whatever

Ok, so I will have the rest of the summer on goings by the end of the week...this one killed me...

It's about time..

We saw these ladies who were from Utah...totally Mormons...it was so funny, they were traveling with a group of friends as well.

I realize that it has been a really long time since I last wrote...a lot has happend which means a lot to write, so I will write in segments. First off, to start where I left off, after my graduation my summer started. I went on my yearly girl trip, this year was different because we ended up staying here in the states. We all met in San Francisco and stayed at my sister house in San Bruno which is about 15 minutes from downtown SF. Jill, Jenn and I got into SF on Friday night, Meagen got in on Sat. afternoon. So we went to costco and got stuff for our trip. We then headed into SF until we needed to pick Maeg up. WE drove up and down the steep SF hills, and went to a famous bakery-forgot the name of it though and had really yummy crossants and ham-n-cheese quiche. Then it was time to pick Maeg up from the airport. Picked her up then headed down back into the city to start our fun stuff. We started off walking across the Golden Gate bridge which was a little over a mile each way. What a view this was, it was amazing, so blue and pristine, you could see Alcatraz island, the Bay Bridge to the south of Alcatraz and the beautiful view of SF, overlooking the bay. What an amazing time we had with the fresh air and the views. I forgot to mention we could see Oakland across the way. After the bridge we went to Navy Pierre and had the famous Bouden sour dough bread bowls with the chowder. The bakery where they make all the bread turned out to be really neat, we didn't go in but the window display of all the figurines they made was cool to see. We then walked up to Ghiradelhi square where we enjoyed a brownie sunday and hot chocolate that was given to us for free since we walked into the cafe that was downstairs and they were closing. I ended up giving my hot chocolate to a homeless man, it was too much for me. We had such a great day that we were exhausted and headed back to my sisters house. We then woke up the next morning went to her ward and had sacrament and left right after to head down the coast of California. Our rental car was amazing and HUGE-which was the right decision for us and ALL of our belongings.

This was AWESOME!!!! Jill drove and Jenn sat in the front seat, Maeg and I sat in the back and climbed over each other to take pics as we were driving down the windy, narrow road. Us in the backseat hung out and took video and pics...it was quite histerical, my hair was blowing in my eyes and face, I got bruises on my arms from leaning on the lock buttons, but it was all worth it. We made it down to Half moon Bay and ate outside with our fish and chips...it was delicious, we were visited by the seals in the bay, swimming around...they were so dang cute. We then hopped in our car and headed back on the coastal road until we hit the Hearst castle, well technically the parking long of the castle. We thought it was pretty much on the road, but it was so far away from us and we still had a long time to make it to Bakersfield to sleep. It was around 4 p.m. and we were nautious from the ride...all of us, I usually don't get to sick but I was ready to catch the first highway out and get to our hotel...We were on the coast for about 8-9 hours, then another 4 hours to Bakersfield where we stayed at a hotel. We slept a little and hopped back into the car the next morning to grab groceries from the closest grocery store.

We were so excited to get to our next destination-the south rim of one of the most beautiful places on earth-the south rim of the GRAND CANYON.....We made it and found our tent site, where we set up without the stakes-Jenn and I had sent our sleeping bags, the tent and a tarp out earlier, but I didn't check the tent to make sure everything was kosher-wished I would have. Luckily there was no wind, so we were fine not using the stakes. Setting up camp we found out the hard way that you really need to have hot pads, frying pan of some sort and a spatula to turn things over. Not just our tin foil. Our food turned out ok, and we had some really good treats from Maegs stasch which were gluten-free. We tried to sleep but with the rocks and snoring going on there really wasn't much of that. I ended up leaving the tent and went to the truck and read, falling asleep at some point. The next morning I took Jenn to one of the villages for her to catch the bus down to Skeleton Farm so she could catch the river waves. Along the way we saw about 6 head of Elk, they must have had 6-7 point rack, I forgot how big these animals were. The rest of us went on a hike. We wanted to do the 6-miler but ended up doing a 4-miler which was fine..it was hard and took most of the day..we were mesmerized by another breathtaking view around us. We saw a big horn sheep and talked with some of the workers on the trail. This was hard, but worth the hike, we also met really nice people on the hike. We also ran into some furry creatures-the friendly squirrels. let me tell you we had a one-eyed sqirrel sneak up on me and try to get into my shorts pocket-that was crazy..I freaked out while Jill was trying to get her camera and wouldn't help me-how rude. Anyways Mr. One-eyed trying to find food wherever we would sit...he wouldn't leave us alone...then he realized he wasn't getting anything from us and left. OH yeah we also saw the California Condors...they were huge and flew really close to us. We made it back to our camp site and started our dinner, we made yummy BBQ chicken...it was amazing and some other things, but I can't remember what else, except for we did have smores...yummy. That night the wind starts to pick up and we barrowed rope from the neighbors to tie the cover over the tent and keep it there, it didn't start raining until around 5a.m. and so we fine. But we also wanted to go and see more of the rim...because Jenn hadn't gotten to see it, so we headed out in the fog covered ground and the poor down, yes it was cold, but as soon as we got off the trolley and walked out to the rim, the fog started lifting meaning the rest of the time there we had another beautiful view.

We left and headed up to Las Vegas, where we were to finally get a shower and feel clean. We stopped at the Hoover Dam, which was really interesting to me, I took tons of pictures of the extension bridge they are building to avoid the Dam, it was awesome! I don’t think I would want that job, dangling 100’s of feet above the ground, and the water. When we pulled into Vegas we were calling out whose showering first. We stayed in the Excaliber, amazingly it was a few blocks away from an In and Out burger joint, of course I went there…it was Jenn and Jill’s first time ever going. They were amazed. Vegas is definitely a place that if you go there once that is plenty, it was dirty, nastiness was all over. However the best part was being able to have my parents come for the day, they chugged along with us on our daily trip of Vegas, where we wanted to see the Las Vegas temple and wanted to hit the Deseret Book store. As you can tell this stop was totally less demanding that other stops. We realized that we needed to have a personal photographer for the rest of our trip, my step-mom took Maegan’s camera and followed us around the whole day telling us to stop and pose. IT WAS GREAT, thanks KAY! (maybe when we are all rich we can hire her,) My parents had to leave and we needed to get ready for our long drive back to SAN FRAN.
Friday we left Las Vegas knowing we had about a 9 –hour drive, this was the one of the longest days we traveled, we pretty much drove until we hit Fresno where we stopped at the temple, and In and Out again…for the “animal style” cheeseburger…(let me tell you out of so many years of stopping at In and Out, I had never heard about their secret menu…thanks to Maegan we all fell in love with the animal style. Animal Style= sauted peppers and onions. We finally made it to the Oakland Temple in the early evening and walked around. This temple is on a hill over looking the bay area…boy it was amazing. We finished our night off and a really yummy French place that Ronna had gone to they night before and said it was delicious, boy she was right. It really was, we got dressed up and took in the 56 degree weather that was in downtown. It was cold, and we dressed for summer, early we were in about 100 degrees then all of a sudden, windy, chilly SF.
Our last day we hit Alcatraz, when we got there one of the last security guards was there and gave us a rundown on what it was like when he was employed, what the prisoners were like and what it was like living on the island. Imagine your children getting babysat by some of the prisoners. Yes there were children on the island, workers had families that lived here. It was all fascinating to me. Alcatraz is a must see. We all were so exhausted from our car drive that we were excited to get on a plane and get to our homes-especially our beds and have a good night sleep, it was a sad goodbye-as usual because we didn’t want to leave, Jill going to a job that she hates, Maeg not knowing what would happen with an internship that she wouldn’t know about it until later. So long my friends, looking forward to our next years trip to PERU.