sunrays and saturdays

I just tried to make sweet and sour chicken for the first time tonight and ROCKED IT. Damn, if I knew that making chinese food from scratch was so cheap and easy I would have never spent 12 bucks a pop all those times for takeout up in Ames.

Jeremy and I have planned out everything we want to do in Colorado for our vacation next month. We're going whitewater rafting for the first time AND climbing a "fourteener" for the first time. I'm so excited! I've always wanted to go whitewater rafting. This is going to be fun!! Did I mention I'm excited about it? Well, I am. This whole mountain climbing thing means I finally need to get around to working out at the gym on a regular basis. If I tried to climb Mt. Elbert tomorrow I'd probably get 100 yards up the mountain and start crying. I can't even make it up four flights of stairs at the weather center without feeling completely worn out. My Dad, my sister, and I climbed the West Spanish Peak (13,000 feet and some change) back when I was in junior high. I was in probably the best shape of my life back then (I played a lot of sports even though I sucked at them, go me), and that climb wore me out. What has me worried about this one is that the Mt. Elbert hike is about three times longer than the Spanish Peak trail, both in terms of elevation climb AND distance. Gah, we're going to have to get up so freakin' early to beat the afternoon thunderstorms. I'd rather not be a lightning rod, thankyouverymuch.

I'm home. In short, I saw one baby tornado, a few absolutely gorgeous storms/supercells (not all of them were actual supercells), ate fast food way too much for my own good, met a lot of storm chasers, and travelled around 7,000 miles to ten different states (some of them more than once). It's not that we were missing the tornadoes. There just weren't any good ones in the plains. We were always in the right place at the right time, but we only saw a lot of rotation instead of tornadoes. Oh well, at the very least it was an outstanding learning experience. I've also expressed interest in being involved next year.

I'll write a more in-depth entry of exactly where we went and what we saw a little later. I'll also post the pictures from when we hiked in Rocky Mountain National Park on June 1st.

Happy July 4th everybody! Mine went rather well.

My mom, my sister, and I all headed out to Ledges State Park to do a little grilling. We got all the food we needed and bought a cheap grill at Wal-Mart in Boone. The food turned out great, but the most memorable thing about it was the many varieties of creepy crawlers that we encountered over the course of our meal. There were daddy long leg spiders covering the underside of the picnic table, so we spent the entire time with our legs sprawled in other directions. There were also abundances of mosquitos, flies, and ants. Ah, how I love summer. Anywho, after a little walk down a nature trail, we headed back to Ames with just a little time before the fireworks started. We parked at Mom's place and then walked since she lives so close to them. I brought my camera with me to shoot some pictures although I can't see anything through the viewfinder. It was dark anyway, so I said fuck it. I did get some great pictures of the fireworks, but the awesome part about tonight was that we saw some fireworks of the natural variety at the same time. To our southeast was an awesome looking thunderstorm, and it was producing lightning like you wouldn't believe. Being the weather nerd that I am, I think I almost shot more pictures of the lightning than I did of the fireworks. :p I really hope they turn out. Some of them will be pretty damn awesome if they do.

Now I'm home, completely covered in mosquito bites, dirt, sunscreen, sweat, and bugspray, and very ready to take a shower. Jennifer beat me to it, though. :/

The ladybugs are INSANE this year. Supposedly, they're only supposed to leave a "pinch-like bite," but pinch-like bites don't react like mosquito bites. I have at least 30 red, itchy bumps on my arms after taking pictures out at Ledges last weekend. The itching is almost worse than a mosquito bite, which is pretty bad. It's torture.

I'm back home from harvest. I LOVED being outside all day in the country in the sunshine. It was awesome. I also saw some stunning thunderstorms while I was there. I took pictures. I'll post some when I get them developed. The high plains is a truly unique place in this country. There's no place like home!

Wizard of Oz jokes aside, I really did enjoy it out there. Very fundamentally speaking, I was paid $70 a day to do some gardening. How much fun is that?!