living in colorado this summer on my own while not going to school has been difficult yet eye opening. ive learned a lot about living, working, going about ways to find money when you seem to have none, and ive also learned how to cook (i know, cooking is a pretty big deal). i feel that ive come a long way and its forced me to grow up in some ways a little faster.
now with the fall semester just around the corner and trying to decide what to do or where to go with my life, ive learned to make decisions, which is something that im not very good at doing. im working on becoming a part time student, enrolling in the community college as well as ccu, and then trying to decide if i will fully transfer in the spring. along with this change it has brought about the opportunity to live off campus and not have a meal plan which will save me (and by me i mean parents) somewhere around 6,000 dollars im thinking. let me tell you, trying to find an apartment is tricky. im sure most of you know this because you are all older than me, but still. my main goal is to find a place with someone i already know, so we will see if that option goes through or not. as a part time student i can still live on campus and just pay rent month to month, but im not to anxious about staying on campus.
in the fall i hope to learn more about money (and by learn i mean make) and budget more, and be able to spend more of my own money than my parents. i also plan to ride a bike a little bit more than drive until the wretched gas prices go down. so growing up isnt all that enjoyable, but at least im still having fun down here. i guess thats what really matters. i will be home in 13 days and counting.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
a sun came
my life is a jumble. i cant wait to come home. only two and a half weeks of work left and then ill be back in the great state i call home. hopefully this trip will be filled with some trail running, nice bike rides, rock climbing, and hopefully a camping trip. after being there a week i will leave with laura and her family for washington where we will see tom petty in concert. yay. then hopefully we will go on a short back packing trip. yay. then a few days later we will see jack johnson in concert. yay. from there i will return back to colorado just a few days before school starts. here is where it becomes messy.
i think i will only be a part time student at ccu and take other classes at red rocks community college. all of this is for the purpose of getting into my dream school in boulder. by being a part time student that gives me the opportunity to live off campus which would save me about a thousand dollars not to mention the fifteen hundred that would normally be spent on a ridiculous meal plan. so it would be the most amazing thing if i could find some girls to share a place with off campus. i can only hope. but as for now i have a lot to do to get this all in place. tomorrow i will go to red rocks and talk with an adviser, then i need to talk with my ccu adviser, and then i also emailed a cu adviser for alaska and hopefully i will meet with her soon. so thats my life for now. hopefully everything will get done soon. thats about it.
i think i will only be a part time student at ccu and take other classes at red rocks community college. all of this is for the purpose of getting into my dream school in boulder. by being a part time student that gives me the opportunity to live off campus which would save me about a thousand dollars not to mention the fifteen hundred that would normally be spent on a ridiculous meal plan. so it would be the most amazing thing if i could find some girls to share a place with off campus. i can only hope. but as for now i have a lot to do to get this all in place. tomorrow i will go to red rocks and talk with an adviser, then i need to talk with my ccu adviser, and then i also emailed a cu adviser for alaska and hopefully i will meet with her soon. so thats my life for now. hopefully everything will get done soon. thats about it.
Friday, July 11, 2008
aching back and apple cinnamon cheerios
After a fun long weekend with family in colordao and a road trip to utah, i have finally made it to las vegas.
It was nice to have my family visit me in colorado. We spent a few nice days together; we explored golden, bolder, and celebrated the fourth of july with an excellent dinner. we got to do just about everything on my list so i was excited with how that time went.
Then my mom, aaron, and i left to drive to salt lake city. We decided about half an hour before we left for aaron to come along but now i am very glad that he did. We drove 8 hours until we finally arrived in salt lake around 10 at night. The next few days were fun seeing all of my wonderful family. The highlights of the trip: rock climbing in Big Cottonwood Canyon, "The Junkyard", and the Salt Lake. Rock climbing was exciting and fun, my first utah climb on a slick, smooth, flat piece of granite crack. It was exciting. The Junkyard was ridiculous. As you can assume it was my mom who really wanted to go but we had fun. It would have been better if it hadnt been 90 degree sun beating down on us. There were literally 60 acres of metal junk. We decided it looked like the end of the world as we were the only ones wandering through this desolate place. As for the Salt Lake, Aaron and I drove out to Antelope Island which is in the middle of the lake. We thought it would be exciting but it was just nasty. There were enormous yellow spiders, miles of foot deep hot sand, crusty salty sand, and once we finally reached the water we were attacked by millions of tiny gnats, which gave us just enough time to snap a picture and race back to the car to get off the island as fast as possible. it was something that everyone needs to experience, but once and only one.
Mom decided to fly back to alaska from salt lake, aaron and i dont have to work for a few more days so we extended our trip and drove to vegas to visit his family. It was about a 5-6 hour drive and when we got here it was 112 degrees. I dont know how i will survive this weekend but lets hope I will. His family is nice but im nervous so you know how it is. We are just hanging out here, no major plans and we will just see how it goes. thats all for now.
It was nice to have my family visit me in colorado. We spent a few nice days together; we explored golden, bolder, and celebrated the fourth of july with an excellent dinner. we got to do just about everything on my list so i was excited with how that time went.
Then my mom, aaron, and i left to drive to salt lake city. We decided about half an hour before we left for aaron to come along but now i am very glad that he did. We drove 8 hours until we finally arrived in salt lake around 10 at night. The next few days were fun seeing all of my wonderful family. The highlights of the trip: rock climbing in Big Cottonwood Canyon, "The Junkyard", and the Salt Lake. Rock climbing was exciting and fun, my first utah climb on a slick, smooth, flat piece of granite crack. It was exciting. The Junkyard was ridiculous. As you can assume it was my mom who really wanted to go but we had fun. It would have been better if it hadnt been 90 degree sun beating down on us. There were literally 60 acres of metal junk. We decided it looked like the end of the world as we were the only ones wandering through this desolate place. As for the Salt Lake, Aaron and I drove out to Antelope Island which is in the middle of the lake. We thought it would be exciting but it was just nasty. There were enormous yellow spiders, miles of foot deep hot sand, crusty salty sand, and once we finally reached the water we were attacked by millions of tiny gnats, which gave us just enough time to snap a picture and race back to the car to get off the island as fast as possible. it was something that everyone needs to experience, but once and only one.
Mom decided to fly back to alaska from salt lake, aaron and i dont have to work for a few more days so we extended our trip and drove to vegas to visit his family. It was about a 5-6 hour drive and when we got here it was 112 degrees. I dont know how i will survive this weekend but lets hope I will. His family is nice but im nervous so you know how it is. We are just hanging out here, no major plans and we will just see how it goes. thats all for now.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
the most epic night of summer
It all started when Aaron and I got some matte and decided to go for a drive. I didnt know wher we were headed because I just told him that I wanted to go somewhere pretty. I didnt know the adventure that I was in for.
We drove I-70 West To Everwood (Evergreen?) Here we exited and stated the 36 mile drive up to Echo Lake. We got there early evening and it was so beautiful. It looked exactly like home in Alaska. The lake was glistening and cool and the trees were a shade of beautiful dark green. There were a few people fishing so we decided to get out and walk around the lake. We stepped out of the car and the temperature was at least 20 degrees colder and my original 85 degreen outfit was not suiting the 65 degrees. But the day was beautiful in itself. We walked through the trees and over roots on a worn dirt path. The sun shone down and it was a perfect moment. We made out way around the lake and back to the car.
We drove a little ways to the lodge and got some food before we started our drive up Mt. Evans. We paid ten dollars for our pass and stated the gentle mountain drive. This is the only fourteener in colorado that you can drive to the top of and is also the highest road in north america. The drive had a lot of trees and until we passed the treeline and then there was just dry green grass mixed with rock. On the way up Aaron killed a ground squirrel. My heart broke and I wanted to cry. There it was just sitting all perky in the middle of the road having a pleasant look around. I saw him and just thought to myself how cute he was. Next thing I know it was smashed and flattened beneath the tires of his enormous ford expedition. RIP ground squirrel.
We stopped when we came to a little pull off about half way up. There was another lake and we saw the perfect big wall off in the distance. We got out of the car and walked to the edge to check it out. It was beautiful. The rock around us just looked to solid and pure. We didnt stay long at this point because a fierce thunder storm was rolling in. The sky grew very dark and before even getting back into the car we saw some huge bolts off behind the big wall and listened to the thunder echo among the alpine walls. We raced back to the car and continued our drive up--just getting closer and closer to the angry clouds.
The bolts looked bigger and the thunder sounded closer. My stomach started to become anxious, nervous, and sick. Partly due to the altitude, and partly due to the storm. The view from the drive was indescribable. We have no pictures because we always seem to forget our camera at the most important times. We made it to the summit and parked. There was a shaggy haired mountain goat that looked like it belonged somewhere foreign in the Himalayas but not in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. There were also a couple stone buildings which looked pretty neat. As we stepped out of the car to get a better look with the storm growing to be right over us, these three old men sitting in the truck next to us rolled down there windows and yelled out, "You should probably get back in your car. We have an electrical engineer in the car and he said that our car antenna is ringing and so that is not a good sign." In my mind all I heard was "you are going to get struck by lightening and die so get back in the car ASAP." So we (and by we I mean I) rushed back into the car and shut and locked the door. We sat there for a while watching the enormous lightening storm that was going on directly in front of us and feeling the thunder shake our car. We moved to another spot for a better view just a little ways up the road. The lightening just seemed to grow bigger and closer. It was hitting the ridge directly across from us at our level. One time after it struck I saw a huge red flash at the contact spot and it was incredible.
The storm started to calm down so we pulled out our backgammon board, which was our original purpose of the "short" drive in the first place. We played a quick game just to say that we have played backgammon at 14,000 feet and then started the drive back down the mountain which was just as beautiful as the way up. I didnt enjoy it as much though mainly because I had to pee so badly. The drive was so amazing. We had the perfect music of new coldplay and some sigur ros. It was seriously in the top 5 best drives of my entire life and one of the most epic night of summer hands down.
We drove I-70 West To Everwood (Evergreen?) Here we exited and stated the 36 mile drive up to Echo Lake. We got there early evening and it was so beautiful. It looked exactly like home in Alaska. The lake was glistening and cool and the trees were a shade of beautiful dark green. There were a few people fishing so we decided to get out and walk around the lake. We stepped out of the car and the temperature was at least 20 degrees colder and my original 85 degreen outfit was not suiting the 65 degrees. But the day was beautiful in itself. We walked through the trees and over roots on a worn dirt path. The sun shone down and it was a perfect moment. We made out way around the lake and back to the car.
We drove a little ways to the lodge and got some food before we started our drive up Mt. Evans. We paid ten dollars for our pass and stated the gentle mountain drive. This is the only fourteener in colorado that you can drive to the top of and is also the highest road in north america. The drive had a lot of trees and until we passed the treeline and then there was just dry green grass mixed with rock. On the way up Aaron killed a ground squirrel. My heart broke and I wanted to cry. There it was just sitting all perky in the middle of the road having a pleasant look around. I saw him and just thought to myself how cute he was. Next thing I know it was smashed and flattened beneath the tires of his enormous ford expedition. RIP ground squirrel.
We stopped when we came to a little pull off about half way up. There was another lake and we saw the perfect big wall off in the distance. We got out of the car and walked to the edge to check it out. It was beautiful. The rock around us just looked to solid and pure. We didnt stay long at this point because a fierce thunder storm was rolling in. The sky grew very dark and before even getting back into the car we saw some huge bolts off behind the big wall and listened to the thunder echo among the alpine walls. We raced back to the car and continued our drive up--just getting closer and closer to the angry clouds.
The bolts looked bigger and the thunder sounded closer. My stomach started to become anxious, nervous, and sick. Partly due to the altitude, and partly due to the storm. The view from the drive was indescribable. We have no pictures because we always seem to forget our camera at the most important times. We made it to the summit and parked. There was a shaggy haired mountain goat that looked like it belonged somewhere foreign in the Himalayas but not in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. There were also a couple stone buildings which looked pretty neat. As we stepped out of the car to get a better look with the storm growing to be right over us, these three old men sitting in the truck next to us rolled down there windows and yelled out, "You should probably get back in your car. We have an electrical engineer in the car and he said that our car antenna is ringing and so that is not a good sign." In my mind all I heard was "you are going to get struck by lightening and die so get back in the car ASAP." So we (and by we I mean I) rushed back into the car and shut and locked the door. We sat there for a while watching the enormous lightening storm that was going on directly in front of us and feeling the thunder shake our car. We moved to another spot for a better view just a little ways up the road. The lightening just seemed to grow bigger and closer. It was hitting the ridge directly across from us at our level. One time after it struck I saw a huge red flash at the contact spot and it was incredible.
The storm started to calm down so we pulled out our backgammon board, which was our original purpose of the "short" drive in the first place. We played a quick game just to say that we have played backgammon at 14,000 feet and then started the drive back down the mountain which was just as beautiful as the way up. I didnt enjoy it as much though mainly because I had to pee so badly. The drive was so amazing. We had the perfect music of new coldplay and some sigur ros. It was seriously in the top 5 best drives of my entire life and one of the most epic night of summer hands down.
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