a hike to remember

Greetings! I'm back and alive and well from my week long vacation in Oregon. I'm not exactly thrilled to be back in the dry desert air, I'm more of a sea breeze person...but it's all good. Utah has its fair share of beauty as well!

I was going to tell you more about my trip to Oregon, but right now I'm not super feeling it, and reading about other peoples vacations gets a little boring, right? I'll still write about it, but not today! Today is a day for a story! Today is a day for a story about hiking!!

these are not pictures of us hiking. they are merely pictures of us being in love. take it or leave it.

 Yesterday, Alex texted me to ask if I would go on a hike up Adams Canyon with him. The text conversation went something like this:

Alex: So when do you want to go hiking?
Alex: Right after work?
Alex: Me too.
Me: Haha yeah.

As you can tell, I was thrilled. (Actually, I was willing to go on the hike, I was just at lunch with my awesome friend Amy and couldn't be 100% in the texting conversation. You know how it goes.)

So, I got home and started catching up on the Bachelorette. (Does anyone else, when they are planning on watching the bachelorette, find themselves mostly messing around on their phone instead? Just me?) Then Alex came home, threw open the bedroom door dramatically and said, "Are you ready to go hiking?!" To which I replied, "after the bachelorette!" Because I was fully engrossed... in my phone.

Anyway, the bachelorette ended and Alex and I struck up a lovely conversation about life and family and all sorts of juicy things, when he said, "Hey, we could be having this conversation on our hike!! Let's get ready and go!" Which is when I finally decided to get ready, and we went.

Now, Alex will swear to you he believes that Adams Canyon is only a two mile hike. I will swear to you it has to at least be four miles. It's one of those hikes where halfway in you're like, it HAS to end around this corner, RIGHT??? And your sweet husband is like, NO WAY! We have to go up and down and around and up and down and up and down at least 5 more times! And you're like... sad face, heavy breathing, hands swollen from dehydration... is that also just me? Do any of you have your fingers swell up when you're hot? (I just googled it and the trail is 3.7 miles out and back. But, by and by.)

Anyway, on our way back down the trail after observing the waterfall at the end, we came across a sorry sight. A little family of a wife and 4 little girls was standing with worry on their faces, as their husband/dad lay in the middle of the trail! He had fallen and hurt his ankle! Obviously, Alex and I were willing to do anything we could to help. The dad told his family to go back to the car, because we would help him come down. As they walked away, the dad showed us that his ankle was indeed broken. You know, because he could move it from side to side and all that jazz... Good thing I'm not squeamish!

We decided that I should go with the mom and daughters just to help out, while Alex would help the guy come down the trail. We walked and walked and walked - because as I've mentioned before this is the trail that never ends, it goes on and on my friends - and I had lovely conversations with the little girls! We finally made it out to where we had service, and the wife called for help. The emergency people told us that we needed to tell her husband to stay right where he was and they would send a helicopter. So that meant that the ladies would head back to the car on their own, and I would go back on the trail of no end in sight by myself to find the boys. When I ran into them, they were not too far away, and Alex had fashioned a reliable looking splint, and they had picked up another hiker who had found the perfect walking stick!

Long story short, the medical guys finally came, complimented Alex on his splint, and took charge of the situation.

Just goes to show, life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you're going to get!

p.s. you should hike Adams Canyon. It's pretty.