Last Crew Trip Ever.

This past August I went on my Senior crew trip. It was so much fun. It was sad at the end though. So all the seniors drove up together in a car while everyone else was stuck on a bus. This is how it turned out. I was the only one awake besides Rachel who was driving.

We then hiked up to the hut. We got lost and turned around. Then finally found it. It was a super nice hut.

I put together a 1,000 piece puzzle. We were missing one piece though.
Here is the puzzle making team.
We stayed at the Polar Star Inn which is a part of the 10th mountain division huts. It was really pretty up there. It was also the nicest cabin I have stayed in through the 10th mountain division.
Here is the whole crew. We hiked to this meadow and played music memory.

We had knife throwing competitions. It later turned into blade throwing after it broke. I was really good at it in case you were wondering.
We also played boy vs. girl pictionary. The boys here won. By a lot.
I didn't take a lot of pictures so that is the end of it. We had the senior roast the last night. It was so sad. I cried like the entire time. I could barley say anything for Dane, I had to stop halfway through Tessa and talk to her later, and I didn't even say anything for Shepherd cause' I was trying to keep it together. I was a train wreck. Anyways everyone was super sweet and all us seniors slept outside together the last night and reminisced. I love my crew, especially the seniors, I've loved spending my four years of high school with them. I am going to miss them for sure.

Junior Prom

This happened way back when in May but I need to catch up. So anyways...Prom was super fun. Before hand I went and had dessert vat the Brown Palace. It was super pretty.

I just went with a big group. We took a party bus, it was so embarrassing. they are the biggest things ever. After prom we went bowling til' around 3 in the morning. I was super tired.

Southwest Class Trip

So this is once again late, but I'm getting better at updating...kinda. So in March I went on a class trip to the southwest - four corners region. The trip was ten day with my junior class. I had tons of fun.

 

Day One - Taos, New Mexico

 

So we left school around 9am and drove to Taos. Here we just met with a man named Miguel, the owner of Sol Feliz farms. We learned about different native farming methods and all that fun stuff.

 

Then we camped somewhere and it was freezing all night but I still slept outside of the tent just for the fun of it.

 

Day Two - Taos, New Mexico

 

We started out the day by packing up camp and heading to these homes called "earthships." These things are so cool. They are houses that utilize passive solar heating by having angled windows facing the south, the walls are also made with used tires to create thermal mass. You'd think that the places would look awful, but they actually look pretty nice. This one here isn't finished but it still looks nice, after going through pictures I actually didn't take any good ones. But if you're really interested you can look it up on your own.

 

Next we went to this hotel that claimed to be sustainable cause' they had a "living machine," but really this place was no where near sustainable, they imported huge petrified wood slabs to use as desks from who knows where, along with a whole bunch of other crap. But the hotel was pretty.

 

Last we went to some farm. Then we drove out to Bandelier, New Mexico.

 

Day Three - Bandelier, New Mexico

So here in Bandelier we camped across the street from the Los Alamos Science Research facility. Ya know, the place where the Atomic Bomb was invented and built and tested and all that jazz. But first we visited Bandelier National Park. This is in a canyon that was inhabited by Ancient Puebloan people around 1150 AD, so a long long time ago. This place was pretty cool. We got to go inside some ancient dwellings - or a kid in my class referred to them as - "sick dwells," most commonly used in a sentence as, "Hey guys come check out these sick dwells over here!" 

We climbed ladders that were 140 feet tall. It was freaky to get up there but it was pretty. And they had turkey pens up there. Turkeys were a sacred animal back in the day.

 

Day Four - Bandelier/ Los Alamos. New Mexico

We started the day by hiking at Tsankawi, which was another location once inhabited by Native Americans. Instead of being in a canyon this place was on top of a mesa. We saw cool pectographs, some things kinda looked like aliens cause' they had weird things coming out of the head.

Next we went to a ton of museums about the history of Los Alamos, or "The City That Never Was," as they liked to call it. It was freaky learning about this place. I can't believe what it must have been like to live in that town. All of their mail was censored and sent back if it mentioned any geographic descriptions or names, even the word "physicist" was illegal cause' it gave away too much. No family was aloud to know where you moved all they knew was PO box 1663. I don't think I'd like living there.

 

Day Five and Six - Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Chaco Canyon is most notorious for being the hub of Anasazi culture. Anasazi built all there building in line with astronomical happenings, so while we were there (over the spring equinox) we got to wake up early and see the sun rise in line with the entrances to a kiva. So we woke up at 5 in the morning and it was our 6^th day without showers so a lot of us looked nasty, but anyways we hiked up to this kiva and were waiting for the park ranger to come and this old couple came hiking up like 10 minutes after us and the woman turns to the man and says, "Oh look, they brought the whole homeless shelter up here, how nice!" That was the best quote from the trip. Later that day we went on a super cool hike.

Day Six, Seven, Eight - Canyon De Chelly, Arizona

This was my favorite part of the trip. We went backpacking in the canyon with a Navajo tour guide. You aren't allowed in the canyon with out a guide so it was super cool cause' he knew the history of the canyon from personal experience and from family stories and what not. Our guide is also going to be in the 2012 Olympics for archery. Backpacking is one of my favorite things so I had tons of fun.

Day Nine - Hovenweep, Utah

There isn't much to say about this place. Two of my teachers got sick so they left and went to a hotel while we camped.

Day Ten, Eleven – Colorado

We were supposed to go to the sand dunes but it was supposed to snow and get nasty so we stayed in a hostel. This place was crazy they had every type of picture imaginable in this place and expected people to buy them. They had the mona lisa next to creepy fairy pictures next to scary crucifixes next to eagles next to trippy hippy pictures. On top of that they were all priced in the hundreds. They also opened just for us so the halls were cold with no lights on and the place was huge. It was fun though. We got to take showers. The next morning we packed up and left.

Now I'll just put a few pictures up that I find enjoyable.

 

Ta ta for now peasants,

Princess

So...

I actually need to post something here. I'm on at least once a week reading everyone else's blogs. But I never have anything eventful going on.

But I'll do a quick review of every thing since girls camp. Since thats where I left off.

I started my junior year. Which I am so completely done with. I wish I were a senior. School is boring.

Labor day weekend Meaghan flew out again and we got to go spelunking, it was super fun. I was kinda glad in the end to go with a small group. It was nice. And my daddy got to go with us!

So then for fall break I went to Arizona as a birthday present. It was so much fun. I love visiting family. I got to see all the new babies and cousins and all that jazz. Fun fun.

Then Elle came home for Christmas and that one weekend in October for Spencer's mission farewell. Meaghan also visited again! That was delightful. I really need to get out to CA to visit her. We had a few close friends over as well, I'm sure you know them,

They visit often, It's like they live at our house. Whatever, we got them all snuggies.

Then nothing happened and now it is March. The Stonegate girls basketball team is dominating, we remain undefeated and we will stay that way for the new six seasons. Thanks to Char. One of my first years from camp. Soooo yea.

Right now I'm on my two week independent study for school. I interned at Associates III design. I also re-did one of the bathrooms in the house.

March 15 -26th I will be adventuring into Chaco Canyon to unveil the mystery of the Anasazi. No one knows what happened to them, but I defiantly do. Maybe I'll share with you upon my return .

That is all I remember from my uneventful life over the past long while.

Tata peasants!

~Princess

P.S. If you are reading this Landee I think we should have a blog night for YW, I don't know how to do anything on this. And you are a pro.

Girls Camp...a month late

So the YCL's went up on Monday, everyone else came up Tuesday. There was a massive hail, pouring rain storm on Monday. Later that night we watched Forever Strong. The theme was Treasure Island, where your heart lies there will your treasure lie also. All of the hand outs and what nots said KIA KAHA, which means forever strong is some language. It was fun. Meaghan flew in from CA. I had the best first years in the stake. My girls were...

Stonegate Girls

Charlotte Hume

Rose Downs

Auybn Goubert

Brinlee Alemieda

Auburn Hills Girls

Maddie Bashaw

Kirsten ______

Gabi ________

Elizabeth Girls

Sophie _______

Menley ______

I was too stupid to take pictures of all of them. I kept forgetting. Jami Downs was the leader in the group. She was great. I loved being a YCL. The girls were so fun. They made a great skit and were so sweet with one another. I got to lead a fire extinguishing game and a first aid game.

After the week at came came the fifth year high adventure. The 5th years all woke up at 4:45 and left the camp at 5:15. We didn't get breakfast because no one told the cooks we were leaving earlier than the rest of the girls. Before we left I just started crying for no reason what so ever, so Sister Williams and I went on a quick walk. I also couldn't take my stupid motion sickness medicine that morning. Nothing was working out too well.

So we finally left and made it to the rafting location after a 2 hour drive. Rafting was great. We did Browns Canyon, the same section I had done two years prior with school, but it was still fun.

Then on the way up to spelunking my car got lost. We were following the directions given to us as well as the GPS. At one point we missed a turn which took us to the top of a mountain on a 4-wheel drive road (we were NOT in a 4-wheel drive car). All the road names were the same where we were and there were still signs for the camp site we were looking for... Once we got to the top of this mountain we ran out of gas, we had gone about 60 miles out of our way. After coasting down, we found rangers who gave us gas, they also pointed us towards the correct campsite. About 30 minutes later we found the cars of the rest of the group, they were at the cave parking lot, not a campsite, we couldn't find one anywhere. By this point we were 3 hours late for the arrival time at the campsite, but still barley within the time frame for the actual caving. No one was there and all the cars were locked. So we walked over to a group of campers and asked if they knew where a group of 30 some girls were camping. The told us they saw them go right into the caves, and they didn't have any tents with them. So they had already gone into the cave. It was really disappointing, everyone in the car was looking forward to this, we had all been rafting before. We waited for about an hour at the parking lot before we realized they weren't sending anyone out to check for us. So we then wrote notes to leave on all the cars and headed back down to Bailey for dinner, we had missed the dinner they had for the girls. After eating at the only place in town that was still open at 11pm a car pulled into the parking lot as we were discussing what we were going to do. It was two girls who had gotten out of the caves earlier than the rest. They said there wasn't a campsite, they were all full, so they were just going to go home and leave us all up there with no contact. They also told us the rest of the girls were going to be in the caves for another hour or two. So we just headed home. We got dropped off around 3am.

A week or two later I met with President Woodbury and Sister Valentine because they wanted to hear about what had gone on and how I felt about it all. It was really nice, I hadn't really cared much about the whole fiasco, but everyone else in the vehicle was hurt, so I met with them to talk about the other girls. In the car we had a non-member, a girl new to the stake, and a mother and daughter who's ward was in charge of the activities, and then myself. I felt extremely bad for all of them. I got a lot more out of the meeting than I was expecting. Both Sister Valentine and President Woodbury had the impression that I would one day lead girls camp in some capacity...President Woodbury also gave me a blessing which was really cool. They told me that the day the girls were heading up both of them had the impression that something terrible was going to happen this year. They were afraid of a death, which really wasn't a far fetched concern because a bear did show up 3 nights in a row and needed to be shot (with rubber bullets) and our car was out of gas on a 4-wheel drive road with no sides, just steep drop offs. Luckily nothing that extreme happened. The most concerning issue was the 5th years missing a group of girls and leaving them. We discussed the flaws in the planning and things that need to be done in the future. After hearing Meaghan was a non-member who had come every year and may not return, they offered to fly her out from CA to come spelunking labor day weekend with the other four of us that got lost. They mentioned that there may have been a reason our carload didn't go into the caves, maybe something even worse may have occurred. We'll never know. I am happy with the way the whole thing played out though.

There is a ton more details about what everyone was thinking in our car and things other girls had told us after we got back in town. But that was the general gist of it.

I will one day add the few pictures I have and possibly steal some from Sister Anderson.