big one that happens to runners anywhere from the novice level to the most experienced racers, and I couldn’t avoid it, either… it was the wall. The sign for mile 22 came and went, my posture slumped, my legs felt heavy and my feet landed hard with each step. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later, I just didn’t know when. I told myself the week before, as I tried to mentally prepare for and visualize the race, that when I hit the wall I’d recognize it right away and try to push through it. I knew it was going to be mostly a mental exercise. I was starting to feel soreness in my left leg – but that was normal – after all, I’d just run 22 miles straight! But the rest of my slumpiness was just in my head. I was tired, and I had 4 more miles to run. But at that moment those 4 miles seemed like 400. I wanted to walk. I ran past a few people walking and envied them, but at the same time I knew I’d be disappointed in myself if I’d stopped to walk, especially having made it this far! It just simply wasn’t part of my game plan.

Then I did something I knew very well how to do: “Stubborn mode: ON”

I straightened my back, sunk my eyebrows down as if angry, turned up my music a few notches, forced my stride to hop along as if I were on mile 1, and said out loud, “F*** the wall!” and I took off. I didn’t go with an all-out sprint, but I picked up my pace enough that I ended up passing a couple of other runners. Once I felt as though I’d pushed through, I slowed my pace back down to a comfortable trot and ran on. No wall was gettin’ me down!

At about mile 24 I realized that today was the day I was going to be a marathon finisher. This was my fourth attempt at training, and I’d gone the distance (well, mostly at that point!). I only had a couple more miles to go! I actually started to get teary-eyed as I ran. I felt proud, happy and awesomely exhausted all at the same time. As I nearly cried with joy, I noticed I was starting to hyperventilate a little bit! I shook my head back and forth quickly a couple of times and told myself to save it for the end. This happened about two more times in the last couple of miles. I’d just shake it off and think to myself, “save it for the finish line.”

Between mile 25 and the finish, there was no fooling my mind – we were almost there. My left knee started to hurt, and the whole side of my left leg felt tight. I was way too close to the finish line to stop and stretch, so I just ran through it. During each training run I did, I felt things tighten in about the last mile but then I'd be just fine the second I was done – I knew this was pain from running 26.2 miles, but I also knew it probably wasn’t quite as bad as it felt that very moment. It was mostly in my mind. Had I felt this pain in mile 17, I’d have stopped and stretched.

I came around a corner and took off my headphones so I could hear the buzz of the finish-line crowd. There were a lot of people cheering me on as I ran through the last couple of curves. As I futzed with my headphones to tuck them away in my pocket, I looked up, and a very nice gentleman said to me, “Remember to SMILE!!” and I gave him the biggest, happiest smile I had and it stuck. I ran around the next corner and saw the finish line and the clock. The clock had JUST turned over to 3:59, and I quickly realized that my official chip time was going to be under 4 hours! I was excited about that, but instantly distracted when the announcer said, “Oshkosh, Wisconsin -- Robin Grapa.” I threw my hands up in the air and cheered myself across the finish line.

HOLY CRAP I DID IT!!

A volunteer took my timing chip off, another volunteer asked me if I needed any aid (I didn’t -- I felt great!), got my mylar and wrapped it around my shoulders, another volunteer put my finisher medal over my head, and I walked into the food tent. I almost felt like I was in a cloud. I grabbed a few things out of the food tent and came out to look for Adam. Once I saw him walking towards me, I lost it. I started crying and he gave me a huge hug. He asked me if I was okay – he thought I might’ve been injured – he saw me trying to tuck my headphones in my back pocket when I came down the final stretch and he thought I was holding my back as if it hurt… that was scary for him! I told him I felt great and that I was just so happy! I did it! I finally ran a marathon!

First photo after I finished. My face is covered in salt and I'm a big, proud crybaby!

I was amazed with how great I felt. I was a salty-faced, teary-eyed girl, but I was happy! I laughed after Adam hugged me, because I left behind a dusting of salt on the shoulder of his black t-shirt. I felt my face and it was caked with a layer of salt from sweating for four hours!

I originally didn’t want to really focus too much on my time for the race. I’d never run that far before, and I had no idea how my body was going to react. My first goal was to just finish the race. I wanted to cross the start line and that finish line under my own foot power. My second goal was to run the entire way without slowing to a stop – which I did – I even jogged through the water stations. Thankfully I only got PowerAid up the nose one time, and it made me laugh, so it was alright. My third goal was a time goal – but it was my #3 goal so I didn’t think about it too hard. I originally wanted to finish under a 10-minute mile, but looking back on all my training runs, I was pretty certain I’d do that without any problem – so I told myself maybe I could finish with a 9:30-minute mile.

The problem with the 9:30-minute mile is that I would’ve finished in 4:09 and probably would’ve left the race thinking, “Wow, I’m just 9 minutes above the 4-hour mark… I could run another marathon under 4 hours…” This same sort of thing happened to me on my first half-marathon. My ultimate goal was to finish, and that was pretty much it. When I finished in 2:02, I had to run another one. I did, and crushed the 2-hour mark with a 1:51. But the marathon took so much more time to train for! I had it on my list to run one before I die, and I wasn’t certain I’d want to do another one. I’ve heard people say with marathons, “It’s either one and you’re done, or you get addicted and do more.” I think I could easily go either way, but because I like doing so many different things (and have so many more things to cross off my list), I’m going to go with the former (at least for now!). And especially because I surprised myself and confidently ran it under four hours, I’m going to walk away proud and fully satisfied. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll feel a hunger to qualify for the Boston Marathon. 3:40? Hmm, that’s a ways off! Haha!

After I calmed down a little from running across the finish, we walked into the festival tent, and Adam bought me a beer. It tasted amazing! I then collected my official finisher shirt and we head over to the Civic Center. I was going to sign up for a massage, but the wait was about an hour, so I decided to head to the car to get my clothes so I could shower. By the time we got back they weren’t taking any more massage requests. Oh, well. We hung around a little bit, I had my medal engraved, took my shower, went to the finish area to watch a few more excited runners cross the finish line, then got on the road back towards Phillips.

Post-race celebratory beer!

I had a strong case of runner’s high. I was stoked the entire way home. I thought I’d be passed out and sleeping, but there was no chance of that! I was a little stiff-legged whenever I had to move after sitting down, but other than that, I was feeling awesome. We drove to my parent’s house, and my mom and dad made an amazing celebratory post-race meal for us all. Dad made tasty, dripping ribeyes over the open fire, and mom put together salads made with all fresh ingredients right from her garden in the backyard… and she made some really great sliced baked sweet and white potatoes with fresh herbs (from her yard) and cheese melted on top. We stuffed ourselves silly, then we collectively decided to go out. Even after the long day I already had, there was still a little fight left in me, as I was out until wee hours in the morning! What a great day!

Amazing steak dinner! Thank you, mom and dad!

The aftermath hasn’t been so bad. At least it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I had a tight left leg for the first few days after, a couple of nasty chafe lines on my chest from where my sports bra rubbed, and my big right toenail is getting darker and uglier each day. I didn’t feel the chafing or my big toenail during the run at all, so for that I’m thankful. I clearly remember my knee stiffening up on me late in the race, so I’m certain if I just stretched faithfully for a few days, my leg would be right back to normal. I really need to get better about stretching.

Also, about three days after the run, I started to come down from my runner’s high and began to feel a little sad. I’ve been focusing on that one day for 6 months, and was constantly working towards that one big event. I never had more than two days off from running, and during those two days, I was usually doing some sort of cross-training. But I needed to rest my legs and body, which I’m actually finding difficult. And I decided that once I get back into a workout routine I’d take a break in training for a while and try some new workouts – and maybe take a few runs just for fun. Normally I’d transition right into training for the Frozen Otter in January, but since I completed the 64 miles this January, I think I will volunteer this year and cheer on other participants. I’m going to miss it like crazy, and the thought of not participating in the race eats at me quite a bit, but I guess I need this break. 2010 was an awesome year. I completed the Frozen Otter, then spent months recovering while starting to train for the marathon. I don’t have a lot of lasting recovery to deal with from the marathon, though, so that’ll be nice.

My mind is reeling, though. I’m not really sure where to go with my own workout routine. One goal I did have was to start working on Adam and helping him get into shape, so I think whenever I feel that “want” to pick a new race or a new event, I’m going to focus that energy on him. Haha! Adam – baby, you better watch out! Hah!

My goals going in and results:

Goal #1: Finish the marathon

Goal #2: Run the whole marathon without slowing to a walk

Goal #3: Finish in 4:22:11 or under. That's a pace of 10 minutes/mile*

* I actually wanted to finish under 4:09, which was a 9:30 minute mile, but I set my time goal low because I didn’t want to stress myself over a particular time, having no idea what it would be like to run past 20 miles.

Final Results:

Chip time: 3:59:02

Pace: 9:07 minutes/mile

Placement:

301/682 total

23/50 female age group (30-34)

80/247 division (female)

I just ran a marathon! (the short story)

2010-10-13T14:34:00.002-05:00

2010 is the year. This was my fourth attempt to train for a full marathon, and it happened. I did it!

I trained for 26 weeks, and I must’ve done something right (in addition to a delicate balance of luck), because I ran my first marathon and it was an amazing, positive experience!

This is the short story. I’ve got a 4-page word document journaling the entire day in full detail – mostly for my poor memory so that I’ve got something to look back on when I forget the little bits and pieces of the day a few months from now.

I took Friday off of work since the marathon was on Saturday. Adam and I enjoyed the day by taking the long, scenic route to Ashland. Once there, I picked up my race packet and bib and head to Phillips where we were staying the night at Adam’s mom’s house.

I had my running clothes and gear layed out and ready to go, and we got to bed early. We woke up at 4 a.m., ate breakfast and hit the road towards Iron River where the start line was. It’s incredible when I look at a map of Wisconsin and see Iron River and Ashland and think that I ran that whole distance!

We got to Iron River, parked and got on the shuttle bus to the start line. I got my timing chip, stood in line to use the port-a-john, then warmed up and stretched. I stood amongst the crowd of marathoners, and slowly it started moving, and by the time I got to the start line I was running with the high hopes of becoming a first-time marathon finisher.

A couple of things stood out in my mind throughout the race. At mile 7 I couldn’t believe that I’d been running for an hour and was feeling as good as I was. I had a little twinge in my hip up to that point, but it was going away.

At mile 13.1 I was half-way there and still feeling good. I enjoyed the fall leaves flittering down along the trail in front of me, and when I got to a road-crossing at mile 13.6, Adam was there to cheer me on! I gave him a quick little kiss and ran on.

The miles were marked on simple, skinny wooden posts about 10-feet high with a small white sign about 12” x 20” or so. For some reason when I think about the marathon, the first thing that pops into my mind is the sign that read “Mile 18 Marathon.” I think at that point it really hit me that I was there -- actually running a marathon. Everything up to that point was busyness in training, preparing and getting into the stride of the race. At mile 18 I realized I was feeling good and finally there. I said a little prayer thanking God for everything I had in my life, and for being with me throughout the process and giving me the strength and determination to do it. I smiled and ran on.

Mile 20 rolled around and Adam was again standing along the edge of the trail to cheer me on. This pushed me happily beyond the farthest I’d ever run. Each time I saw Adam I couldn’t help but wear a huge smile on my face for probably the next mile. It meant so much to me to have him there supporting me.

I started to feel sore around mile 22 and hit the wall. Every runner talks about hitting a wall at some point, and I decided I was just going to be prepared for it. When I realized what it was that was happening, I said out loud to myself, “F*** the wall!”, picked up my speed, bounced along as if I had fresh legs, then slowly came back down to my comfortable speed. That’s all I needed to mentally get through it.

At mile 25 I knew I only had one more mile, and my knee started to stiffen up on me, but I pushed through it, and when I got close to the finish line I took off my headphones so I could soak in the cheers and energy of the crowd. I rounded a couple of corners, and…

…there is was! The finish line! There were claps and shouts and cheers on both sides of the road, and the announcer said, “Oshkosh, Wisconsin – Robin Grapa.” I threw my hands up in the air, cheered and ran through the big, yellow blow-up finish-line archway. I was sore, but I was on top of the world!

I made my way through to get my medal, a bit of food, then met up with Adam. When I saw him I got emotional and cried. I was so happy that I finally did it! Four attempts to train for a marathon since 2005, and finally – 2010 was the year! Adam gave me a huge hug and congratulated me. Then he bought me a beer! :)

I got my finisher shirt, had my medal engraved, got a pickle-on-a-stick, took a shower, watched a few more finishers come in, then we head back to Phillips.

I had runner’s high, and I had it real good. I was a little stiff-legged, but I was feeling awesome. We drove to my parent’s house, and my mom and dad made an amazing celebretory post-race meal for us all. Dad made ribeyes over the fire, and mom put together a fresh garden salad and potatoes. We stuffed ourselves, then decided to go out. Even after the long day I had, I was able to go out until wee hours in the morning. What a great day!

Now it’s Wednesday, and I just started to feel like I was coming down off of my runner’s high yesterday. I started to feel tired, but I had a nice 30-minute massage scheduled with our at-work massage therapist. Today I rode my bike into work, and that is the first “activity” I’ve done since the marathon, and I realized that my legs were still VERY tired. I struggled to pedal the three miles to work and decided I’d continue my rest until at least Friday (silly me -- I was actually thinking about going to kickboxing class tonight!).

I was fortunate to not have suffered any major injuries during my training. There were only a couple of teeny after-affects after the race, but nothing I can’t deal with. I noticed that I had two deep chafe marks on my chest from my sports bra, but they will heal up just fine. I also have a darkened big toenail on my right foot. I think that with the surface of the trail during the marathon and my toenail already being kind of goofy (I lost it about six months ago, and it was almost fully grown back), it must’ve rubbed funny on my shoe. I didn’t feel either the chafing or the toenail during the run – so for that I’m really thankful! But I do think I will lose that toenail again… oh, well. Who needs toenails anyway!! That little sacrifice is so worth it!

I DID IT! I RAN A FREAKIN’ MARATHON!

My goals going in and results:

Goal #1: Finish the marathon

Goal #2: Run the whole marathon without slowing to a walk

Goal #3: Finish in 4:22:11 or under. That's a pace of 10 minutes/mile*

* I actually wanted to finish uner 4:09, which was a 9:30 minute mile, but I set my time goal low because I didn’t want to stress myself over a particular time, having no idea what it would be like to run past 20 miles.

Final Results:

Chip time: 3:59:02

Pace: 9:07 minutes/mile

Placement:

301/682 total

23/50 female age group (30-34)

80/247 division (female)

Marathon Prep

2010-10-05T13:13:00.001-05:00

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

~Philipians 4:13~

I am here. Week 26/26. This is the week before I run a full marathon. I've trained for 25 weeks. 25! Looking back at my summer, every weekend involved finding a way to work in a long run - wherever I was - Montana, Phillips, Oshkosh... it didn't matter, but I had my running shoes and I ran. This is the hardest things I have trained for. Running is hard for me, and the training really took a lot of time. But I knew that going in, and was determined to make it happen. Once I cross that finish line on Saturday, I'll be able to cross it off my list.

Right now I'm reading about how to prepare the week before, and one of the things that keeps coming up is to prepare mentally. I need to stay relaxed and visualize the run - the whole thing, but mostly I need to visualize myself coming down that last 2-3 mile stretch confident, strong and happy. I'm trying - but I laugh every time because I'm fairly certain I will be in quite a bit of pain at that point - but I am still not loosing that "positive" attitude I need so that I can be as ready as I can mentally. As tired or as sore as I will be at that finish line, I will smile - and I know I will feel proud.

While working on the "stay strong mentally" part of preparing, I'm also trying to drink a lot of water this week so that I'm well-hydrated on Saturday. Another part of staying well-hydrated means to cut back on caffeine and beers. The beers haven't been a problem, but the coffee... I usually have a few *large* cups each day, so I'm cutting that down to two. Quitting right now would probably not be a good idea... I don't need to deal with caffeine headaches!

I'm also trying to boost my carb intake, which, to be perfectly honest, has been absolutely joyous! I love carbs. Tonight I'm having whole wheat spaghetti and ice cream for dessert. I'm trying to keep the rest of my diet in check, so I'm trying to keep with my eating 2-3 fruits each day, about 4 servings of raw veggies, my daily yogurt, egg sandwich, almonds and oatmeal. That all keeps me munching throughout the day.

I've tried to clear out my week so I can get ready physically, too. Yesterday (Monday) I had a late class, so I wasn't able to do much to prepare. In fact, it was a really stressful day. I had a 110-point project due that wasn't working, and a test! So I was pretty much freaking out all day yesterday, but I got my project to work in the last minutes before going to class, and my test actually went pretty well. I'm glad that's over, because now I can really focus... I hope!

So I guess there's this thing called "Taper Madness" and I keep getting emails with articles about how to avoid it and stressing how important it is to notice it and keep in control. Well, the last 4 weeks have been taper weeks for me (meaning my miles became less and less with no super-long runs on the weekends), so I started to read these articles. Apparently, most runners get into the 4-week taper and just decide to throw in another 18- or 20-miler just because they want to do a long run. What!? I saw my miles taper down and sighed with relief! A break! Woo-hoo! I figured I didn't really have to worry about this whole "taper madness" nonsense - I easily followed the mileages on my training schedule. But now -- the week before -- I can't help but think to myself, "I haven't done a long run in FOUR weeks. How on earth am I (or my legs) going to be ready to run 26.2 miles!?" And then I started to understand the taper madness. Maybe it doesn't necessarily have to be because I *want* to run 18 miles, but I kind of feel like I should. I won't, of course, it's way too late now, anyway. But I'm starting to understand this crazy phenomenon.

Tonight (Tuesday) I'm going to run 6 miles, eat my spaghetti, drink lots of water and do some stretching. Tomorrow night I'm going to pack my clothes and make sure I've got everything I need for race day. Thursday night I'll run 4 miles and get to bed early. I read that getting a lot of sleep the few nights before the race is really important, too, because most runners get little sleep the night before. This makes so much sense and wasn't something I thought of! So I'm trying to get more sleep this week than normal.

Friday morning Adam and I plan to wake up nice and early and get on the road. We've talked about taking fun back roads from Oshkosh to Ashland and maybe stop somewhere on the way up for lunch. At 3:30 the packet pick-up begins, so Adam and I will both pick up our race packets (he's walking the 5K), maybe visit the Expo, then head to Phillips. Friday evening will consist of a *very easy* 20-minute run to keep my legs limber, stretching, a somewhat bland, high-carb dinner, and lots of relaxing and sleep (hopefully).

Saturday morning at 3:30AM I will wake up and shower, get ready for the day, make coffee and breakfast and hit the road around 4:00 or 4:30. Drive the 1-1/2 hours to Ashland, find a place to park, get our stuff together and jump on the shuttle bus. Get to the start line, go for a jog, stand in line to pee, stretch, stand in line to pee again, then find my place at the start line.

Then... 9:00AM... I run.

Right now I've got a few goals in mind, which I always do before a big event like this. I usually set three -- one that I'm pretty certain I'll be able to achieve, one that I have a good chance at, and one that could be tough, but still possible.

Goal #1: Finish the marathon

Goal #2: Run the whole marathon without slowing to a walk

Goal #3: Finish in 4:22:11 or under. That's a pace of 10 minutes/mile

Okay, okay... here's a moment of pure honesty -- I always tend to push myself, and admittedly sometimes a little too much. See goal #3 up there? I really would like to finish under 4:09. But I read over and over again not to focus so much on time for your first race, so I'm trying really hard to just keep it out of my mind -- that's why a 10-minute mile is goal #3 and not goal #1. I have never once run over a 10-minute mile during my training, so I really shouldn't have a problem reaching that goal. But I don't have any idea what those last 6.2 miles will be like, so having that mental time-buffer in there might be all I have to hang onto if the going gets tough.

So that's the plan. My obsessing will hopefully pay off and not irritate too many of my friends and family! Adam has been super-supportive throughout my entire training, but I know he's getting pooped from all of this and I don't blame him! I drive myself batty! But I feel really lucky to have him by my side. He's talked me into going on runs when I didn't feel like it, encouraged me when I was feeling tired, and he even drove out on my long-run routes a couple of times to cheer me on. One time he was holding a piece of chocolate cake that I was looking forward to eating when I got done - the faster I ran the sooner I got that cake! He really helped make some of it fun - and made me feel important to him. But I know he's looking forward to the break in training, as am I.

...but first things first...

"Our Hike" for Bone Marrow Disease 2010

2010-09-24T17:16:00.001-05:00

The "Our Hike" booth about the hike my mom and I took across America in 2006 -- complete with a worn-out pair of holey hiking boots!

Another fundraiser has come and gone, and once again, we'd like to thank everyone involved in making it a great success. However you were involved... by making a donation online, hiking with us, donating raffle items, spreading the word and awareness or even just wishing us well - we thank you! We couldn't do it without our supporters, friends and family.

The event was held on Sept. 11, 2010 this year, and we raised over $1,600 to be sent to the Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation! To date we have raised nearly $130,000 to raise awareness and to find a cure for these deadly bone marrow failure diseases. This is why we continue to hike every year. Every little bit adds up to a bigger amount - and in the end we can all feel like we've worked together to make an impact. We just hope to help save lives. We need more awareness so the correct diagnosis can be made. We need constant patient education materials so patients and their caregivers can get the support they need. Research dollars are also so very important for Bone Marrow disease... these diseases are too often mistaken for cancer... but they aren't! There are no cancer cells involved, which would be a good thing to hear from your doctor... but in the case of bone marrow diseases like Aplastic Anemia, that doesn't mean you're out of the woods by any means. It's not as well known as cancer -- so there aren't as many huge studies done, and there aren't as many widespread support groups out there.

I have a little side-story here about my diagnosis, and I've heard similar stories from other patients, as well. When my mom, dad and I were at the clinic with our hematologist and they told us that it wasn't cancer, or leukemia... there was a sigh of relief. Why wouldn't there be, right? Well, when the doctor then explained that the disease I had was more rare, and that he's only seen one other patient with Aplastic Anemia, we started to feel scared and confused again. Now what, right? Well, my hopes are that upon diagnosis, more patients will be able to say, "Oh, I've heard of that..." and even better yet, "I know someone that's survived that!" What a positive outlook that would start a newly diagnosed patient with!

So we just keep on plugging away. We hope that everyone that joined us this year will be back next year, and we hope if you weren't able to make it out that you can next year. In the big picture we might be a small group, but we sure are a tough one as we continue to hike each year!

As of right now, we plan on having the next event on September 10, 2011, but we might try to move the hike out a couple of weeks so that it's closer to peak fall color season. We will be sure to let everyone know if that time does change, but go ahead and mark your calendars for 9-10-11 for now. :)

A little synopsis from this year's event... and a few pictures!

We started out with registration at the Corner Connection where we gathered to start the hike. We raffled off two Gregory Daypacks this year for registered hikers - one ladies' and one men's. Ken one the men's and Brenda won the ladies' (Brenda is from Blue Door Consulting in Oshkosh and was a HUGE help with media when my mom and I hiked the ADT in 2006 - she was also someone I'd call if I needed cheering up - she's so bubbly and always picked me up when I was feeling down. She surprised us by showing up with her husband, Alex, to hike with us!)

Hikers on Hwy. W

We hit the road, going in the opposite direction as we have in past years. We started walking on Hwy. W for a short jaunt, then turned onto Skinner Creek Rd., which is a gravel country road lined with trees. It drizzled on us a little bit, and it was a enough for me to throw on a poncho, but it didn't last too long. It was just enough rain to give the woods some super-vibrant color.

Then we took a slight left onto White Birch Lane - still a gravel country road - then onto the Georgetown ATV trail. The trail narrows and gets prettier as you go. We all enjoyed the woods, and there was even a spatter of fall colors in the trees here and there.

When we finished the hike back at Corner Connection, they graciously held a meat raffle for us! So paddles went around, we drew tickets for some door prizes, and pigged out on a lunch special of pulled pork, chips and a bunch of goodies that family and friends made to share with the hikers (THANK YOU to those who made treats, too!!!).

I think several of us took a little nap before heading to Club 13 in Phillips for dinner, raffles and music. We started out with a yummy spaghetti dinner, then the DJ set up and played some music, and we started up some paddle raffles in between songs. We had a lot of baskets this year (THANK YOU to everyone who helped with baskets by donating items and helping put them together!).

Baskets for raffling!

We had a couple of "big ticket" items that we sold separate tickets for, too. This was something new we tried, and I think we can improve on it a little bit, but it was still a success. Ken's Carpet in Phillips, WI donated a recliner at cost for us to raffle off. My mom made another crocheted Sock Monkey - those are always a big hit. That sock monkey ended up being the man of the hour for sure! I think everyone got a dance with him! :) Mimi Seamens, the mom of a good friend of mine (Jake!) and her Quilting club put together an "Our Hike" quilt made with our signature bandanas! It was awesome! In fact, my mom and I usually don't get in on the raffles, but we both decided we'd put a ticket in for the quilt... and my mom's name was pulled! It was really funny, because when her name was called she didn't hear it at first... then she saw everyone looking at her and she exclaims, "What!? Who won!?" When we told her it was her, she jumped up and down and squeeled! She was so excited. I think everyone was happy to see she won it. And I'm totally cool with it because she already told me she's gonna' will it to me! Tee-hee! :)

The "Our Hike" Quilt with some raffle baskets

After the music and raffles were done, some of us were headed out to the Phillips Fairgrounds where we had a group camp set up. Mike and Joan, the owners of Club 13, arranged a limo ride for those of us staying out there! That was an awesomely fun perk to camping! I can honestly say I've never had a limo ride to my tent before this!

The campers got a limo ride back to camp at the end of the night

Our night ended at camp with a nice campfire, a midnight snack of sweet corn on the fire, a ringing bell and some great conversation. Thanks to everyone for such a fun time. I already can't wait until next year. Again, we hope to make it bigger and better next year!

We'd like to send out a special thanks to The Corner Connection, Club 13, Mimi Seamens and the Sassy Quilter's, and Kens Carpets.

Highlights from Summer 2010

2010-09-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

Well, now that summer is nearly over and I’m seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, I can play a little catch-up with my blog.

Probably starting in January, I started to fill in those two little blocks in my calendar that land in the “Saturday” and “Sunday” columns… in every month through September. Before I knew it spring was over (those weekends were full, too), and summer was here, full blast. While making the decision that 2010 was going to be the year I run a full road marathon (so I can finally check it off my bucket list), I kept myself so busy that I don’t know where I found the time to run.

After all is said and done, I look back and see that I didn’t spend as much quality time with Adam as I should have, which is bad… but every weekend was stuffed-full of funness, which is good… and I’m now finding myself feeling exhausted… which is good and bad. I have no regrets from this summer, but I have to admit that I’m looking forward to the second half of October through the end of the year. I don’t know what’s next, and right now – in all honesty – I don’t care! I love that!

I don’t have enough precious time to write in detail about all my summer adventures, so I thought I’d do a little rundown of it with a picture popped in here and there to illustrate it all. First of all, I need to point out that training for a 26.2-mile marathon is REALLY hard and time-consuming. I didn’t get backpacking nearly as much as I normally would because it just didn’t work with my running schedule – and an even more honest reason – I simply had too many things already planned. But I decided that if I could make it through my and Adam’s 2-week road trip vacation in June, the marathon was ON. No excuses at that point. Long story short, I stuck with it – I’m now 2 weeks away from that marathon, and I’m not quite sure I’m 100% ready, but I’m 100% sure I’m as ready as I can be… if that makes any sense at all.

In May we did our annual Canoe Trip. That was fun as always. We paddled, partied, enjoyed campfire, family, friends and had an overall good time. I always love spending time up north doing stuff outdoors. There’s so much! Rivers, woods, paths, roads, fire pits, gardens, lakes… it’s never ending!

Mom and Dad in their canoe.

Towards the end of June Adam and I went to Country USA again. It was fun and crazy as always! It’s nice to have those five days for us to spend together, and at that time we’d both just gotten back from our awesome vacation to Montana. We were kind of “out-of-sorts” I suppose you could say. We were coming off of a vacation high and some other things he and I were working through at the time. So it was kind of a whirlwind.

Before Country USA and before our vacation, Adam and I started talking about all kinds of things and learned some new things about each other… some good, some bad, some scary… and we both knew we had some things to work on. What better time to get into a rental car and drive together for two weeks? A lot of friends and coworkers thought that we were crazy, most of them saying, “I wouldn’t last a day cooped up in a car with my spouse!” But Adam and I are a little different that way, and very different from each other -- the list of activities that we both enjoy is a short one. But one thing we both have always enjoyed -- and enjoyed doing together -- is road-tripping. So that's the trip we planned and it was perfect for us.

One random day before we left, I told Adam, “We need to give our vacation some sort of name…” for which he replied, “How about Gus?” I laughed and that’s what stuck. So GUS became the theme name for our trip.

We got a rental car, dropped our kitties off at Adam’s mom’s house (she was kitty-sitting for us while we were away), and we hit the road. We drove through South Dakota, hitting the Corn Palace, Wall Drug, the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. From there we drove into Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park. We stayed there a couple of days and toured as much as we could. We stayed in the canyon area, so we hiked to upper and lower falls, then on our way out toured around the loops to see buffalo, a grizzly bear, some bighorn sheep, Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, among some other awesome scenery!

Adam and I at the bottom of Lower Falls, Yellowstone

On our way out of Yellowstone, we took the famous Beartooth Pass. We left in the afternoon, and the roads were nearly empty of all traffic. There was still 10-20 foot snow banks along the side of the roads in some places, and it was kind of scary riding around the hairpin turns. Adam did most of the driving, and he did an awesome job. The best part of Beartooth pass was the sunset. It was incredible. I won’t even try to explain it because it wouldn’t do it any justice at all. Please, if you go anywhere near Yellowstone, this you – must – go – and – see.

Beartooth Pass at sunset. Not even close to how gorgeous it actually looked!

From Yellowstone, we drove up to Bozeman, Montana, which we both immediately fell in love with. We dreamed of what life would be like living there (and still do). Maybe one day we can call it home, who knows! We spent some time at museums and relaxing, then took off again, but this time north towards Glacier National Park. On the way to Glacier we hit Skulkaho Pass and its amazing waterfall, the Sapphire mines at Philipsburg, and a cool little place to get huckleberry shakes. We tent-camped one night in West Glacier, but the second night we upgraded to a small, one-room cabin. We took road tours as far as we could go on the Going to the Sun Road – it was still closed at the top. But we went as far as we could on both sides and saw some great scenery.

Adam and I at Eagle’s Falls, Glacier National Park

From the East side of the park, we took the Going to the Sun Road to St. Mary’s Lake and pulled over at a famous photo-taking spot. There’s this tiny little island in the middle of the lake with about 3 little pine trees on it. As I had my back to the island, and Adam about to snap my picture, he suddenly got this look on his face like something was behind me. His jaw dropped open and his eyes got HUGE. I turned around and there stood this teeny little spotted fawn! I grabbed the camera and took a quick picture, then continued to take some video. He wanted to walk straight up to me, and almost did before realizing I wasn’t his kind, then he turned and ran off. It was definitely one of the highlights of our entire trip!

Little fawn that surprised us, Glacier National Park

After Glacier, we hit the road heading back home. We hit a winery and a BBQ festival on the way home, landed at a family gathering in Wisconsin, then back to Phillips to get the kitties… and home to Oshkosh. It was a great two weeks. Adam and I never got sick of each other, I kept up my running, we ate fairly healthy and inexpensive (Jetboiling meals in the hotel rooms), we talked a TON about all kinds of things, and came back feeling refreshed. It was a real vacation, and it was our first.

July rolled around pretty quickly. Adam and I went to Green Bay and saw Star Wars in Concert. It was really cool. The orchestra played a bunch of Star Wars theme music and a huge screen behind it played scenes from the movie. It was hard to remember sometimes that the music you were hearing was actually live. I had to keep looking down at the orchestra to remind myself. It was amazing with all the lights and fog, too!

My running training picked up pretty heavy in July, but I just kept at it. We had time for an 80’s party with friends Anne, Craig, Shannon and Kevin in Sheboygan. It was fun getting all dressed up in 80’s attire and getting together with friends for a fun-filled night.

Adam and I at 80’s night in Sheboygan

In late July Adam and I started making secret plans of a crazy future. He was going to go back over-the-road truck driving. We were nervous about the change, but excited for just that reason – change. But we wanted to start something different, and we thought maybe this would be a fun new adventure… and if things were going well, I’d eventually join him on the road. So a lot of the first part of August was planning things and getting Adam set up with a trucking company and orientation. I dropped him off in Chicago for a 3-day packed orientation, and on my way home, alone in the car I cried. The thought of not seeing him for 3 weeks was really making the change hard. I knew it would be difficult, and so did Adam… but neither of us know how close we’d actually become in the past few years. We both struggled, but Adam finally got officially hired and hit the road. After only a few days, and a LOT of patience, Adam started to realize that this company wasn’t just dragging him through the dirt because he was new… they were dragging him through the dirt because that was they way they ran. Needless to say, it didn’t work out, he quit, and he came home. We both privately prayed to God that He give us some sort of sign if it was the right decision or not… I think we got our answer loud and clear. We are both glad he tried it, though… or we’d both still be wondering “what if?”

So on to the next chapter! What that is, I have no idea!

While Adam was working out a way to get home from his trucking run (he was stuck in Springfield, Ohio), I had plane tickets, along with 2 of my girlfriends, to visit our friend Sarah in Colorado. She was on vacation there with her boyfriend for 7 weeks and invited us to come out for an extended weekend. At first I wasn’t going to go. I thought of a bunch of different reason why I shouldn’t (like money and time and blah, blah, blah...), but after Heidi and Becky both bought tickets, I decided to just jump. The tickets were really cheap, and after a conversation with Adam when he said, “Quit stressing about it... just go and have a nice time,” I got online and put in my credit card information. Before I knew it, I had a confirmation email from the airline.

We flew out to Colorado the last weekend in August and stayed with Sarah and Michael for a few days. We dayhiked one day, visited Rocky Mountain National Park the next, shopped the day after that and just chilled out and relaxed the rest of the time. It was a really nice way to spend some quality time with friends.

Heidi, me, Becky and Sarah at Rocky Mountain National Park, CO

A couple of other things that happened in August were Manly Man Movie night, which was an event Adam put on. It was originally for guys only. They were going to go to Prime Quarter to grill their own steaks, then hit the movie theater to see “The Expendables.” I wanted to go, but felt I’d have to “be a guy,” so the rule was in place – women could go if they wore a fake moustache… facial hair was required. So the guys all grew out their beards and moustaches and goatees, and I sported a fake fu manchu. It was a great idea, and a lot of fun!

Me sportin’ the fu manchu

The day after Manly Man Movie Night, Adam and I joined friends Jamie and Eric for the Green Bay Tall Ships Festival. We enjoyed the day looking at all the ships, all the people, eating, and freaking roasting in 100-degree weather! It was so hot that day, but we managed to pull off a fun day. We went and went and went until the heat took everything out of us. We did enjoy a sail-tour on the Appledore boat, though. That was really fun. Once on the water and out in the bay, the captain even let us steer the boat for a little bit… which is fun for kids, but adults, too!

Adam and I steering the ship at the Tall Ships Festival, Green Bay

Over Labor Day weekend I went on our backpacking group’s annual backpacking trip at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Upper Michigan. I was stoked because it was going to be my first (and biggest) trip of the summer and fall. And boy oh boy, was it a trip to remember! The first two days were crazy with weather! We survived 40-60 mph winds along the shores of Lake Superior, which had 20-23 foot waves! We called it Lake Superior’s first hurricane: Hurricane Aardvark! It rained, the wind whipped, the waves crashed, and on the actual shoreline, sand and spray from the waves would sting us in the face. The first night we were all tucked away in our tents at 7:30pm! That’s early! But after the weather calmed down the third day, we really enjoy the scenery that this place has. It feels like you’re in a whole other world with how clear and colorful the water is. I really enjoy time in the woods, and the crew we had was awesome. Everyone that came along was loads of fun, and we all really weathered the storms together!

The backpacking crew at the Grand Sable Visitor’s Center at the start of our hike.

Me standing on a cliff edge overlooking Pictured Rocks.

The weekend after Pictured Rocks was our annual “Our Hike” for Bone Marrow Disease fundraiser. I will be posting a separate blog entry about that, but we had a fun time, as we do every year! Below is a photo of a bunch of us packed into the little tent my mom and I used while we hiked the ADT. Oh, the good times!

A bunch of us crammed into the little tent

On September 19 (which also happens to be my mom’s birthday – Happy Birthday, MOM!), I ran in the Fox Cities Half Marathon. According to my marathon training, I was supposed to run 10 miles that weekend, so I opted to make some fun of it and join a race. I felt great, the weather was perfect, and I ended up making a personal record! I was so excited to cross that finish line that I nearly teared up! My fastest half marathon had been 1:51, and I finished this one in 1:49:53. Close, but still faster!

After the Fox Cities Half Marathon with my finisher’s medal

One other thing I want to share that’s really awesome (but not directly my adventure) is that my brother and his wife had a new baby boy on May 5^th! So that’s really cool!

So many little things in between all these fun and good things happened, too… most are small, but some bigger… some bad, some good -- but there’s just not space, time or energy to share it all… and besides, some things are best left to tuck away into the ol’ memory bank… or what I’ve got of one (my memory it terrible and that’s another HUGE reason I blog!).

Coming up is the Oshkosh Dragon Boat Festival this weekend. Our 4imprint team is once again competing, and I’m looking forward to that full day of fun! I’m also running the event’s 5K run in the morning – so it’ll be a tiring one for sure! Here’s hoping we don’t tip the boat!!

The first weekend in October our backpacking group is heading to the Porkies in Upper Michigan for a fall colors hike. We got POURED on last year, and for the first time I was actually a little miserable while hiking… I’m hoping the weather is a little nicer to us this year. But I’m going rain or shine, and I know I’ll have a blast either way (despite the misery last year, we still came out with smiles and great stories… so it’s always worth it!)

October 9 is a big day for me – that’s the day of the Ashland Whistlestop Marathon. I’m signed up to run the whole 26.2 miles, and I’m freakin’ nervous as can be! I’ve run 20 miles during my training – that’s the farthest I’ve run, and it was H-A-R-D. During the last 3 miles I wanted to curl up in the ditch and cry, but my dang stubbornness pushed me. I can only hope my body and my mind can hold up to do the other 6.2 on race day! But more on that later….

I should give a prize to anyone that read all of that! But I don’t have much to give… I just know it was a long freaking entry with playing so much catch-up. I always say I’m going to write more often, but I know better than to make any promises. So everyone enjoy the rest of what’s left of summer (if any), enjoy the fall, and look forward to winter, because there really is a lot to do when the flakes start to fall!

Spring 2010

2010-05-25T14:32:00.011-05:00

A few things from this spring -- Adam graduating from ITT Tech, another up-north cabin weekend, a rainy backpacking weekend in the Kettles, and the canoe trip!

Adam with Dr. Reynolds after the graduation ceremony

Adam graduated from ITT Tech on March 26 with his Associates degree in Software Programming. It was a nice ceremony at the Tundra Lodge in Green Bay. We had a party planned back in Oshkosh after the ceremony was done, and since there was a group of friends waiting for us there, and karaoke booked and ready to play, Adam was in a hurry to jet out of there as soon as he had that diploma in his hand! It was funny. But it really was a nice ceremony... Adam graduated with a 4.0 GPA and Dr. Reynolds even told me that Adam was one of his best students... and that "he was so serious." Haha! That didn't surprise me! When he puts his mind to something, he totally takes it serious and does a great job. I'm so proud of him. ITT is already asking him to come back for his Bachelor's degree, but he needs some time off for a little bit. And ITT is quite expensive, too! So we're going to just ride the wave for a while and see where life takes us.

Adam's graduation party invitation picture

As of now, in May, we're just getting ourselves back into a routine. I just finished up a semester of taking a couple of classes at our local tech. It was a busy semester for me with a lot of reading. I was really feeling burned out, so I'm really happy that classes are done for a while. Adam's been working a lot for Ryder, and pretty soon he'll start looking for something a little more "regular." That job works him some super-long hours -- and he's only a "casual, part-time driver." Some weeks he works 50 hours, so I don't know that I would consider that "part-time" or "casual," but it's a job. I just have this dream for him to be in a position where he can work somewhat "normal" hours and maybe have some vacation time to play around with. I pray that an opportunity that's a good fit pops up for us. But we've got vacation planned here soon, so we've been focusing on that for now. We'll worry about those bigger life responsibilities a little bit later on. :)

Adam's graduation was the highlight of our spring. That was a lot of fun and a long time coming. It was great to see him so proud of something that he worked so hard for!

In April we had a busy Easter with church. It went quick, but it was fun. April was also memorable for me because I had two outdoor trips that month. The first one was at a cabin near Escanaba, Michigan that Randall (from our backpacking meetup group) set up. It was this amazing little cabin up north. We basically had this entire small lake to ourselves. There was still a little snow on the ground, but that didn't matter one bit to us. We went for a dayhike on Saturday, ate some food, had some drinks, made some cake on the campfire from hollowed-out oranges, and grilled a bunch of meat... it was a great weekend.

Tom's Lake

Chocolate cake baked inside oranges over the campfire

Two weekends after that one I head down to the Northern Unit of Kettle Moraine for another backpacking weekend that Randall set up. It was a rainy one, but still a good trip. I took lots of pictures with my new Olympus Tough camera - it's waterproof! It was fun to take it out for pictures without worrying about getting it wet. It worked great!

Rainy Kettle Moraine!

It was close to Randall's birthday, so we bought him a cake and decorated it on the way down, and Rachel and Graham bought him a chef's hat and some awesomely bedazzled giant sunglasses. It was a fun surprise.

Randall sportin' the bedazzled sunglasses, chef hat and birthday cake.

In May I was stressing out about finishing up my semester at FVTC. I had a busy schedule, my calendar got full until October and I was really having a hard time dealing with it all. I'm kind of torn because I have such a full calendar, but it's mostly all fun stuff that's going on. So I can't complain about it, really... I'm just kind of upset with myself for piling so much on. It's makes it difficult to be spontaneous. But... as I said, it's fun stuff, so I'm just gonna roll with it! Wait until my next entry when I write about June. Adam and I are vacationing, so we're really pumped about that!! And it's coming up FAST! Yippee!!

I just got back from our annual canoe trip in Phillips. It was less crazy this year, but sure relaxing. I got up there Friday night, set up and hung out by the fire. On Saturday we got up and paddled for about 5 hours, slowly down the South Fork of the Flambeau. We ate a lot and had a nice time Saturday night, then Sunday woke up with intentions of going out and playing in the water... but never made it out. We just sat around the fire for a few hours and relaxed. It was actually kind of nice to not HAVE to be anywhere. Then I stuck around Sunday night and my dad made some awesome steaks, Justin made some great garlic-mashed potatoes, and my mom had some garden salad she made up and grilled asparagus. Yummy!! Then I head back to Oshkosh late and slept in on Monday morning... rolled into work at about noon. It was the relaxed weekend I think I needed.

Now I'm ready for Memorial Day weekend - Adam and I are just using this 3 days to prepare for our 2 weeks driving out west. We are both just going through the daily motions until it comes time for us to just... run away for a little while!

GUS!! Here we come!!

"Empty my hands, fill up my heart"

2010-05-17T11:58:00.005-05:00

Tenth Avenue North came out with a new album last week called "The Light Meets the Dark." One of the first songs I listened to this morning was called, "Empty My Hands." I began to really listen to some of the lyrics and had to listen to it again. Then again. I love it when it almost seems like a song has been written directly to you... this was the case for me with "Empty my hands." I particularly got stuck on this little phrase:

"My hands like locks on cages of these dreams I can’t set free
But if I let these dreams die
If I lay down all my wounded pride
If I let these dreams die
Will I find, that letting go lets me come alive"

I think it just reminds me to stop worrying so much about not being able to live out every one of my dreams and remember that there's always that "one thing" that's so much better than anything I can even imagine. There's something so much bigger, so much better, and all these things I worry about are so little. Dreams really are something to bide our time here on earth. It keeps us busy and working towards something -- gives us something to do. But it's really okay if we don't check them all off of our list, because in the end, we'll be in the best place ever... sitting next to God in heaven.

It reminds me that life is good, but heaven is better. It makes me so happy, relaxed and just at ease to think about it. What a relieving feeling. I love my life, and there's so much more to look forward to!

The full lyrics to "Empty My Hands" by Tenth Avenue North

I’ve got voices in my head
And they are so strong
And I’m getting sick of this
Oh Lord, how long will I be haunted by the fear that I believe?
My hands like locks on cages of these dreams I can’t set free
But if I let these dreams die
If I lay down all my wounded pride
If I let these dreams die
Will I find, that letting go lets me come alive?

So empty my hands
Fill up my heart
Capture my mind with You
Oh, empty my hands
Fill up my heart
Capture my mind with You
With You
With You, Lord

‘Cause these voices speak instead
What’s right is wrong
And I’m giving into them
Oh please Lord, how long will I be held captive by the lies that I believe?
My heart’s in constant chaos
And it keeps me so deceived
But if I let these dreams die
If I could lay down my dark desire
‘Cause if I let these dreams die
Will I find, You brought me back to life?

So empty my hands
Fill up my heart
Capture my mind with You
Oh Lord, empty my hands
Fill up my heart
Capture my mind with You
With You

‘Cause my mind is like a building burning down
I need Your grace to keep me
Well keep me from the ground
My heart is just a prisoner of war
A slave to what it wants and to what I’m fighting for
So won’t You…

So empty my hands
Fill up my heart
Capture my mind with You
Oh, empty my hands
Fill up my heart
Capture my mind with You
With You

With You
I need You now
I need You now Lord
With You
With You
I need You now Lord

Catch-up entry! First few months of 2010.

2010-04-27T12:39:00.018-05:00

I’ve been busy! I’m playing a little catch-up here…

My first few months of 2010 have been pretty amazing. I’m feeling really fortunate and blessed to have so many special people in my life and the opportunities to do some fun stuff. I’ve had quite a few outdoor weekends, some at home, and I’ve spent a lot of time with a lot of really great friends… and one amazing husband! It’s just been a really good year so far. I am one happy girl!!

My first camping weekend was the very last weekend in January in the Northern Unit of Kettle Moraine as part of a backpacking meetup that Randall put together. I don’t have any pictures from this trip because my camera took a poo on me, but we had a new hiker with us this weekend that took some video – Graham was new to our group, and for his first trip, he did amazingly well! Especially for being kind of a chilly, wintery weekend, he seemed very well prepared! After the hike he put together a really nice video, which I’ll post below.

I got there Friday in the early afternoon and parked at the Mauthe Lake Campground and hiked about 6 miles to meet the rest of the group at the shelter. It felt good to be out, but I did realize that my toes and knees weren’t completely healed from the Frozen Otter yet. But it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. When I got to the shelter there was a nice warm fire started already, and we made some food and had some drinks. The next day we hiked back towards Mauthe Lake campground and a little beyond to the next shelter. The trails were really solid with packed-down icy snow. It wasn’t necessarily slippery, just really hard. I brought my saucer sled, so I took that down a trail, and MAN! You really flew on that thing! Because the trails were so hard-packed down, there was almost no friction – it was scary-fun!! I almost hit a tree every time I went down – it was a rush!

Saturday night we had mexican and I made some tiramisu to pass around (which is messy and hard to make in the cold... and I know doesn't fit the mexican theme, but it just tastes good. :) I was sad to go, but I couldn’t stay overnight Saturday night because I wanted to be back in time for church the next morning. So I hung out around the fire until everyone was pretty much ready for bed, then I hit the trail back to my car. It was a good first trip of the year!

Thanks to Graham for putting together an awesome video!

February began a busy Lent season with church. We had Lent services on Wednesday nights, and we’d practice for choir after that. We were also at church on Sundays, and sometimes for both services because Adam leads the congregation during our later praise service, and he’s also part of the praise band. So he was always really busy working on all that and keeping the church's sound system in constant check! I did get a few chances to get together with our Pastor’s wife, Laurie, to do some flute duets. It was really fun to play with someone during the services. I also played my flute with a song our choir did on Easter Sunday, and it went really well. I really love all the people at church, and it really just makes me feel happy when I go. So Lent and Easter was busy, but left me feeling full for sure!

I also went on a girl’s weekend in Wisconsin Dells. It was a bit of a low-key weekend compared to last year’s trip, but it was really nice to get together with all the girls and just hang out and relax. We rented a condo as a group and drove down there on a Friday. We went out to dinner at a restaurant in the busy area we were staying in. It was one of those water park hotels, so there were kids running around everywhere! It was crazy! After dinner we went out on the town and didn’t get home until really late… and maybe had a few too many bevvies… but we sure had a blast! On Saturday morning we all woke up slowly and ended up sitting around the condo most of the day eating and watching TV movies -- with commercials. I don’t think I’ll ever like the movie “Notting Hill” after that weekend! I swear it was on for 5 hours! Sunday we woke up, packed up and head home. Oh, and Sarah and Heidi surprised us all with “Box Tour” t-shirts! That was really cool… and a really nice surprise! It was really fun having us all wear them when we went out. It was even more fun seeing people’s reaction to them… they would look at us like, “Does that say what I think it says?” :)

Here’s a photo that was taken of us girls at work for a staff favorite photo!

In the middle of March we had a meetup in Upper Michigan at a rustic cabin in the Porcupine Mountains wilderness area. We stayed at the Gitche Gummee cabin – it has no electricity and no running water, but it did have a stove inside that we could cook on and a pit toilet… (LOL -- after reading through this, I realized I made it sound like the pit toilet is on the stove or something... but since it made me actually laugh out loud, I had to leave it in! So, actually the pit toilet was a separate little thing outside! :) Our group normally goes backpacking, so this was living easy!! We had a lot of fun on this trip… our cabin was literally right across the road from Lake Superior, so we were able to walk out there at any time and enjoy the beach.

Lake Superior shoreline

I know that I had a severe case of cabin fever – what an ironic term since I cured it by having a cabin weekend – but I think everyone else was feeling kind of the same thing… we got up there Friday night and just kind of let loose. We ate, drank, laughed, hung out by the fire… I wore my new ginormous shades the whole weekend… it was a lot of fun. During the night Friday night I woke up (with my sunglasses still on) and realized my sleeping bag had fallen to the floor (I was on a top bunk). That wasn’t a big deal because I was sweating my BUTT off! It had to be over 100 degrees in that cabin – and I’m not even kidding!! I tried to get the window open that was by my head, but I couldn’t figure it out in the dark, and I was trying not to wake anyone. So I snuck down off of my bunk and head outside to the pit toilet. It felt amazing – was probably 32 degrees, but I didn’t care. When I walked back into the cabin I just started to laugh! It was so freakin’ hot in there you could hardly breathe! Then I realized that half of the other people in there were also awake from the heat – but everyone was trying to stay quiet hoping to not wake anyone up!! I walked around the cabin at that point and opened all the windows… then we were finally able to get a few zzz’s before the night was over.

Around the campfire Saturday night

Saturday morning we all woke up slowly and made some breakfast, then gathered our gear and went for a dayhike towards Lake of the Clouds. It ended up being about a 9-mile hike, and was just what we needed after a late night around the campfire. It was beautiful to see Lake of the Clouds off in the distance all covered in white ice and snow, still. The sun was shining and the sky was blue – it almost felt like spring, except that the wind still had that crisp wintery bite to it yet. But we were all just happy to be in the woods with each other! On Saturday afternoon, after our hike, we all head down to the beach to watch the sunset. We played some lawn darts and took some pictures, then head back across the road to the cabin where we ate some more and had another campfire. Sunday we just packed up, cleaned up, and head out. We all stopped at a brewpub in Minocqua for a hearty meal together before we all split ways.

Thanks to Graham again for another fun video! What a way to remember fun weekends!

I’ll do another couple of entries in a bit so I can do a little recap of April and to catch up on the highlight of March – Adam graduating from ITT Tech!