Traffic

(A sunset Jason and I spied on the interstate a few nights ago)

One of the uh...perks? about living in the city is the traffic. Jason and I have been spending so much time lately in the stop and go flow that we've come to really appreciate all the creative names for towns, streets, rivers, and exits around here. We were so used to Provo's grid system: North, South, East, West, Center, Main, University, etc... that every street name fascinates us. Here's a list of our new favorites:

Backlick Rd. (Doesn't that conjure up a pleasant image?)
Youghigheny River
Occoquan Rd
Ipswich street
Father Hurley Blvd.
Opossumtown Pike
Pooks Hill Lane(which we affectionately call "Poops Hill")
Hagerstown (you can't say this one properly unless you fake a southern accent and say "Edgar" instead of "Hager")

The most hilarious part of our drives is our poor GPS's (or Nancy as we affectionately call her) struggle to pronounce the street names. We selected the British female accent for her voice and we laugh with hystaria everytime she says "recalculating" which sounds like "re-calc-ca-catating."

Who knew traffic could be so fun?

a new craigslist addict

I can't believe how much time I let go by without posting, but I'm back now. Life has finally settled down a little. Jason returned from COT (his officer's training camp in Alabama) and has begun orientation at the base in Maryland. I'm slowly piecing together our apartment. I really love it, but I'll love it a whole lot more once our furniture arrives tomorrow! We spent all of last week browsing furniture stores and finally splurged on a couple of couches, a bedroom set, a kitchen table, a coffee table and some end tables. I know that if I'd been more patient I could have gotten a much better deal through craigslist, but I just couldn't stand sitting on the floor and eating off of unpacked boxes another day!

Here are a couple of things I found on craigslist last week though that I bought and love.

These chairs need to be painted and recovered, but the detail on the back (and the awesome deal I got!) made them totally worth the long drive to pick them up.



This shelf is the perfect place to store all these dishes I just can't find a place for in my teeny tiny new kitchen. And it was a coincidence that the red on the shelf matches the dishes. I'm so excited about it.

Adams Canyon

So, other than the tarantula drama, the hike was very cool. I highly recommend this trail to any avid hikers out there- it got pretty intense too sometimes. Here's a crazy bridge that we had to cross:


The entire trail follows some beautiful rapids full of large boulders and mini-waterfalls. Jason climbed between two large rocks at one point:


And the wild-life was great. These 12" long lizards with amazing yellow and purple striped backs slithered all over the trail. We counted about 20 of them during our hike.


It took us nearly 2 hours to hike all the way in, but the waterfall at the end was breathtakingly beautiful and totally worth it. You can hear the crashing water of the falls for about 5 minutes before you arrive, but the dense leaves and rocks all around you prevent you from seeing it until the very last second. It was an amazing sight and the drizzle coming off the falls was the perfect way to cool down from the challenging climb.



Directions to Adams Canyon:

Trailhead: To find the trail head take hwy 89 north to Layton, turn right on East 1200 North road then immediately turn right on Eastside road. Near the end of eastside road you will see a dirt parking area. This is the trail head parking.

Trail details: This is a very popular hiking trail in Davis County.
This trail is popular due to its accessibility and the scenic beauty of the beautiful 40 foot waterfall at the end of the trail. In the first half mile you will climb over 500 feet. After you cross the shoreline trail you will drop some to the creek level then you will rise about 800 additional feet over the next .8 miles. The trail follows the North Fork of Holms creek through shady scrub oak and majestic white pine the rest of the way.

TARANTULA!!

Jason and I went for a hike on Friday in Adams Canyon. (how could I avoid a canyon that bears my family name?) The hike was suppose to lead us to an amazing 40ft waterfall. Well, that's not the only thing that we ran into. About an hour into our hike I stumbled across this guy- right in the middle of our trail!



At first I was like, "Oh wow, that's a tarantula." Then it dawned on me that I was inches away from a gigantic spider that wasn't enclosed in a little glass container. This guy was in his natural habitat. That's when I screamed. Jason saved the day when he oh-so-bravely picked up a stick and gently coxed the spider onto it. He put him on a neighboring rock so I could safely walk past. (yeah...I'm a bit of a chicken when it comes to arachnids)

Thunderstorm

Jess and I drove to the top of Squaw Peak to get one last look at all of Provo. While we were up there the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up and we had an amazing view of a lightning storm over Provo. Jess got some awesome photos.

Cafe Rio-how will we live without you?

Jess and I went to Cafe Rio for the last time this week. While we were innocently enjoying our pork barbacoa salads it started raining on us while we were in the sunshine...a very weird occurance. We hurried to finish our salads and rushed to our car, but just as we were leaving we spotted this amazing rainbow over our favorite restaurant. :)

Chasing Rainbows

Jason and I went out for a walk and got caught in a rainstorm! Just when we were going to run back home, we spied this beautiful rainbow over the "Y" and began following it with childish enthusiasm.






The rainbow was so powerful that even the sidewalk picked up its reflection. Pretty soon the rainbow completely disappeared, the sun came out and the clouds began to part. The sky was beautiful.







The experience reminded us of our favorite skittles commercial: