i feel like the theme of the books i've been reading lately is "how to understand guys". well, i guess angels and demons doesn't apply to that (which was a super fun read) ... nor does the latest j.a. jance mystery i'm listening to on the commute/workout rotation on my ipod.
anyway, i am reading two book specifically related to understanding what guys are all about, which is unusual for two reasons. 1) i don't typically read non-fiction. i do, of course, read it from time to time, but as a general rule, i just prefer to spend my pleasure reading time enjoying a good novel. 2) i don't feel like i don't understand guys. sorry for the double negative, but what i mean is this: i'm very happily married, scott and i scored insanely high on the compatibility portion of the prepare & enrich test in our pre-marital counseling, and i generally feel like i "get" him and where his reactions are coming from.
nevertheless, i've really been enjoying my reading. the first is shaunti feldhahn's for women only, which, as i mentioned last month, kelly recommended. the author did a bunch of surveys, analyzed the data, and came up with i think 7 categories of things that women need to understand about men. i think the thing that i most enjoyed about it is that it gave scott and i good stuff to discuss - about half of the stuff that the author said is true of the average guy, scott didn't think is true for him, but it was a lot of fun asking him the survey questions and hearing his answers. and i did feel like it opened my eyes to aspects of scott that i'd noticed but never really paid attention to before, or didn't know what to do with. very helpful, and very interesting!
the second is john eldredge's wild at heart, which scott actually recommended i read. it is a fairly controversial book in christian circles because of john eldredge's links with open theism, which basically means that god does not know or control the future. eldredge says he's not an open theist, but the stuff he says about god and risk taking and the future sounds an awful lot like open theim to a lot of people. anyway, that's a rabbit trail. because of that reason, scott had never read the book, but the men's leadership group that he's in at church had it on their required reading list, so he went for it. mid-way through the book (and while i was reading for women only), scott said that wild at heart does a great job of explaining guys and that i should read it - and even went so far as to suggest that i find a similar book that explains women that he would read. if you know scott at all, that's a super unusual statement. when we were getting married, i, being a book loving counseling geek, wanted to read every available book on marriage. scott's response was that people have successfully been getting married for thousands of years, and that we'd be wise and take counsel from other people (like the pastor who married us), but that we didn't need to read any books about it. or at least he didn't want to. with that in mind, when scott said i should read wild at heart, i went for it. and i've been impressed so far. the main thesis of the book is that men were created to be - wait for it - wild at heart, and that they need risk and adventure and pursuit. that obviously looks different for different people, but scott felt like it really applied in why he feels a desire to move forward in his career and get a grad degree. so i'm reading it, and 45 pages in at least, enjoying it. i'd recommend it to a friend.
steamboat springs
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labels:
summer
i think i've had too many things floating around in my head to sit down and blog anything since we got back from vacation. i'll start with a synopsis of vacation, though.
scott went backpacking last friday-sunday with a couple of guys from our sunday school class, and had a good time but (thankfully) came home and said that it was a good experience, but not one he needs to repeat. we're definitely car campers - load up the car, go camp, do day hikes, but leave all of your gear set up at your site rather than strapping it to your back. whew. i think it helps my case that i get a liiiittle bit whiney when i get tired or my legs hurt from hiking, and scott realizes that that situation would not improve with 35 pounds strapped to my back.
anyway, the drive to/from steamboat is gorgeous. lots of rolling ranchland surrounded by still-snowcapped mountains. monday was our touristy day - according to a free map i picked up in town, the fish creek falls hiking trail was the number one tourist destination, followed by the strawberry park hot springs. fish creek falls was really neat - 1/4 mile down the trail you hit the main (lower) falls - there's a cool wooden bridge over the creek, and lots of families playing in the water and stuff. if you want to, though, you can continue on a 2.5 mile hike up the mountain to the upper falls, which was definitely worth it. i haven't uploaded my pictures from the hike yet, but hopefully they turned out. it was a hot, sunny day, so we went back to our motel room, turned up the a/c and collapsed for a while post-hike. there was a huge rainstorm late afternoon, which was actually really nice because a) we were inside and didn't have to deal with the rain, b) it immediately got sunny again afterward, but c) the storm really cooled the evening off. we went out to dinner, then to the hot springs!
on the website for the hot springs i found two things interesting. the first was that after dark, it's clothing optional, and the second is that people said they would go the first time for an hour or two and then love it so much they wanted to come back for a full day. because of the first fact - the nudity clause - we made sure to plan our visit so that we'd be able to leave by the time dusk hit at about 8:30, and we did. (it was very interesting - there was definitely a change of crowd at about that time. there were three or four other groups that i saw walking out around the time that we did, but there were also a crowd of college age people coming in. not going to lie, i was a little bit sketched out.)
regarding the staying all day thing, though - when we first got there, we were both sort of like, "meh, it's fine, but nothing i'd want to spend 8 hours doing." the more i looked around, though, the more i could understand it. there are a few different hot pools, and we soon realized a cooler pool off to the side. despite the fact that the pools were definitely built in, they did a good job of using stone to keep it looking natural - but in the pools, they have some ledges for sitting and stuff like that. so we would hang out in the hot pools for a while, then go into the cooler pool (which i think is maybe just the creek running next to the hot spring - but the hot spring definitely feeds into the creek a little bit, so the creek isn't freezing). anyway, i realized that there are also some hiking trails with trailheads on the property, so you could go pay your $10/person entrance fee in the morning, enjoy the hot springs and swim around for a while, dry off and go do a day hike, then come back and chill in the water/on the chairs on their little gravel beach for a while. the $10 is a little excessive for an hour, but becomes a good deal if you stretch it out like that.
anyway, that was monday. tuesday, we had to check out of our motel room, then decided to go bike around downtown. scott loves the water way more than anyone from arizona should, and wanted to see if there was a trail on the river that runs through town - lo and behold, there is! we found the yampa river core trail, which is about 6 miles long, but nice and wide and smooth and flat. we sort of got on in the middle, rode to the end one way, then turned around and did the rest of it. the botanic gardens backs up to the trail, and is free, so we did stop and walk around there. it's small, but well taken care of and very pretty. the trail could have been longer, but was really a perfect fit for us - enough work that you're not just coasting both ways, but not so much that you're getting overly sweaty or exhausting yourself. plus, we got to see the whole town, and enjoy the river at the same time.
i'd definitely go back to steamboat on a family vacation when we have kids someday. one of the things we saw but didn't get to do was people renting tubes and floating in their tubes down the yampa river, which would be super fun. and there's a neat sport park in town that has things like an alpine slide - not to mention plenty of other hiking trails. plus the drive there is fabulously beautiful. i think the major thing i'd change is getting a cabin or condo so that we could cook our own meals and not have to eat out constantly. i really enjoy eating at restaurants for special occasions, and picking up something cheap when i don't feel like cooking, but i just hate spending the money when i don't have to. i don't know why we felt it necessary to decide on this just yet, scott and i decided that of our summer vacations thus far, if we were to add kids to the equation, we'd do twin lakes again if we had a 2-3 day vacation, and steamboat if we had a 5-6 day. 4 days we'd go either way.
scott went backpacking last friday-sunday with a couple of guys from our sunday school class, and had a good time but (thankfully) came home and said that it was a good experience, but not one he needs to repeat. we're definitely car campers - load up the car, go camp, do day hikes, but leave all of your gear set up at your site rather than strapping it to your back. whew. i think it helps my case that i get a liiiittle bit whiney when i get tired or my legs hurt from hiking, and scott realizes that that situation would not improve with 35 pounds strapped to my back.
anyway, the drive to/from steamboat is gorgeous. lots of rolling ranchland surrounded by still-snowcapped mountains. monday was our touristy day - according to a free map i picked up in town, the fish creek falls hiking trail was the number one tourist destination, followed by the strawberry park hot springs. fish creek falls was really neat - 1/4 mile down the trail you hit the main (lower) falls - there's a cool wooden bridge over the creek, and lots of families playing in the water and stuff. if you want to, though, you can continue on a 2.5 mile hike up the mountain to the upper falls, which was definitely worth it. i haven't uploaded my pictures from the hike yet, but hopefully they turned out. it was a hot, sunny day, so we went back to our motel room, turned up the a/c and collapsed for a while post-hike. there was a huge rainstorm late afternoon, which was actually really nice because a) we were inside and didn't have to deal with the rain, b) it immediately got sunny again afterward, but c) the storm really cooled the evening off. we went out to dinner, then to the hot springs!
on the website for the hot springs i found two things interesting. the first was that after dark, it's clothing optional, and the second is that people said they would go the first time for an hour or two and then love it so much they wanted to come back for a full day. because of the first fact - the nudity clause - we made sure to plan our visit so that we'd be able to leave by the time dusk hit at about 8:30, and we did. (it was very interesting - there was definitely a change of crowd at about that time. there were three or four other groups that i saw walking out around the time that we did, but there were also a crowd of college age people coming in. not going to lie, i was a little bit sketched out.)
regarding the staying all day thing, though - when we first got there, we were both sort of like, "meh, it's fine, but nothing i'd want to spend 8 hours doing." the more i looked around, though, the more i could understand it. there are a few different hot pools, and we soon realized a cooler pool off to the side. despite the fact that the pools were definitely built in, they did a good job of using stone to keep it looking natural - but in the pools, they have some ledges for sitting and stuff like that. so we would hang out in the hot pools for a while, then go into the cooler pool (which i think is maybe just the creek running next to the hot spring - but the hot spring definitely feeds into the creek a little bit, so the creek isn't freezing). anyway, i realized that there are also some hiking trails with trailheads on the property, so you could go pay your $10/person entrance fee in the morning, enjoy the hot springs and swim around for a while, dry off and go do a day hike, then come back and chill in the water/on the chairs on their little gravel beach for a while. the $10 is a little excessive for an hour, but becomes a good deal if you stretch it out like that.
anyway, that was monday. tuesday, we had to check out of our motel room, then decided to go bike around downtown. scott loves the water way more than anyone from arizona should, and wanted to see if there was a trail on the river that runs through town - lo and behold, there is! we found the yampa river core trail, which is about 6 miles long, but nice and wide and smooth and flat. we sort of got on in the middle, rode to the end one way, then turned around and did the rest of it. the botanic gardens backs up to the trail, and is free, so we did stop and walk around there. it's small, but well taken care of and very pretty. the trail could have been longer, but was really a perfect fit for us - enough work that you're not just coasting both ways, but not so much that you're getting overly sweaty or exhausting yourself. plus, we got to see the whole town, and enjoy the river at the same time.
i'd definitely go back to steamboat on a family vacation when we have kids someday. one of the things we saw but didn't get to do was people renting tubes and floating in their tubes down the yampa river, which would be super fun. and there's a neat sport park in town that has things like an alpine slide - not to mention plenty of other hiking trails. plus the drive there is fabulously beautiful. i think the major thing i'd change is getting a cabin or condo so that we could cook our own meals and not have to eat out constantly. i really enjoy eating at restaurants for special occasions, and picking up something cheap when i don't feel like cooking, but i just hate spending the money when i don't have to. i don't know why we felt it necessary to decide on this just yet, scott and i decided that of our summer vacations thus far, if we were to add kids to the equation, we'd do twin lakes again if we had a 2-3 day vacation, and steamboat if we had a 5-6 day. 4 days we'd go either way.
help for the challenged boy
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scott makes me laugh a lot in general, but some things just make giggle every time i think about them. take, for instance, this e-mail he sent out to some friends he's going backpacking with this weekend (they're all going with the men's group at church), entitled, "help for the challenged boy":
Hey Guys,
So since Mike talked me into backpacking I figured that I should make sure that I actually have stuff to backpack with. Jordan can definitely attest to the fact that I don't have backpacking gear since on our trip to Telluride, Marisa and I packed like Hannibal trekking through the Alps.
Do you have a general list of gear that I should make sure I have? I know I need to bring a flashlight, water containers, rain jacket, stilletos, a feather boa, and a VHS collection of Jazzercise Season 2.
But seriously what else? And here are the things I know I don't have that hopefully one of you can lend me...
1. A tent smaller than a German U-Boat: Mike I think you said that I can share with you.
2. A sleeping bag that doesn't look like insulation that could cover an entire attic when it's rolled up.
3. A backpacking pack...since I don't think we have to take the ACTs then I can leave my Jansport at home.
Hey Guys,
So since Mike talked me into backpacking I figured that I should make sure that I actually have stuff to backpack with. Jordan can definitely attest to the fact that I don't have backpacking gear since on our trip to Telluride, Marisa and I packed like Hannibal trekking through the Alps.
Do you have a general list of gear that I should make sure I have? I know I need to bring a flashlight, water containers, rain jacket, stilletos, a feather boa, and a VHS collection of Jazzercise Season 2.
But seriously what else? And here are the things I know I don't have that hopefully one of you can lend me...
1. A tent smaller than a German U-Boat: Mike I think you said that I can share with you.
2. A sleeping bag that doesn't look like insulation that could cover an entire attic when it's rolled up.
3. A backpacking pack...since I don't think we have to take the ACTs then I can leave my Jansport at home.
bah to formatting.
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okay, i am not a fan of how blogger's format freaks out when you add pictures. and, i don't know why those pictures are so tiny and don't blow up when you click on them, like they should. just go to my facebook for the full size pics. sound good? good.
elbert in review
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labels:
photography,
summer
last weekend was our mt. elbert adventure - and it was pretty fabulous! scott was totally surprised by the rafting, we both really enjoyed it, and scott ended up being the only person to fall out of our raft ... in completely calm water, after we bumped up against a small rock. granted, he had taken his feet out of the footholds and wasn't really paying attention. i laughed. i did not, however, get any pictures - you obviously can't take your camera on the boat since you're getting soaked the entire time, and they do take pictures of your raft as you go through one of the rapids, but it was $20/picture, and it just wasn't worth it since we didn't know the other people on the raft. maybe if the whole raft is buddies and you can split the cost of one picture ... oh well, we have memories!
i ended up feeling a little bit sicky friday night/saturday morning, so we nixed getting up at 5am to leave on the hike of mt. elbert and attempt to summit. scott offered that we could do a light hike that day and try to summit elbert on sunday, but i was fine with just doing a hike on elbert rather than needing to summit. plus we had small group at 6pm on sunday back in denver and i really didn't want to go to group totally exhausted and covered in sweat. so we had a fun time hiking on elbert on saturday. pictures, of course:
1) hmm, thought that would be bigger. oh well - it's a profile of the elevation of our hike. i put a little red arrow to show how far/high we got ... about 2000 foot gain over 2.25 miles. and other 2.25 miles/2500 feet to go. we were both glad we nixed the summit plan.
2) we had a pretty sweet view even if we didn't make it to the top.3) we got within view of south elbert, at least. i should have marked it on the profile shot, but it is the little peak (just over 14,000 feet) that then goes into the camelback before the summit. so you climb climb climb, little plateau, climb up to south elbert, then drop back down before climbing back up to the summit. yeah, we got stuck back in the climb climb climb stage.after we recovered from the hike, scott built us a fire in the private little fire pit we had next to our cabin, that happened to be right on the black cloud creek. while he did that, i took pictures of the creek and the waterwheel and played with my camera settings. here, i was discovering aperture and film speed. (my camera's a little limited - aperture range is from f/2.8-8.0, and iso range is 100-800.)
4) iso 800, f/2.85) iso 100, f/8.0
i finally settled in to read next to the fire with scott, but i saw a plant and i just couldn't resist playing with my newfound aperture skills.
6) ooh! the top is f/8.0, the bottom is f/2.8. neato.now that i knew how to do cool close-ups, i just had to do more.
7) this was scott's favorite picture of the weekend. i'm pretty sure i had my camera camped out on iso 400, f/2.8 at this point ... plus i was using the special "close-up" button.8) and this was one of my favorites! you can see scott sitting by the fire back there.then i sat back down for a while, but as it got darker and the fire got bigger, it was just too much to resist, so i grabbed the camera again.
9 & 10) another two of my favorites. having to choose a favorite picture is like having to choose a favorite child, i swear. i'm incapable of doing it.anyway, so saturday was very well documented. sunday we decided to just take a little hike on a trail towards interlaken (a turn-of-the-century resort on the shores of twin lakes that's no longer running, but had some restoration work done a few years ago). we forgot to get directions to the trailhead from the binder in our cabin before checking out, so after driving back and forth for a while, we stopped at one of the two stores in twin lakes and got directions. the chick said that there's a road about a mile before the highway that leads to the dam - you turn in there, park, and the hike is along the colorado trail. okay, good. we drive back that way, see a little road that leads straight to the dam, and there's a little parking area right at the base of the dam and it looks like a footpath across it. we parked, i saw a sign off to the right noting the colorado trail, good. we start across, and quickly come to some no-trespassing signs. hmmm. well, this is where she told us to be, and oh look, there's a biker coming this way off the dam, it must be okay. so we went on our merry way. halfway across the dam, we see that maybe a 1/2 mile down the road, there's a road that turns in and leads to the other side of the dam, and that there's more parking over there ... oh well, we're already going this way, no biggie. ahem. as we approached the other side, i see a guy in a gray uniform climbing up the rocks at the side of the dam, looking at us. hmm. i glanced at scott and thought, "we're so busted." lo and behold - i guess the federal government takes its dams very seriously. so we got arrested and had to pay a $7000 fine.just kidding! the security guard was a total jerk at first, making really snide comments like, "oh, aren't you so glad you saved the gas money by not driving down to the entrance, but there's a $3500/person fine for trespassing on federal property," etc. it was a simple mistake! he took down the info on scott's driver's license and wrote down my name/dob since my license was back in the car, and said he'd turn over the info to the fbi to investigate us. and told us that if it was higher security, he'd have to call in backup and put us down on the ground and have us searched. oh, and we weren't allowed to walk back across the dam to our car - we had to walk the mile back down the road. and he wouldn't give us a ride. he was nice enough at the end - told us to enjoy our hike, etc. i hate getting in trouble, so it kind of freaked me out, and made me very mad at us for not taking the signs seriously and mad at the biker who didn't bother to mention that you'd get stopped at the other end of the dam for trespassing. (and mad at the security guard for being such a jerk to us at the beginning - seriously, you don't have to be mean to me to make it stick that i did something wrong. tell me and i'll feel really bad and won't do it again, i promise.) scott thinks it'll be fine, though - we didn't get a ticket, and according to scott, they won't just send you a bill for a $3500/person fine without arresting you or something first. we'll see. maybe i'll have a note on my permanent criminal record - "7/19/2009, walked across a dam wearing a backpack."so, that was my weekend! whitewater rafting, hiking on a 14er, playing with my camera, and a brush with the law. whew. hopefully we can at least nix the brush with the law part on our trip to steamboat next weekend.
i ended up feeling a little bit sicky friday night/saturday morning, so we nixed getting up at 5am to leave on the hike of mt. elbert and attempt to summit. scott offered that we could do a light hike that day and try to summit elbert on sunday, but i was fine with just doing a hike on elbert rather than needing to summit. plus we had small group at 6pm on sunday back in denver and i really didn't want to go to group totally exhausted and covered in sweat. so we had a fun time hiking on elbert on saturday. pictures, of course:
1) hmm, thought that would be bigger. oh well - it's a profile of the elevation of our hike. i put a little red arrow to show how far/high we got ... about 2000 foot gain over 2.25 miles. and other 2.25 miles/2500 feet to go. we were both glad we nixed the summit plan.
2) we had a pretty sweet view even if we didn't make it to the top.3) we got within view of south elbert, at least. i should have marked it on the profile shot, but it is the little peak (just over 14,000 feet) that then goes into the camelback before the summit. so you climb climb climb, little plateau, climb up to south elbert, then drop back down before climbing back up to the summit. yeah, we got stuck back in the climb climb climb stage.after we recovered from the hike, scott built us a fire in the private little fire pit we had next to our cabin, that happened to be right on the black cloud creek. while he did that, i took pictures of the creek and the waterwheel and played with my camera settings. here, i was discovering aperture and film speed. (my camera's a little limited - aperture range is from f/2.8-8.0, and iso range is 100-800.)
4) iso 800, f/2.85) iso 100, f/8.0
i finally settled in to read next to the fire with scott, but i saw a plant and i just couldn't resist playing with my newfound aperture skills.
6) ooh! the top is f/8.0, the bottom is f/2.8. neato.now that i knew how to do cool close-ups, i just had to do more.
7) this was scott's favorite picture of the weekend. i'm pretty sure i had my camera camped out on iso 400, f/2.8 at this point ... plus i was using the special "close-up" button.8) and this was one of my favorites! you can see scott sitting by the fire back there.then i sat back down for a while, but as it got darker and the fire got bigger, it was just too much to resist, so i grabbed the camera again.
9 & 10) another two of my favorites. having to choose a favorite picture is like having to choose a favorite child, i swear. i'm incapable of doing it.anyway, so saturday was very well documented. sunday we decided to just take a little hike on a trail towards interlaken (a turn-of-the-century resort on the shores of twin lakes that's no longer running, but had some restoration work done a few years ago). we forgot to get directions to the trailhead from the binder in our cabin before checking out, so after driving back and forth for a while, we stopped at one of the two stores in twin lakes and got directions. the chick said that there's a road about a mile before the highway that leads to the dam - you turn in there, park, and the hike is along the colorado trail. okay, good. we drive back that way, see a little road that leads straight to the dam, and there's a little parking area right at the base of the dam and it looks like a footpath across it. we parked, i saw a sign off to the right noting the colorado trail, good. we start across, and quickly come to some no-trespassing signs. hmmm. well, this is where she told us to be, and oh look, there's a biker coming this way off the dam, it must be okay. so we went on our merry way. halfway across the dam, we see that maybe a 1/2 mile down the road, there's a road that turns in and leads to the other side of the dam, and that there's more parking over there ... oh well, we're already going this way, no biggie. ahem. as we approached the other side, i see a guy in a gray uniform climbing up the rocks at the side of the dam, looking at us. hmm. i glanced at scott and thought, "we're so busted." lo and behold - i guess the federal government takes its dams very seriously. so we got arrested and had to pay a $7000 fine.just kidding! the security guard was a total jerk at first, making really snide comments like, "oh, aren't you so glad you saved the gas money by not driving down to the entrance, but there's a $3500/person fine for trespassing on federal property," etc. it was a simple mistake! he took down the info on scott's driver's license and wrote down my name/dob since my license was back in the car, and said he'd turn over the info to the fbi to investigate us. and told us that if it was higher security, he'd have to call in backup and put us down on the ground and have us searched. oh, and we weren't allowed to walk back across the dam to our car - we had to walk the mile back down the road. and he wouldn't give us a ride. he was nice enough at the end - told us to enjoy our hike, etc. i hate getting in trouble, so it kind of freaked me out, and made me very mad at us for not taking the signs seriously and mad at the biker who didn't bother to mention that you'd get stopped at the other end of the dam for trespassing. (and mad at the security guard for being such a jerk to us at the beginning - seriously, you don't have to be mean to me to make it stick that i did something wrong. tell me and i'll feel really bad and won't do it again, i promise.) scott thinks it'll be fine, though - we didn't get a ticket, and according to scott, they won't just send you a bill for a $3500/person fine without arresting you or something first. we'll see. maybe i'll have a note on my permanent criminal record - "7/19/2009, walked across a dam wearing a backpack."so, that was my weekend! whitewater rafting, hiking on a 14er, playing with my camera, and a brush with the law. whew. hopefully we can at least nix the brush with the law part on our trip to steamboat next weekend.
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