Jackson Hole, WY

Well I have to vent first and then I will tell you about my amazing weekend!
The job I was supposed to start on July 1 fell through the day before and I kind of had a feeling something wasn't right (the dentist wasn't returning my phone calls) so I had been applying for other jobs in the meantime. So, while I do have some prospects for the future I have nothing right now and I am really stressing about it. None of those prospects are what I really want (M-Th from 8-5ish) and I have no idea which one is the better choice as of right now (of if they will even choose me). So, that has constantly been on my mind lately. And this picture shows how I feel about it...haha (actually this is me trying to push Jeremy off the raft because he keeps splashing me with water)
So, I went up to Jackson Hole, WY for the weekend on a very last minute trip with my roommate and four other friends. I have never been to JH before and I was excited for the trip but I had no idea it was going to be so much fun! We all drove up together in a mini-van which was of course a hilariously great time. We got there late Thursday evening set up our camp in Curtis Canyon and went into town to get some dinner. Jackson Hole is such a cute little classy moutnain town (Wyoming's Park City), there is tons of shopping and all types of restaurants, etc. So we had fun looking around the shops and then grabbed some pizza. When we got back to camp we decided to build a fire but we didn't have any wood so we told Jeremy "the master fire builder" to go hatchet some down for us. As he was doing so he managed to awaken the grumpy old camp host who proceeded to walk down to our site and give us a good lickin'. I don't think I have ever seen anyone so angry about being woken up while camping! So we headed to bed for the night.

Friday morning after buying some discount Jackson Hole apparel and scarfing down plate after plate of a local all you can eat breakfast buffet we headed out to do some hiking at Jenny Lake. The lake was so beautiful! It is at the base of the Grand Teton mountains, surrounded by pine trees, and has clear spring water. We hiked on the trail that goes around the lake and up to "Hidden Falls". On the way there someone said that there had been a grizzly bear sighting and tried to scare us in to turning back. I was so glad that we didn't because it was really a black bear and we didn't even end up seeing it and we would have missed the beautiful "Hidden Falls" at the end of the hike which was the biggest waterfall I think I have ever seen (as for the amount of water that was rushing down anyways). I love waterfalls because I am just always awed by the amount of water that continually has to be running to make them as loud and powerful and beautiful as they are. Then we continued the hike on up to Inspiration Point which is a nice scenic overlook of the lake and the valley. I loved the hike and the scenery!
When we got back to town we ate some barbecue at Bubba's, watched a really cheesy gun show in the town square, and then headed to the rodeo. In my small hometown in AZ we always had rodeos on the fourth of july so it was fun to do that again and afterwards they had a pretty decent fireworks show too. That night we already had our wood ready for the fire so we enjoyed that for the last time.
Sat was the culminating point and the whole reason for our trip...whitewater rafting on the Snake River! In the morning we did a very leisure scenic tour. It was just the six of us, one nice lady from FL, and our guide. It was a really relaxing and fun ride. There were only a few areas where we got some nice wave action but those parts ended up being almost just as fun as the whitewater part we did in the afternoon because it was just our group, we got to sit up front and really feel the waves, and we didn't have to row or anything. So like I said, in the afternoon we went on the whitewater trip and that was really cool. It was a 10 mile trip with lots of class 3 and 4 rapids. Our very cute river guide, Tom, was a blast (with his very corny pirate and river guide jokes). There were the six of us, two other guys our age, and then a dad with his three kids. I was not happy about having kids on the boat because they kept sitting up front where all the action is. I had to sit all the way in the back (it goes strongest to weakest and all the guys had to be in the front and lets face it...I don't have a lot of arm strength)! But that's okay cuz it was right next to Tom. There were some pretty huge waves though ranging everywhere from just 3-4 feet to 15 feet and all in all it was a freakin' blast! My adrenaline definitely got going and I had such a good time!
On the way home last night I was thinking about what a good weekend I had and that it was time to come back to real life. I don't really mind it though becuase I know I have to work hard so I can have more fun and I know there is plenty of more fun to be had! Anybody who really knows me knows that I love doing outdoorsy adventure things and that I am always up for trying something new. And I think I have been very blessed with lots of opportunities to do those types of things. I fell in love with Jackson Hole this weekend and hope I get to enjoy it again sometime. And I definitely would recommend it to everyone!