Idaho Adventures

We've told basically everyone but I guess for you that follow the blog (I think there are about four of you), we're pregnant! I'm about 9 weeks along and due in January. Everything is going good I guess since I'm feeling sort of lousy. My sister said that feeling crappy is a good sign that the baby is alive and kicking. Anyway, summer's coming along slowly, we've had more thunder storms here in the past two weeks then california has in a whole year. I guess rain is always good, but I want to go swimming! But we're going home next week for the fourth of July so I will get to do it then. I guess it's good because it's keeping Steve and I indoors doing school work. We finish the semester at the end of July and then we're home for three weeks (woohoo!) and then it's back for student teaching in driggs.

Today we walked into the wilderness, and walked out as men (and women respectively). Heidi and I hiked in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness, in the Caribou Targhee National Forest, just northwest of Driggs Idaho. Our intention was to hike out to the wind caves; 3.5 miles from the trailhead. However, despite it being summer everywhere else in the world: here in the great state of Idaho we have winter/snow all year! What a joy. Hiking in the wilderness is different from hiking in a National Park in the sense that the Forest service lets mother nature do what she will, and they do not maintain the trails. Trees had fallen everywhere from what must have been high winter winds. We scrambled over and under several until Heidi had finally had enough. One of the pictures we posted shows Heidi pointing at a grouping of at least 3-4 fallen trees at the point where we decided to turn around. The trail was otherwise a pleasant uphill route through age old Dolomite that must have been carved by ancient floods. We hiked switch-backs half way up the side of the Mountain (albeit somewhat small) before turning back. We must have climbed about 600-800 feet in elevation. You can see a decent shot of it on the posting, between the trees.

After the hike, we stopped by a local grocery store to order a sandwich from the deli. We asked the staff to order a sandwich, however they kept directing us to a 7-11 style cooling case which contained sandwiches most likely as old as the dolomite we had previously been hiking through. I didn't understand. It seemed to me that they didn't want to make a sandwich. I asked the lady if I could kindly have a smoked turkey sandwich. She said " I guess I could make you one if you didn't find one in the cooler". I thought this was an odd statement. Heidi ran into a similar problem. As she was ordering the sandwich she wanted, the lady asked "What do you mean, vegetables???" Had we walked into a town so backwards they had never heard of the American classic, the SANDWICH????? Sandwiches are more well known then presidents, or even Burt Reynolds! It was at this point, Heidi backed out and purchased something out of the case. In hindsight, I should have done the same. However, the stubborn person inside of me could not understand how a person (especially someone who works in a deli) had never heard of a sandwich. How can you explain that to someone???? My best shot was to say that it was similar to an oreo, with the bread as the chocolate wafers, and the delicious hickory smoked turkey as the cream filling. I kept this to myself, however. I was interested to see what they would do, and watched as she took out two slices of wheat bread which looked not unlike something that a person might receive as a charitable donation from a food bank. She handed it to me, both the giver and the receiver trying not to laugh at the other. Me, because she worked at a deli and had no knowledge of sandwich making: Her because I paid $5.50 for a sandwich that was worse than anything that the convenient store cooler could have offered.

In other news, I just yesterday located an internship to do half (about 50 hours) of my volunteer hours for Occupational Therapy grad School. The place is called Camp Hippo. it's an outdoor therapeutic camp (for kids with developmental delays, and other various delays) which employs Occupational and Speech therapies. I will be working with the Occupational Therapist. The internship is located in Blackfoot, and will be mostly outside. Alot of the therapy involves horse riding. Its about an hour drive, but I think that this internship is much more unique than the traditional office experience. I think it will stand out on a grad school application.