Nothing but Adventures

     This summer has been packed with almost more outdoor activities than I could have imagined. The great this is that it wasn't planned that way. I've spent countless hours fishing, kayaking, hiking, and camping. It hasn't been perfect however, much of my running was put on hold due to a particularly nasty infected cyst. It's finally gone and I'm back to running and cycling, but it took a full on surgery, lots of pain, and a second hit of the infection weeks after surgery before it seems it has finally gone away.

    I was very grateful to be able to spend a week at the beautiful Cultus Lake of the Oregon Cascade Lakes at the beginning of August. My wife got to spend two weeks there, and I will remain jealous of her for sometime. One of my favorite parts of Cultus this year was large amount of time I spent snorkeling. Cultus is clear, and the variety of things in the water and on the bottom of the lake are staggaring. I particularly enjoyed the underwater rock arrangements at what my wife's family calls the "hot rocks".

     My daughter absolutely loved her time at the lake, and her joy brings much more satisfaction to my own adventures. I loved being able to play with her in the water, seeing her experience things for the first time that I have in the past taken for granted.

While my wife and daughter spent two weeks in Oregon before I arrived I was in New Jersey with the Marine Reserves exploring new country side. Being with the Marines I was of course not able to explore it properly but I got a good feel for it and it was different. I would like to some day return with my family on our own but I had mixed feelings about it. Tics were a new problem for me, they aren't really something we deal with in the west, but I fell in love immediately with the fireflies and was baffled by the size of the ground hogs.

     The Jeep took us on a few adventures closer to home. Most notably we were able to find a beautiful hiking trail into a canyon with an amazing secluded river. That's a full blog post on it's own, as is my first trip to Havasupai in the Grand Canyon. I think it will take several blog posts to catch up my thoughts for this year actually and I look forward to recounting them.

     The nearly full month straight of being away from home has made me a bit tired of travel for this year but I have several exciting adventures still planned locally including what I am hoping will become and annual run of Mount Baldy. We started it last year and I hope to continue the adventure. Look forward to more posts soon and enjoy the video of Mount Baldy Run 2012 below.